Millard Creek 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 drainage ...

of Tunkhannock Creek in

Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania Susquehanna County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is part of Northeastern Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 38,434 Its county seat is Montrose. The county was created on February 21, 1810, from part ...

. It is approximately long and flows through Harford Township and Lenox Township. The watershed of the creek has an area of . The creek is not designated as an impaired waterbody. The surficial geology in its vicinity includes Wisconsinan Till, alluvium, wetlands, lakes, bedrock, and alluvial fan. The dominant

land use Land use involves the management and modification of natural environment or wilderness into built environment such as settlements and semi-natural habitats such as arable fields, pastures, and managed woods. Land use by humans has a long h ...

s in the creek's watershed include forested land and agricultural land. A number of bridges have been constructed over the creek. Its drainage basin is designated as a Coldwater Fishery and a Migratory Fishery.

Course

Millard Creek begins in a small unnamed pond to the south of a

wetland A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...

in Harford Township. It flows south-southwest for a few tenths of a mile before turning south-southeast for several tenths of a mile, entering Lenox Township. Here, the creek turns south-southwest for several tenths of a mile before turning east and then southeast and then south-southwest. After several tenths of a mile, it passes through a wetland and a lake before turning south. For the next several tenths of a mile, it flows alongside Jeffers Hill before passing through a wetland and Jeffers Pond. The creek then turns southwest for a short distance before turning south-southeast. After several tenths of a mile, it passes through another wetland and turns southeast for a few tenths of a mile before receiving an unnamed tributary from the

left Left may refer to: Music * ''Left'' (Hope of the States album), 2006 * ''Left'' (Monkey House album), 2016 * "Left", a song by Nickelback from the album ''Curb'', 1996 Direction * Left (direction), the relative direction opposite of right * L ...

. It then turns south for several tenths of a mile, beginning to flow alongside

Pennsylvania Route 167 Pennsylvania Route 167 (PA 167) is a state highway located in Susquehanna County in Pennsylvania. The southern terminus is at U.S. Route 11 (US 11) in Hop Bottom. The northern terminus is at the New York state border near Brackney. Route des ...

on one side and Hickory Ridge on the other side. The creek then turns southeast for a few tenths of a mile before turning east-southeast and crossing

Pennsylvania Route 92 Pennsylvania Route 92 (PA 92) is a north–south state highway located in northeast Pennsylvania. The southern terminus of the route is at U.S. Route 11 (US 11) in West Pittston. The northern terminus is at the New York-Pennsylvania border in ...

. A short distance further downstream, it reaches its confluence with Tunkhannock Creek. Millard Creek is approximately long. It joins Tunkhannock Creek upstream of its mouth.

Hydrology

Millard Creek is not designated as an impaired waterbody. The total

sediment Sediment is a naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of wind, water, or ice or by the force of gravity acting on the particles. For example, sand an ...

load in Millard Creek is per year.

Cropland Agricultural land is typically land ''devoted to'' agriculture, the systematic and controlled use of other forms of lifeparticularly the rearing of livestock and production of cropsto produce food for humans. It is generally synonymous with bot ...

is by far the largest contributor, accounting for per year.

Deciduous forest In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...

an hay/pastures/grass contribute per year respectively. The annual sediment load contributed by

coniferous forest Conifers are a group of cone-bearing seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a single extant class, Pinopsida. All exta ...

is , while comes from

mixed forest Temperate broadleaf and mixed forest is a temperate climate terrestrial habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature, with broadleaf tree ecoregions, and with conifer and broadleaf tree mixed coniferous forest ecoregions. These for ...

and comes from high-intensity development. The annual

nitrogen Nitrogen is the chemical element with the symbol N and atomic number 7. Nitrogen is a nonmetal and the lightest member of group 15 of the periodic table, often called the pnictogens. It is a common element in the universe, estimated at se ...

load in Millard Creek is . A total of per year comes from cropland, while comes from

groundwater Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and soil pore spaces and in the fractures of rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available freshwater in the world is groundwater. A unit of rock or an unconsolidate ...

and comes from

septic system Onsite sewage facilities (OSSF), also called septic systems, are wastewater systems designed to treat and dispose of effluent on the same property that produces the wastewater, in areas not served by public sewage infrastructure. A septic tank a ...

s and comes from hay/pastures/grass. Deciduous forests contribute per year, coniferous forests contribute , mixed forests contribute , and high-intensity development contributes . The total

phosphorus Phosphorus is a chemical element with the symbol P and atomic number 15. Elemental phosphorus exists in two major forms, white phosphorus and red phosphorus, but because it is highly reactive, phosphorus is never found as a free element on Ear ...

load in Millard Creek is . Annually, comes from cropland, comes from groundwater, comes from hay/pastures/grass, and comes from deciduous forest. A total of per year comes from coniferous forest, mixed forest and high-intensity development contribute each, and septic systems contribute per year.

