The Teays River (pronounced taze) was a major preglacial river that drained much of the present

Ohio River The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of ...

watershed, but took a more northerly downstream course. Traces of the Teays across northern

Ohio Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...

and

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th ...

are represented by a network of river valleys. The largest still existing contributor to the former Teays River is the

Kanawha River The Kanawha River ( ) is a tributary of the Ohio River, approximately 97 mi (156 km) long, in the U.S. state of West Virginia. The largest inland waterway in West Virginia, its valley has been a significant industrial region of the st ...

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the ...

, which is itself an extension of the New River. The name "Teays," from the much smaller

Teays Valley Teays Valley ( ) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Putnam County, West Virginia, United States. The place is divided into the two districts of Teays Valley and Scott Depot. The population was 13,175 at the 2010 census. Teays Valley is par ...

still extant above the surface, has been associated with the river and the remainder of its related buried valley since 1910.The Glacial Boundary in Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois; George Frederick Weight; Bulletin of the United States Geological Survey No. 58; Washington, Government Printing Office; 1890; pg 86-88 The more appropriate name would be the Ancestral Kanawha Valley.Glacial Geology of Wabash County, Indiana: William J. Wayne and William D. Thornbury; Indiana Department of Conservation, Geological Survey; Bulletin No. 5; Bloomington, Indiana; 1951 The term Teays is used when discussing the buried portion of the Ancestral Kanawha River. The Teays was comparable in size to the

. The River's headwaters were near

Blowing Rock, North Carolina Blowing Rock is a town in Watauga and Caldwell counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina. The population was 1,397 at the 2021 census. The Caldwell County portion of Blowing Rock is part of the Hickory–Lenoir– Morganton Metropoli ...

; it then flowed through

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...

and

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rock ...

. (Hansen, 1995).Teays River; ES 767 Quaternary Geology, Fall 2011; Wesley C. Smith; Emporia State University, Earth Science Department: Webpage submitted on November 28, 2011 The largest tributary to the Teays River was the Old Kentucky River (Teller 1991), which extended from southern Kentucky through Frankfort and subsequently flowed northeast, meeting other tributaries and eventually joining the Teays.

Creation

Scattered erratics in northeastern Kentucky and southern Ohio are pre- Kansan in age. Only the Nebraskan is recognized as earlier than Kansan; these have been designated as remnants of deposits left by the Nebraskan glacier. The ice sheet overrode the preglacial Teays creating ponds or

glacial lake A glacial lake is a body of water with origins from glacier activity. They are formed when a glacier erodes the land and then melts, filling the depression created by the glacier. Formation Near the end of the last glacial period, roughly 10, ...

s. The back up of water diverted the upper basin over the surrounding divides into the preglacial

. Thus the ‘deep stage’ more likely is post-Nebraskan and pre-Kansan in age rather than preglacial. With the withdrawal of the Nebraskan glacier, which caused integration of the upper Kanawha (Teays) with the preglacial

, a vastly shortened, unnamed descendant of the Teays apparently headed somewhere in west-central Ohio and cut the ‘deep stage’ across Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois during the long

Aftonian The Pre-Illinoian Stage is used by Quaternary geologists for the early and middle Pleistocene glacial and interglacial periods of geologic time in North America from ~2.5–0.2 Ma (million years ago). North America As the oldest stage in th ...

interglacial stage, which followed. If the sequence of

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

formations of northern Indiana were exposed, the extensive cliffs along the ‘deep stage’ of the Teays and its tributaries would provide a clearer understanding of the

stratigraphy Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock layers ( strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks. Stratigraphy has three related subfields: lithost ...

of northern Indiana. The entire

Silurian The Silurian ( ) is a geologic period and system spanning 24.6 million years from the end of the Ordovician Period, at million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Devonian Period, Mya. The Silurian is the shortest period of the Paleoz ...

section below the Liston Creek limestone and a few feet of the upper

Ordovician The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years from the end of the Cambrian Period million years ago (Mya) to the start of the Silurian Period Mya. T ...

probably would be visible in the vicinity of La Fontaine. In Wabash County the part of the Teays Valley above the ‘deep stage’ consists of broad terraces at an altitude of about . From this terrace level the bedrock rises gradually to the on the Lexington pene-plain surface. These terraces probably correspond in age to an erosional surface in the unglaciated areas known as the Parker strath, which was the result an erosion cycle that ended before the Kansan phase of the pre-Illinoian glaciation. More recent correlation places its age as pre-Nebraskan. The Parker strath probably represents an erosional level existent at the beginning of the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

before the rejuvenation associated with, and following, the Nebraskan glaciation. The general appearance and width of the strath terrace along the Teays Valley in Indiana indicates that it represents only a slight rejuvenation following the Lexington cycle. In Virginia and West Virginia, the Teays River flowed in the valleys of the modern New River and

(Hansen, 1995). The river then flowed west to Scioto County, Ohio and to Ross County, Ohio near Chillicothe. The valley then disappears under glacial sediments but can be tracked using water well yields and other means (Hansen, 1995). A total of seven tills have been identified within the Teays River Valley (Andrews, 2004). In portions of Ohio, the buried valley is up to wide and lies beneath of glacial sediments (Hansen, 1995).

