Nittany Valley is an

eroded Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as Surface runoff, water flow or wind) that removes soil, Rock (geology), rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust#Crust, Earth's crust, and then sediment transport, tra ...

anticlinal valley located in

Centre County Centre County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 158,172. Its county seat is Bellefonte. Centre County comprises the State College, PA Metropolitan Statistical Area. History The lands ...

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, ...

. It is separated from the

Bald Eagle Valley Bald Eagle Valley is a low-lying area in Pennsylvania that drains into Bald Eagle Creek between the Allegheny Front and Bald Eagle Mountain, south of the West Branch Susquehanna River, in the Ridge-and-valley Appalachians. The valley is located s ...

Bald Eagle Mountain Bald Eagle Mountain – once known locally as Muncy Mountain – is a stratigraphic ridge in the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians of central Pennsylvania, United States, running east of the Allegheny Front and northwest of Mount Nittany. It lies alon ...

and from

Penns Valley Penns Valley is an eroded anticlinal valley of the Pennsylvania ridge and valley geologic region of the Appalachian Mountain range. The valley is located in southern Centre County, Pennsylvania. Along with the Nittany Valley to the north and e ...

Mount Nittany Mount Nittany is the common name for Nittany Mountain, a prominent geographic feature in Centre County, Pennsylvania, United States. The mountain is part of a ridge that separates Nittany Valley from Penns Valley, with the enclosed Sugar Valley be ...

. The valley is closed to the north by a high plateau that joins these two mountain ridges, but is open to the south at the southern terminus of Mount Nittany. The valley drains to Bald Eagle Creek through

water gap A water gap is a gap that flowing water has carved through a mountain range or mountain ridge and that still carries water today. Such gaps that no longer carry water currents are called wind gaps. Water gaps and wind gaps often offer a prac ...

s in Bald Eagle Mountain formed by

Spring Creek A spring creek is a type of free flowing river whose name derives from its origin: an underground spring or set of springs which produces sufficient water to consistently feed a unique river. The water flowing in a spring creek may additionally be ...

and Fishing Creek, along with smaller streams running through Curtain Gap and Howard Gap. The northwest side of the valley between the Bald Eagle Mountain ridge and the lower Sand Ridge is also known as the Little Nittany Valley. The valley has a mixture of farmland, woodlots, and a number of working and abandoned quarries. Bellefonte, the county seat of Centre County, is the largest municipality completely within the valley. The Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution - Rockview, the

Nittany Mall Nittany Mall is an enclosed regional shopping mall in State College, Pennsylvania. It is located at the intersections of Route 150 and Route 26, one mile off the I-99 corridor. It is uniquely situated within four miles of the Pennsylvania Sta ...

, the

Pennsylvania Transportation Institute The Pennsylvania Transportation Institute (PTI), officially known as the Thomas D. Larson Pennsylvania Transportation Institute or Larson Transportation Institute (LTI), was founded in 1968 in Pennsylvania, United States. It is a research unit of ...

and

University Park Airport University Park Airport is a public airport in Benner Township, Centre County, Pennsylvania, serving State College and Bellefonte. The airport covers 1,091 acres (442 ha) and has one active runway. The airport is owned by The Pennsylvania S ...

are large facilities located in the valley.

State College, Pennsylvania State College is a home rule municipality in Centre County in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is a college town, dominated economically, culturally and demographically by the presence of the University Park campus of the Pennsylvania Sta ...

and the

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvan ...

main University Park campus lie at the southern end of the Nittany and Penns Valleys, and this area is also known as " Happy Valley".

Transportation

The Keystone Shortway, now

Interstate 80 Interstate 80 (I-80) is an east–west transcontinental freeway that crosses the United States from downtown San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area. The highway was designated in 1956 as one o ...

, runs diagonally across the Nittany Valley on a west to east line, from Curtin Gap east of

Milesburg, Pennsylvania Milesburg is a borough in Centre County, Pennsylvania. It is part of the State College, Pennsylvania Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 1,123 at the 2010 census. History Milesburg, as well as nearby Miles Township, was named afte ...

, to a natural gap in Mount Nittany and then via a deep

rock cut Drilling and blasting is the controlled use of explosives and other methods, such as gas pressure blasting pyrotechnics, to break rock for excavation. It is practiced most often in mining, quarrying and civil engineering such as dam, tunnel o ...

along the Long Run stream. The

Nittany and Bald Eagle Railroad The Nittany and Bald Eagle Railroad is a short line railroad that operates of track in Blair, Centre, and Clinton counties in Pennsylvania in the United States. It is part of the North Shore Railroad System. The line runs generally northea ...

short line spur that enters the valley from Milesburg, then runs along Spring Creek to Bellefonte, splits, with a track going northeast to Pleasant Gap and another going southwest to Lemont and State College. The spur to Bellefonte follows

Pennsylvania Route 144 Pennsylvania Route 144 (PA 144) is a state highway located in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, covering a distance of about . The southern terminus is located near an interchange with U.S. Route 322 (US 322) at State Route 2015 (SR ...

and the line from Lemont to Pleasant Gap follows

Pennsylvania Route 26 Pennsylvania Route 26 (PA 26) is a highway in the south-central area of Pennsylvania. Its northern terminus is at PA 150 northwest of Howard; its southern terminus is at the Maryland state line near Barnes Gap in Union Township. Two major desti ...

. Route 26 is the primary north to south route through the valley, and the

Interstate 99 Interstate 99 (I-99) is an Interstate Highway in the United States with two segments: one located in central Pennsylvania, and the other in southern New York. The southern terminus of the route is near exit 146 of the Pennsylvania Turn ...

extension will also run along its new alignment to I-80.

Geology of Nittany Valley

Nittany Valley is in the western part of the

Ridge and Valley The Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians, also called the Ridge and Valley Province or the Valley and Ridge Appalachians, are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian division and are also a belt within the Appalachian Mountains extending ...

province of the

Appalachian Mountains The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They ...

. During the

Appalachian orogeny The Alleghanian orogeny or Appalachian orogeny is one of the geological mountain-forming events that formed the Appalachian Mountains and Allegheny Mountains. The term and spelling Alleghany orogeny was originally proposed by H.P. Woodward in 1957 ...

, the

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 ...

layers folded up into the

Nittany Arch The Nittany Arch or Nittany anticline is an anticline geologic formation in the western part of the Ridge-and-Valley physiographic province of the Appalachian Mountains of Central Pennsylvania, United States. The Nitany Arch is more than 100 miles ...

anticline In structural geology, an anticline is a type of fold that is an arch-like shape and has its oldest beds at its core, whereas a syncline is the inverse of an anticline. A typical anticline is convex up in which the hinge or crest is the ...

. The arch was an ancient

Himalaya The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 100 ...

n scale mountain that towered above what is now the valley. The oldest rock layers from deep within the

mountain are now exposed on Sand Ridge in the middle of the valley. Younger rocks from the outer layers of the arch are exposed on the west side of the Bald Eagle Mountain ridge in the

, with the youngest across that valley at the foot of the

Allegheny Front The Allegheny Front is the major southeast- or east-facing escarpment in the Allegheny Mountains in southern Pennsylvania, western Maryland, eastern West Virginia, and western Virginia, USA. The Allegheny Front forms the boundary between the Rid ...

. The Nittany Valley, formed in the area where the mountain once stood, is an example of inverse topography.

References

{{Pennsylvania Regions of Pennsylvania Valleys of Pennsylvania Landforms of Centre County, Pennsylvania