Red Spring Run (also known as Red Springs Run) 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 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 ...

Lackawanna County Lackawanna County (; unm, Lèkaohane) is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is located in Northeastern Pennsylvania and had a population of 215,896 as of the 2020 census. Its county seat and largest city is Scranton. The county ...

and

Luzerne County Luzerne County is a county in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and is water. It is Northeastern Pennsylvania's second-largest county by total area. As of ...

, 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 Ransom Township in Lackawanna County and

Duryea Duryea may refer to: *Duryea (surname) *Duryea Motor Wagon Company, first American automobile company *Duryea, Pennsylvania Duryea is a borough in the Greater Pittston area of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, United States, south of Scranton. The Su ...

in Luzerne County. The watershed of the stream has an area of . It is designated as a Coldwater Fishery and a Migratory Fishery. The stream has one unnamed tributary. Many reaches of the stream have been affected by mining and abandoned mines. The surficial geology in its vicinity features alluvium, coal dumps, surface mining land, and Wisconsinan Till.

Course

Red Spring Run begins at the base of a mountain in Ransom Township, Lackawanna County. It flows south for several tenths of a mile before turning south-southeast for a short distance. The stream then turns south again, exiting Lackawanna County and entering Duryea, Luzerne County. It turns southwest for a few tenths of a mile before turning south-southwest for a few tenths of a mile. It then receives an unnamed tributary from the

right Rights are law, legal, social, or ethics, ethical principles of Liberty, freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal system, social convent ...

and reaches its confluence with the Lackawanna River. Red Spring Run joins the Lackawanna River upriver of its mouth.

Tributaries

Red Spring Run has no named tributaries. However, it does have one unnamed tributary, which is known as "Unnamed trib 1". Unnamed trib 1 is long.

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 Red Spring Run 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 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. The waters of Red Spring Run contribute to the flooding of abandoned gravel pits near Coxton. These pits are locally known as the Duryea Swamps. Red Spring Run and its unnamed tributary both begin in springs on a mountain known as West Mountain. In its upper reaches, the stream descends steeply until it reaches the

floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...

of the Lackawanna River. As it flows downstream, Red Spring Run quickly becomes affected by abandoned mines. Some reaches of the stream have been entirely destroyed either by mining or by post-mining development. Its lower reaches are also affected by mining. The stream begins losing its flow upstream of Airport Sand and Gravel. Its mouth is in a concrete

culvert A culvert is a structure that channels water past an obstacle or to a subterranean waterway. Typically embedded so as to be surrounded by soil, a culvert may be made from a pipe, reinforced concrete or other material. In the United Kingdom ...

. The headwaters of Red Spring Run are at the border between the Llewellyn Formation and the

Pocono Formation The Mississippian Pocono Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia, in the United States. It is also known as the Pocono Group in Maryland and West Virginia, and the upper part of the Pocono Formation is somet ...

. The surficial geology near the lower reaches of the stream 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. Alluv ...

(which contains stratified

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class of s ...

silt Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension with water. Silt usually has a floury feel when ...

, and

gravel Gravel is a loose aggregation of rock fragments. Gravel occurs naturally throughout the world as a result of sedimentary and erosive geologic processes; it is also produced in large quantities commercially as crushed stone. Gravel is classifi ...

, as well as some

boulder In geology, a boulder (or rarely bowlder) is a rock fragment with size greater than in diameter. Smaller pieces are called cobbles and pebbles. While a boulder may be small enough to move or roll manually, others are extremely massive. In c ...

s) and

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 dea ...

dumps. Further upstream, the surficial geology mostly features land that has been surface mined for coal, with some coal dumps to the east. Near the headwaters of the stream, there is surface mining land as well as 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.

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 Red Spring Run has an area of . The watershed is in the southwestern part of the Lackawanna River watershed and in the lower reaches of that watershed. 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 Pittston. Red Spring Run is a small,

second-order Second-order may refer to: Mathematics * Second order approximation, an approximation that includes quadratic terms * Second-order arithmetic, an axiomatization allowing quantification of sets of numbers * Second-order differential equation, a di ...

stream. It is one of the last tributaries to enter the Lackawanna River. At one location, Red Spring Run flows through a small residential area that is part of the Connells Patch neighborhood.

History and industries

Red Spring Run 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 1184798. The Lackawanna River Watershed Conservation Plan also recommended that Ransom Township and the borough of Duryea include protection of Red Spring Run in their comprehensive plans, as well as their ordinances for land use, zoning, and subdivision. The Popple Brothers Colliery (formerly known as the Babylon Breaker) operates in the vicinity of Red Spring Run. Airport Sand and Gravel has an active quarry permit (#40900304) in the watershed. The

Lehigh Valley Railroad The Lehigh Valley Railroad was a railroad built in the Northeastern United States to haul anthracite coal from the Coal Region in Pennsylvania. The railroad was authorized on April 21, 1846 for freight and transportation of passengers, goods, w ...

historically crossed the stream near its mouth and the rail corridor still remains.

Biology

The drainage basin of Red Spring Run is designated as a Coldwater Fishery and a Migratory Fishery.

References

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