Course

The Teays River was a north- and northwest-flowing river existing before the

Ice Ages – before 2.5 million years ago. The Teays flowed through southwest

, between

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...

and Ohio, and northwest across Ohio (see illustration). The Teays then flowed under what is present-day Lafayette, Indiana and just north of

Champaign, Illinois Champaign ( ) is a city in Champaign County, Illinois, United States. The population was 88,302 at the 2020 census. It is the tenth-most populous municipality in Illinois and the fourth most populous city in Illinois outside the Chicago metrop ...

, and likely was coincident with the lower present-day

Illinois River The Illinois River ( mia, Inoka Siipiiwi) is a principal tributary of the Mississippi River and is approximately long. Located in the U.S. state of Illinois, it has a drainage basin of . The Illinois River begins at the confluence of the ...

. The Teays River was dissected and largely wiped away by advancing

glacier A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires distinguishing features, such a ...

s and their

meltwater Meltwater is water released by the melting of snow or ice, including glacial ice, tabular icebergs and ice shelves over oceans. Meltwater is often found in the ablation zone of glaciers, where the rate of snow cover is reducing. Meltwater ca ...

. These glaciers were the massive continental ice sheets that began to cover large parts of Ohio and other states downstream (west) of Ohio between 2.5 and 3 million years ago. Their presence caused lakes (

Lake Tight Lake Tight, named for geologist William G. Tight, was a glacial lake in what is present-day Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia, during the Ice Age the early Pleistocene before 700,000 years. History Lake Tight's origins date to nearly 2 million ye ...

Lake Monongahela Lake Monongahela was a proglacial lake in western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio. It formed during the Pre-Illinoian ice epoch when the retreat of the ice sheet northwards blocked the drainage of these valleys to the north. The lake form ...

and Scioto Rivers, which are associated with the most direct evidence of the Teays.

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the ...

The Teays River was the main stream of a preglacial river system. Its headwaters was near the eastern escarpment of the Blue Ridge, at the edge of the Piedmont Plateau in

North Carolina North Carolina () is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 28th largest and List of states and territories of the United ...

and

.The Teays River; Karl Ver Steeg: The Ohio Journal of Science; Vol. XLVI, November, 1946 No. 6; College of Wooster; Wooster, Ohio The New River, the southernmost headwater of the Teays River, arises in

Watauga County, North Carolina Watauga County ( )
from the North Carolina Collection's website at the

in the Blue Ridge. This area is northeast of Asheville. It flows northeasterly direction for some distance and after making a right-angled bend, it trends northward until it makes a 90° turn to the west and joins the Gauley River. Here, it takes a new name as the

. This continues to the northwest to Charleston. As New River, it was joined by the Greenbrier and Bluestone rivers. At Charleston, the Kanawah, is joined by the Elk River. In its course, the Teays River cut across the folded Appalachians, a remarkable feature. The valley varies in width, from , an average of . A mile wide valley can be observed without a stream from St. Albans to Huntington. No doubt, a large stream once occupied this abandoned valley. Approaching Huntington, the Guyandotte River joins the general path of the ancient river beginning at Barboursville and follows it north until the former river veers west over the south hills of Huntington and joins the Ohio River Valley heading west towards Kentucky. The Ohio River follows the Teays path until leaving the Ohio River in the north end of Catlettsburg where it veers away just south of Ashland to Wheelersburg. The Ohio River has a floor of the original valley as shown by the silted flats south of Ashland and the terraces between Franklin Furnace and Wheelersburg. At Wheelersburg, the Teays River flowed northward past Minford, Stockdale and Beaver, to Waverly, through a high-level, broad, well-defined open valley.

Ohio Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...

The Teays system in Ohio is known as the Parker Strath. The Teays River extended across Ohio in a northwesterly direction from

Huntington, West Virginia Huntington is a city in Cabell and Wayne counties in the U.S. state of West Virginia. It is the county seat of Cabell County, and the largest city in the Huntington–Ashland metropolitan area, sometimes referred to as the Tri-State Area. A ...

. It splits away from the

near Sciotodale/Wheelersburg and goes north and west through Minford, Stockdale, and Beaver before merging with the Scioto River valley near Waverly/Piketon. This is clearly visible on aerial and

satellite imagery Satellite images (also Earth observation imagery, spaceborne photography, or simply satellite photo) are images of Earth collected by imaging satellites operated by governments and businesses around the world. Satellite imaging companies sell ima ...