Point source pollution A point source of pollution is a single identifiable source of air, water, thermal, noise or light pollution. A point source has negligible extent, distinguishing it from other pollution source geometries (such as nonpoint source or area source) ...

does not contribute any nitrogen, phosphorus, or sediment to Millard Creek.

Geography and geology

The elevation near the

mouth In animal anatomy, the mouth, also known as the oral cavity, or in Latin cavum oris, is the opening through which many animals take in food and issue vocal sounds. It is also the cavity lying at the upper end of the alimentary canal, bounded on ...

of Millard Creek 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 standardised g ...

. The elevation near the creek'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 above sea level. The geology in the entire watershed of Millard Creek consists of

interbedded In geology, interbedding occurs when beds (layers of rock) of a particular lithology lie between or alternate with beds of a different lithology. For example, sedimentary rocks may be interbedded if there were sea level variations in their sedimen ...

sedimentary rock Sedimentary rocks are types of rock that are formed by the accumulation or deposition of mineral or organic particles at Earth's surface, followed by cementation. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that cause these particles ...

of the Catksill Formation. The

surficial geology Superficial deposits (or surficial deposits) refer to geological deposits typically of Quaternary age (less than 2.6 million years old). These geologically recent unconsolidated sediments may include stream channel and floodplain deposits, beach ...

in the vicinity of Millard Creek mostly consists of a

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 The Wisconsin Glacial Episode, also called the Wisconsin glaciation, was the most recent glacial period of the North American ice sheet complex. This advance included the Cordilleran Ice Sheet, which nucleated in the northern North American Cord ...

. However, patches 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. Alluv ...

s, and lakes occur along some areas of the creek and the surficial geology on some nearby hills include

bedrock In geology, bedrock is solid Rock (geology), rock that lies under loose material (regolith) within the crust (geology), crust of Earth or another terrestrial planet. Definition Bedrock is the solid rock that underlies looser surface mater ...

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 Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4) and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especial ...

. There is also a patch of

alluvial fan An alluvial fan is an accumulation of sediments that fans outwards from a concentrated source of sediments, such as a narrow canyon emerging from an escarpment. They are characteristic of mountainous terrain in arid to semiarid climates, but a ...

near the mouth of the creek.

Watershed

The

watershed Watershed is a hydrological term, which has been adopted in other fields in a more or less figurative sense. It may refer to: Hydrology * Drainage divide, the line that separates neighbouring drainage basins * Drainage basin, called a "watershe ...

of Millard Creek 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 Lenoxville. Its mouth is located within of Glenwood. The main

in the watershed of Millard Creek is

forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

ed land, which occupies nearly in the watershed.

Agricultural Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating Plant, plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of Sedentism, sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of Domestication, domesticated species created food ...

land occupies slightly over and urban land occupies only a very small part of the creek's watershed. The watershed of Millard Creek is relatively long in a north-south direction and relatively narrow in an east-west direction.

History

Millard Creek 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 1181198. A prestressed box beam or girders bridge carrying State Route 2039 over Millard Creek in Lenox Township was built in 1951 and repaired in 2010 and is long. A concrete

tee beam A T-beam (or tee beam), used in construction, is a load-bearing structure of reinforced concrete, wood or metal, with a -shaped cross section. The top of the -shaped cross section serves as a flange or compression member in resisting compressiv ...

bridge carrying

over the creek in Lenox Township was built in 1959 and is long. In 2001, Millard Creek was used as the reference watershed for the

total maximum daily load A total maximum daily load (TMDL) is a regulatory term in the U.S. Clean Water Act, describing a plan for restoring impaired waters that identifies the maximum amount of a pollutant that a body of water can receive while still meeting water quali ...

for South Branch Wyalusing Creek.

Biology

The drainage basin of Millard Creek is designated as a Coldwater Fishery and a Migratory Fishery. 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-salmoni ...

naturally reproduce in Millard Creek from its mouth upstream for . The designated use of the creek is

aquatic life An aquatic ecosystem is an ecosystem formed by surrounding a body of water, in contrast to land-based terrestrial ecosystems. Aquatic ecosystems contain communities of organisms that are dependent on each other and on their environment. The two ...

References

External links

Image of Millard Creek
{{authority control Rivers of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania Tributaries of Tunkhannock Creek Rivers of Pennsylvania