Drainage Modifications and Glaciation in the Danbury Region Connecticut: State of Connecticut State Geological and Natural History Survey Bulletin No. 30Harvey, Ruth Sawyer
Science
Drainage Modifications and Glaciation in the Danbury Region Connecticut: State of Connecticut State Geological and Natural History Survey Bulletin No. 30
Harvey, Ruth Sawyer
Geology -- Connecticut; Glacial epoch
At No. 7, about one mile from the mouth of Rocky River, a hole drilled
415 feet from the right bank showed 58 feet of drift, consisting of
clay, sand, gravel, and boulders. The drill reached rock at 342 feet,
which is the figure given by R. E. Dakin for the elevation of the
river at this point. Drill holes made, respectively, at 50 and 60 feet
to the right of this one showed a drift cover of 61 feet, so that the
underlying rock rises only 4 feet in a distance of 475 feet to the
east of the river.
The foregoing evidence, showing a rock level at D 98 feet lower than
that at No. 7, leaves no doubt that the preglacial course of Rocky
River was to the south from No. 7, and there is nothing in the
topography between Jerusalem and Danbury to make improbable the
existence of a buried channel.
EFFECT OF GLACIATION
The preglacial history of Rocky River as outlined assumes that before
the glacier covered this part of Connecticut the present lower course
of Rocky River was separated from the rest of the system by a divide
situated somewhere between the present mouth of the river and the
mouth of Wood Creek. It remains to be shown by what process Rocky
River was cut off from its southern outlet into Still River and forced
up its eastern branch and over the col into a tributary of the
Housatonic. Though the preglacial course of Rocky River appears to be
more natural than the present one, it is really a longer course to the
Housatonic; the older route being 32 miles, whereas the present course
is 19 miles. This fact explains, in part, why the glacier had little
difficulty in altering the preglacial drainage, and how the change so
effected became permanent. Eccentric as the resulting system of
drainage is, it would have been still more so had Rocky River when
ponded overflowed at the head of its western instead of its eastern
fork, taken its way past Sherman into the Housatonic near
Gaylordsville, and discharging at this point lost the advantage of the
fall of the Housatonic between Gaylordsville and Boardman.
In glaciated regions an area of swamp land may be taken as an
indication of interference by the glacier with the natural run-off.
The swamp in which Wood Creek joins the upper fork of Rocky River
(fig. 1), was formerly a lake due to a dam built across the lower end
of a river valley. Although the ponded water extended only a short
distance up the steeper side valleys, it extended several miles up the
main stream. The whole area of this glacial lake, except two small
ponds and the narrow channels through which the river now flows, has
been converted into a peat-filled bog having a depth of from 8 to 45
feet.[8]
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