. However, its floor exists as broad upland flats, near Omega and Higby. The Scioto River has eroded and partially destroyed the Teays Valley from Waverly to Richmond Dale. It then continues northward to Chillicothe, where it disappears under a layering of Wisconsin glacial drift. Surveying under the glacial drift has revealed that it continues to the border of Indiana, near

Grand Lake St. Marys Grand Lake St. Marys State Park is a public recreation area located on Grand Lake in Mercer and Auglaize counties, Ohio. Grand Lake is the largest inland lake in Ohio in terms of area, but is shallow, with an average depth of only . The state ...

. From Chillicothe, the Teays Valley can be traced in a northwesterly direction past Andersonville, crossing the southwestern part of Pickaway County, past Atlanta. From there, it crosses the northeast corner of Fayette County near Waterloo, extending in a northwesterly direction past London in Madison County, to South Vienna in Clark County. Here the Teays was joined by the Groveport River, which drained central Ohio. From South Vienna, the Teays River continues in a westerly direction, to a point near Springfield, in Clark County, and thence northwestward past Boulusville and St. Paris in Champaign County, and Sidney, Anna and Botkins, in Shelby County, to the southeastern part of Washington Township in Auglaize County, where it was joined from the north by a tributary, Wapakoneta Creek. The Teays continued its course westward past the village of Mercer to Rockford. Continuing west to the Ohio-Indiana state line in Mercer County.

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th ...

The Teays Valley enters Indiana in Jay County and trends west. It turns to the northwest west of La Fontaine crossing Miami County south of the

Wabash River The Wabash River (French: Ouabache) is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed May 13, 2011 river that drains most of the state of Indiana in the United States. It flows from ...

. Reaching under Tippecanoe County, it continues west through southern Benton County and into Illinois. (Fidlar, 1948, pp. 12–15).

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rock ...

In Illinois, the valley is called the Mahomet.(Horberg, 1945, pp. 349–350). It trends westerly across the state, into the bedrock valley of the

Entrenched or ‘deep stage’

The ‘deep stage’ is used to describe the portion of the Teays Valley and other proglacial valleys carved into

in the Great Lakes region. This includes

Ohio Valley The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illin ...

, near Madison, Indiana, before the Pleistocene; the Wabash Valley; and the Mississippi Valley. The floor of the Teays Valley in West Virginia is above the entrenched Kanawha and Ohio valley floors, and its bedrock floor is at least above them. The ‘deep stage’ apparently was cut mainly after the diversion of the upper Kanawha (Teays) drainage to the Ohio River (Stout, Ver Steeg, and Lamb, 1943, pp. 78–79). The lowest bedrock altitude obtained along the course of the Teays Valley across Wabash County was above sea level in the vicinity of La Fontaine. The average gradient of the Mahomet Valley above Beardstown, Illinois, is about 7 inches per mile (11.1 cm per kilometer). The altitude of the valley floor where it occurs beneath the present floodplain of the Wabash River should be about . The profile of the Teays is a gorge-like valley entrenched within a broad, old age valley. Steep walls high can be recognized along the buried trench. The inner valley has been called the ‘deep stage’ and is interglacial in age.

Tributaries

Ohio valleys

In the unglaciated area of southern Ohio, tributaries reflect the adjacent hills, which are considerably reduced: low gradients, broad valleys for the size of the modern streams, and

dendritic Dendrite derives from the Greek word "dendron" meaning ( "tree-like"), and may refer to: Biology *Dendrite, a branched projection of a neuron * Dendrite (non-neuronal), branching projections of certain skin cells and immune cells Physical *Dendr ...

patterns, all features of maturity. The largest of the tributaries in Ohio are the Marietta River, Hamden Creek, Albany River, Barlow Creek, Portsmouth River, Logan River, Bremen Creek, Putnam Creek, Cambridge River, Groveport River, Mechanicsburg Creek, and Wapakoneta Creek. The Cincinnati River flows northeastward from the southwest corner of Ohio to Dayton, to join the Teays River. That a divide existed between the preglacial Teays and the Miami watershed. Well records do not indicate a broad depression, which widens northward and is of sufficient size to have accommodated so large a stream as the Cincinnati River.

Preglacial Eel Valley

The Eel Valley in Wabash County, Indiana follows a preglacial tributary of the Teays.(Horberg, 1945, p. 357). It too has a ‘deep stage’. At its junction with the Teays Valley it is just under above sea level. The tributary does not rise above through its length in Wabash County.

Illinois valleys

A tributary from the north enters the Mahomet Valley near Paxton, and important tributaries from the south, north of Danville, and in western

Logan Logan may refer to: Places * Mount Logan (disambiguation) Australia * Logan (Queensland electoral district), an electoral district in the Queensland Legislative Assembly * Logan, Victoria, small locality near St. Arnaud * Logan City, local gov ...

and Menard counties.

