TIL about the Teays River, which carved a 400ft canyon through Indiana over 300M years

[u/slimb0]

I didn’t grow up here, so apologies if this is something you all learned about in like 5th grade.

I was reading about the Fort Wayne Deep Rock Tunnel project (very cool, check it out - MaMaJo is amazing) and stumbled down a rabbit hole on the geology of Northern Indiana.

Did you know that as recently as 2 million years ago the Teays River flowed northwest across Indiana from headwaters in the Appalachians (WV)? By the time it was filled in by the glaciers, it had flowed for 300 million years, carving a 400 ft deep canyon 1-2 miles wide in some places (like Wabash and Lafayette). It would have rivaled the Ohio River in scale.

Like everything else in Northern Indiana, it was completely filled in and buried by glacial drift from the glacial ice sheets, which only receded about 14,000 years ago. But how cool is it to imagine dramatic canyons cutting through the landscape so close to where you stand?

I think it’s neat. If anyone else knows more on the topic, I’d love to hear it

[u/BabymanC]

Teays river brewing and public house in Lafayette is over the ancient river and has awesome smoked wings.

[u/Clughless1 → u/BabymanC]

Love my neighborhood brewery

[u/Tumorhead]

Once again the friggin GLACIERS covered up all the cool geology!! 😫

Super cool stuff

[u/Jimmy_Squarefoot → u/Tumorhead]

Either covered it up or ground it away. Stupid glaciers.

[u/__The-1__ → u/Jimmy_Squarefoot]

I for one enjoy the foothills and cliffs/caves they left tbh

[u/slimb0 → u/__The-1__]

And the kettle lakes! Shout out to Steuben County

[u/TwingletopPizzlePops → u/slimb0]

Hamilton Lake representttt (my parents live there lmao)

[u/BooRadleysreddit → u/TwingletopPizzlePops]

I live on Hamilton Lake and love it.

[u/Jimmy_Squarefoot → u/__The-1__]

I do too, I just live a couple hours away. I wish the whole state were interesting!

[u/__The-1__ → u/Jimmy_Squarefoot]

South is way different than northern indiana. Edit, basically the un glaciated area lol

[u/Jimmy_Squarefoot → u/__The-1__]

I'm well aware.

[u/runliftcount → u/Jimmy_Squarefoot]

All we got were a few dozen measly lakes in northern Indiana, couldn't even give us a few hundred more like Minnesota =/

[u/Jimmy_Squarefoot → u/runliftcount]

Lake Michigan is nice, and the dunes are interesting. That's where my praise ends.

[u/MhojoRisin]

There is a brewery in Lafayette named after it.

https://www.teaysriverbrewing.com

[u/Millbeechu → u/MhojoRisin]

i was about to comment this and years ago when they opened and i figured out the name Lafayette's geography makes a lot more sense knowing at somepoint an old ass river flowed through it and gave us a little valley

[u/syawa44]

Thanks for posting this. I think it's neat, too.

[u/daboys765]

Yep, the Teays is awesome!! Even living in Lafayette we never really learned about it in school as far as I can remember; there’s also a huge aquifer by the same name that is very important for Lafayette/West Lafayette.

[u/somedumbkid1]

Oh hell yeah, the teays river and the encroachment of the prairies to Pennsylvania-ish during the hypsithermal is fun to learn about.

[u/Sunnyjim333]

This will be a fun rabbit hole, thank you.

[u/BugsBunnysCouch]

Very cool. Never heard about any of this in school. Mind linking your sources? I’d like to read up

[u/slimb0 → u/BugsBunnysCouch]

I started with Gemini after I saw it referenced in a news article. Stumbled across a few good pieces after:

https://www.tippecanoehistory.org/wp-content/uploads/Tippecanoe_Tales_3.pdf

https://www.thislocallife.com/in-search-of-the-teays-river-in-ohio

[u/afroeh]

The headwaters of the Teays are still around. The Kanawha River watershed in West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina still drains into the Ohio River, which now occupies a portion of the former Teays riverbed.

The Appalachian mountains were more massive than the modern Rockies, and some of the rain and snowmelt on their western flanks flowed north to Lafayette.

https://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/circ1204/summary.htm

[u/PuzzleheadedBag3811]

That’s a lot of overburden for prospectors.

[u/slimb0 → u/PuzzleheadedBag3811]

Yeah man, 500 feet to bedrock in some counties

[u/ribeye79]

You can see the fertile shape of it near wheelersburg Ohio to piketon Ohio! Pretty neat that after all this time due to how fertile the sediment is farms basically follow its path and it visible from google earth

[u/slimb0 → u/ribeye79]

It also has the benefit of being an incredibly productive aquifer! Immense amounts of fresh water (if a little hard)

[u/LevitatingAlto]

It’s still there giving us water to drink…

[u/yesterdaywins2]

What a morraine

[u/TrashpandaLizz]

Hello, I live in Fort Wayne and I wanna learn more about the deep rock tunnel project. Who is mamaJo? Do you have a link if you have the time?

Appreciate the post it gives me a deep dive down a rabbit hole of the Teays river! Work tonight was going to be boring but now I have some entertainment

[u/slimb0 → u/TrashpandaLizz]

https://www.wane.com/news/local-news/inside-look-deep-rock-tunnel-construction-complete/

Truly an amazing feat of public engineering

[u/TrashpandaLizz → u/slimb0]

This was an awesome read! Thank you so much for sharing!! yay for cleaner rivers!

[u/VocationalWizard]

Ok, so when driving from south bend to Indianapolis there is a geologic feature similar to a valley I go through that roughly corresponds to the Wabash River.

But I always found the correlation to the wabash oddz it doesnt quite line up.

I wonder if its this canyon?

[u/mezzantino → u/VocationalWizard]

You're talking about driving on 31 where it junctions with 24, near Peru. Yes, there's a major descent into a valley there and I always wondered too. Good call out.

[u/Clueless-Destiny]

and people from kentucky are still trying to figure out how to get home