Brace Brook is a

tributary A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drai ...

of the

Lackawanna River The Lackawanna River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed August 8, 2011 tributary of the Susquehanna River in Northeastern Pennsylvania. It flows through a region of th ...

in Wayne County and Susquehanna County, in

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, in the United States. It is approximately long and flows through Mount Pleasant Township and Clinton Township in Wayne County and Forest City in Susquehanna County. The watershed of the stream has an area of . The stream is not designated as impaired. It drains a portion of the

Moosic Mountains The Moosic Mountains is a mountain range in northeastern Pennsylvania that stretches from Scranton to Mount Pleasant Township, a distance of roughly 32 miles. The high point of the range is in Jefferson Township, at an elevation of above se ...

. The surficial geology in its vicinity consists of alluvium, surface mining land, coal dumps, fill, Wisconsinan Till, and bedrock containing sandstone and shale. A reservoir known as the Brace Brook Reservoir is in the watershed. The stream's drainage basin is designated as a Coldwater Fishery and a Migratory Fishery.

Course

Brace Brook begins on a hill in Mount Pleasant Township, Wayne County, not far from the border Wayne County/Susquehanna County line. It flows south-southeast and south for several tenths of a mile through a valley near Brace Brook Road before entering Clinton Township. The stream then flows south-southeast for several tenths of a mile before entering another valley and receiving an unnamed tributary from the left. It then turns west-southwest for several hundred feet before turning south-southeast and passing through the Brace Brook Reservoir. A short distance downstream of that reservoir, the stream turns south for several tenths of a mile. It then turns southwest for several tenths of a mile before turning south and then west-southwest. After a short distance, the stream exits Clinton Township and Wayne County and enters Forest City, in Susquehanna County. At this point, it immediately reaches its confluence with the Lackawanna River. Brace Brook joins the Lackawanna River upriver of its mouth.

Hydrology

Brace Brook is not designated as an impaired stream. In the early 1900s, the

water quality Water quality refers to the chemical, physical, and biological characteristics of water based on the standards of its usage. It is most frequently used by reference to a set of standards against which compliance, generally achieved through tr ...

in a reach of the watershed was described as "satisfactory". The concentration of

alkalinity Alkalinity (from ar, القلوي, al-qaly, lit=ashes of the saltwort) is the capacity of water to resist acidification. It should not be confused with basicity, which is an absolute measurement on the pH scale. Alkalinity is the strength ...

in the watershed of Brace Brook is .

Geography and geology

The elevation near the mouth of Brace Brook is above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardise ...

. The elevation of the stream's

source Source may refer to: Research * Historical document * Historical source * Source (intelligence) or sub source, typically a confidential provider of non open-source intelligence * Source (journalism), a person, publication, publishing institute o ...

is between above sea level. Brace Brook drains a portion of the western side of the Moosic Mountain Ridge. Part of the watershed is specifically located on Browndale Mountain, a section of the Moosic Mountains. The stream flows through a "spectacular"

ravine A ravine is a landform that is narrower than a canyon and is often the product of streambank erosion.pipeline Pipeline may refer to: Electronics, computers and computing * Pipeline (computing), a chain of data-processing stages or a CPU optimization found on ** Instruction pipelining, a technique for implementing instruction-level parallelism within a s ...

in the vicinity of Brace Brook. Part of the watershed of Brace Brook is located upstream of the coal measures. However, there are culm piles at the stream's mouth. The surficial geology along the stream in its lower reaches mainly consists of

alluvium Alluvium (from Latin ''alluvius'', from ''alluere'' 'to wash against') is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. ...

, surface mining land,

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...

dumps, and fill. There are also areas of a glacial or resedimented

till image:Geschiebemergel.JPG, Closeup of glacial till. Note that the larger grains (pebbles and gravel) in the till are completely surrounded by the matrix of finer material (silt and sand), and this characteristic, known as ''matrix support'', is d ...

known as Wisconsinan Till nearby, and also bedrock consisting of

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...

and shale. Further upstream, the surficial geology in the stream's vicinity mainly consists of Wisconsinan Till, but there are patches of alluvium and

peat bog A bog or bogland is a wetland that accumulates peat as a deposit of dead plant materials often mosses, typically sphagnum moss. It is one of the four main types of wetlands. Other names for bogs include mire, mosses, quagmire, and muskeg; a ...

s near the Brace Brook Reservoir. Bedrock consisting of sandstone and shale lines the sides of the stream's valley in its middle reaches.

Watershed

The watershed of Brace Brook has an area of . The stream is entirely within the

United States Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, ...

quadrangle of Forest City. Brace Brook is a second-order stream. The Brace Brook Reservoir, which is on Brace Brook, is used as an emergency

water supply Water supply is the provision of water by public utilities, commercial organisations, community endeavors or by individuals, usually via a system of pumps and pipes. Public water supply systems are crucial to properly functioning societies. Thes ...

for Forest City by the Pennsylvania American Water Company.

History and recreation

Brace Brook was entered into the

Geographic Names Information System The Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) is a database of name and locative information about more than two million physical and cultural features throughout the United States and its territories, Antarctica, and the associated states of ...

on August 2, 1979. Its identifier in the Geographic Names Information System is 1170106. A

reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...

on Brace Brook supplied Forest City with water via

gravity In physics, gravity () is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things with mass or energy. Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 1038 times weaker than the stro ...

as early as the early 1900s. In the early 1900s, the supervisors of Clinton Township, Wayne County requested permission to construct a bridge across the stream on a new road approximately northeast of Forest City. There are a number of old concrete structures on Brace Brook. Additionally, a water filtration plant is located to the south of the stream's mouth. At the

Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission is an independent state agency responsible for the regulation of all fishing and boating in the state of Pennsylvania within the United States of America. Unlike many U.S. states, Pennsylvania has a sepa ...

meeting on April 15 and 16, 2013, the commission considered adding Brace Brook and a number of other streams to its list of wild

trout Trout are species of freshwater fish belonging to the genera '' Oncorhynchus'', '' Salmo'' and '' Salvelinus'', all of the subfamily Salmoninae of the family Salmonidae. The word ''trout'' is also used as part of the name of some non-salm ...

streams. There are unofficial walking paths along the side of the ravine through which Brace Brook flows. Additionally, the stream crosses the O&W Rail Trail via a culvert.

Biology

The drainage basin of Brace Brook is designated as a Coldwater Fishery and a Migratory Fishery. The stream is designated by the

as Class A Wild Trout Waters for brook trout form its headwaters downstream to the inflow of the Brace Brook Reservoir.

References

{{authority control Rivers of Wayne County, Pennsylvania Rivers of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania Tributaries of the Lackawanna River Rivers of Pennsylvania