Demise

The Kanawha (Teays) was forced across a major divide when the return of the Laurentian ice sheet dammed the northward flow of the river. The diversion occurred during the Nebraskan or older pre-Illinoian glaciation. This is based on an analysis of the drift found in the valley from the Kansan or late pre-Illinoian age.

Present-day remnants

Visual remains of the Teays River today include large valleys containing only small streams (such as the mile-wide valley from Huntington to St. Albans in West Virginia and the valley extending north from Wheelersburg in Ohio). These valleys can be seen on aerial and satellite images. However, short segments of some such valleys are still occupied by the Ohio and Scioto Rivers. The Scioto flows through the valley in the opposite direction (south) to that taken by the Teays (north). The Teays River was dissected and largely wiped away by advancing glaciers and their meltwater. These glaciers were the massive continental ice sheets that began to cover large parts of Ohio and other states downstream (west) of Ohio between 2.5 and 3 million years ago. Their presence caused lakes (

, etc.) to form along the Teays and associated rivers. Overflow of these lakes into nearby, lower valleys caused large floods and new rivers to form. These new rivers – formed about 2 million years ago – included the present-day Ohio and Scioto Rivers, which are associated with the most direct evidence of the Teays. The present Ohio-Mississippi river system contains some distinctive relict fish populations descended from Jurassic Period fishes of the Teays, such as the primitive

bowfin The bowfin (''Amia calva'') is a bony fish, native to North America. Common names include mudfish, mud pike, dogfish, grindle, grinnel, swamp trout, and choupique. It is regarded as a relict, being the sole surviving species of the Halecomorp ...

(''Amia calva'') and various gars ('' Lepisosteus'' spp).

Discovery

The Teays River was discovered and named for the village of Teays, West Virginia by geologist

William G. Tight William G. Tight (1865–1910) was an American geomorphologist who became the third president of the University of New Mexico. Tight was one of the first to decipher the glacial drainage histories of the Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia ...

(1865–1910).Wright, G. Frederick (1894), "The Cincinnati Ice Dam"
''

The Popular Science Monthly ''Popular Science'' (also known as ''PopSci'') is an American digital magazine carrying popular science content, which refers to articles for the general reader on science and technology subjects. ''Popular Science'' has won over 58 awards, inclu ...

'', June issue, pp. 184–198. The small community of Teays is in the "riverless" Teays Valley that used to be the bottom of the Teays River. In 1886, Gerard Fowke recognized that the gorge west of

Chillicothe, Ohio Chillicothe ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Ross County, Ohio, United States. Located along the Scioto River 45 miles (72 km) south of Columbus, Chillicothe was the first and third capital of Ohio. It is the only city in Ross Coun ...

was larger than Paint Creek would have created. He claimed that a large river would have had to exist to create the wide and deep valley. Conventional geologists did not support his claim.A Great Lost River Gets Its Due; Walter Sullivan; Science, The New York Times; November 29, 1983 In 1903 William G. Tight, a professor at

Denison University Denison University is a private liberal arts college in Granville, Ohio. One of the earliest colleges established in the former Northwest Territory, Denison University was founded in 1831. The college was first called the Granville Literary and ...

Granville, Ohio Granville is a village in Licking County, Ohio, United States. The population was 5,646 at the 2010 census. The village is located in a rural area of rolling hills in central Ohio. It is east of Columbus, the state capital, and west of Newa ...

, saw the same type of valley and small stream running from Charleston to the

. It had only a minor water course beyond St. Albans, West Virginia. Here, the

turns north. Professor Tight sought in vain to persuade the geological community that this valley once carried a mighty river that continued across

and

through a valley now deeply buried under glacial deposits. He called it the Teays (pronounced taze) River, for a village in

Namesakes

Teays Valley, West Virginia Teays Valley ( ) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Putnam County, West Virginia, United States. The place is divided into the two districts of Teays Valley and Scott Depot. The population was 13,175 at the 2010 census. Teays Valley is par ...

and Ashville, Ohio's

Teays Valley Local School District Teays Valley Local School District is a school district in Pickaway County, Ohio, United States. It services the communities of South Bloomfield, Ashville, Commercial Point, and Amanda; in addition, students from Circleville and Grove Cit ...

are named after the former river.

References

External links

NPS.gov: ''Geology of the New River''
{{Pleistocene Lakes and Seas Former rivers

Creation

Course

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the ...

Ohio Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rock ...

Entrenched or ‘deep stage’

Tributaries

Ohio valleys

Preglacial Eel Valley

Illinois valleys

Demise

Present-day remnants

Discovery

Namesakes

See also

References

External links