Sharp Mountain or Sharp Ridge (historically also spelled Sharpe) in eastern central

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 The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

is a ridgeline (fold) of the

Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians 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 ...

cut through on its east-side in the Tamaqua gap by the

Little Schuylkill River The Little Schuylkill River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 1, 2011 tributary of the Schuylkill River in Northeastern Pennsylvania. It rises south of McAdoo He ...

which sunders it from the eastern extension of the ridgeline, the

Nesquehoning Ridge Nesquehoning may refer to the following places in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania: *Nesquehoning, Pennsylvania, a borough in Carbon County ** Nesquehoning High School, in the above borough *Nesquehoning Creek, a tributary of the Lehigh River *Nesqu ...

. The ridgeline, located in the heart of Pennsylvania's

anthracite Anthracite, also known as hard coal, and black coal, is a hard, compact variety of coal that has a submetallic luster. It has the highest carbon content, the fewest impurities, and the highest energy density of all types of coal and is the hig ...

Coal Region The Coal Region is a region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. It is known for being home to the largest known deposits of anthracite coal in the world with an estimated reserve of seven billion short tons. The region is typically defined as compris ...

, drains to the

Schuylkill River The Schuylkill River ( , ) is a river running northwest to southeast in eastern Pennsylvania. The river was improved by navigations into the Schuylkill Canal, and several of its tributaries drain major parts of Pennsylvania's Coal Region. It f ...

along its western slopes and into the

tributary of the Schuylkill River on its east. The heavily forested, relatively steep slopes of the Sharp and Nesquehoning Mountains characterize the

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...

s within Pennsylvania's Anthracite Upland. Sharp Mountain is reported as the first locale where the coal of the region was discovered by a man hunting in 1788. When another hunter found and reported anthracite five to six miles to the east of Tamaqua in what ultimately became

Summit Hill Summit Hill is a borough in Carbon County, Pennsylvania. It is part of Northeastern Pennsylvania. The population was 3,034 at the 2010 census. Summit Hill has a storied history as the western terminus of the United States' second operational ...

, the Lehigh Coal Mining Company was formed in 1792 and began exploiting these finds. Large areas in the valley to the northwest have been disturbed by

coal mining Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

-related activities. Much of the runoff from strip mines is retained in abandoned pits and therefore lesser amounts of

surface runoff Surface runoff (also known as overland flow) is the flow of water occurring on the ground surface when excess rainwater, stormwater, meltwater, or other sources, can no longer sufficiently rapidly infiltrate in the soil. This can occur when t ...

is discharged into the local creeks.

References

Schuylkill River Ridges of Carbon County, Pennsylvania Landforms of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania Ridges of Pennsylvania {{SchuylkillCountyPA-geo-stub