Rock Bottom Creek is a tributary of Roaring Brook in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is approximately long and flows through Jefferson Township and Roaring Brook Township. The watershed of the creek has an area of . Wild trout naturally reproduce within it. The surficial geology in the creek's vicinity consists of Wisconsinan Till, alluvium, bedrock, fill, peat bogs, lakes, and wetlands.

Course

Rock Bottom Creek begins in a lake in Jefferson Township. It flows south-southwest for several tenths of a mile before turning northwest and then southwest. After several tenths of a mile, it turns west-northwest, entering Roaring Brook Township and reaching Interstate 84 and flowing southwest in its median strip for several tenths of a mile. The creek then turns west and leaves behind the median strip. A short distance further downstream, it crosses

Pennsylvania Route 435 Pennsylvania Route 435 (PA 435) is a state highway located in Monroe, Wayne, and Lackawanna counties in Pennsylvania. The southern terminus is at Interstate 380 (I-380) near Gouldsboro. The northern terminus is at I-84 and I- ...

and reaches its confluence with Roaring Brook. Rock Bottom Creek joins Roaring Brook upstream of its mouth.

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 Rock Bottom Creek is above sea level. The elevation of the creek's source is between above sea level. Rock Bottom Glen is in the watershed of Rock Bottom Creek, in Roaring Brook Township. The Muni Bogs are in the watershed in Jefferson Township. 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 Rock Bottom Creek mainly consists of a glacial or resedimented till known as Wisconsinan Till. However, there are also large patches of

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 conglomeratic sandstone, sandstone, 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 are smaller patches of wetlands, peat bogs, lakes and fill. There is also an area of alluvium at the mouth of the creek.

Watershed and hydrology

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 Rock Bottom Creek has an area of . The creek is entirely within the United States Geological Survey quadrangle of Olyphant. The Jefferson Township Sewer Authority once applied for a permit to discharge into an unnamed tributary of Rock Bottom Creek.

History

Rock Bottom Creek was entered into the Geographic Names Information System on August 2, 1979. Its identifier in the Geographic Names Information System is 1199396. In the early 2000s, the Lackawanna River Watershed Conservation Plan recommended that Roaring Brook Township and Jefferson Township include protection of Keyser Creek in their zoning plans.

Biology

Wild trout naturally reproduce in Rock Bottom Creek from its headwaters downstream to its mouth. An unnamed tributary of the creek is considered to be a High-Quality Coldwater Fishery. Rock Bottom Creek was stocked with trout in the early 1900s.

References