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49-553: The river's source is at the confluence of the West Branch Mohawk River and East Branch Mohawk River in north-central Oneida County . It begins flowing generally southeastward towards the Hamlet of Hillside, first receiving Blue Brook then McMullen Brook and Haynes Brook . In Hillside is the confluence of Lansing Kill , after which it flows towards the Hamlet of North Western receiving Stringer Brook along

98-515: A cover of till. Interpreting the glacial history of landforms can be difficult due to the tendency of overprinting landforms on top of each other. As a glacier melts, large amounts of till are eroded and become a source of sediments for reworked glacial drift deposits. These include glaciofluvial deposits , such as outwash in sandurs , and as glaciolacustrine and glaciomarine deposits, such as varves (annual layers) in any proglacial lakes which may form. Erosion of till may take place even in

147-466: A higher water content behave more fluidly, and thus are more susceptible to flow. There are three main types of flows, which are listed below. In cases where till has been indurated or lithified by subsequent burial into solid rock, it is known as the sedimentary rock tillite . Matching beds of ancient tillites on opposite sides of the south Atlantic Ocean provided early evidence for continental drift . The same tillites also provide some support to

196-452: A long record of significant and damaging floods along the entire length of the river. Because the river and its tributaries typically freeze in the winter, the spring melt is commonly accompanied by ice floes that get stuck and jammed along the main trunk of the river. This annual spring breakup typically occurs in the last few weeks of March, although there are numerous floods that have occurred before or after this time, such as in 2018 when

245-708: A mountain" (or Yeionontatátie , "going round a mountain"). The first recorded European exploration of the Mohawk was a trip by the Dutchman Harman Meyndertsz van den Bogaert in 1634. He followed the river upstream from Albany for a distance of 100 miles, including all the territory of the Mohawks. In 1661 Dutch colonists founded the city of Schenectady on the Mohawk River approximately 19 miles (31 km) from Albany. "For fifty years Schenectady

294-577: A project to improve the flood walls on South Chuctanunda Creek and Mohawk River. The floodwalls and river banks were repaired at a cost of $ 164,248. Historically, the Mohawk watershed has lacked a watershed management plan typical in many adjacent basins. In 2010, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation released the Mohawk River Basin Action Agenda, which is the first framework for

343-626: A thin sequence of Devonian limestones that are overlain by a thick sequence of sandstones and shale of the Catskill Delta , which is also Devonian in age. During the Pleistocene (c. 1.8 to 0.01 mya ), the watershed was extensively modified by continental glaciation . As a result of glacial scour and deposition, the surficial deposits in much of the watershed are poorly sorted boulder- and clay-rich glacial till . During deglaciation , several glacial lakes left varved clay deposits. In

392-633: A watershed management plan in this basin. This plan identifies five priority goals for the Mohawk River Basin that are designed to enhance ecosystem health and the vitality of the region. The Action Agenda, developed by the NYS DEC in collaboration with a number of stakeholders in the basin with public input, advocates an ecosystem-based approach to watershed management. In October 2014, Riverkeeper, an environmental advocacy and clean water watchdog organization, announced that they will be expanding

441-407: A week. There was considerable damage everywhere, especially Mohawk and Fort Plain. On July 3, 1985, Congress approved a project at Amsterdam for work to be done on the Mohawk River and South Chuctanunda Creek. South Chuctanunda Creek was cleared at the upstream end of the project for approximately 950 feet (290 m). New flood walls were installed along the right bank of South Chuctanunda Creek and

490-495: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Till Till or glacial till is unsorted glacial sediment . Till is derived from the erosion and entrainment of material by the moving ice of a glacier . It is deposited some distance down-ice to form terminal , lateral , medial and ground moraines . Till is classified into primary deposits, laid down directly by glaciers, and secondary deposits, reworked by fluvial transport and other processes. Till

539-510: Is a form of glacial drift , which is rock material transported by a glacier and deposited directly from the ice or from running water emerging from the ice. It is distinguished from other forms of drift in that it is deposited directly by glaciers without being reworked by meltwater. Till is characteristically unsorted and unstratified , and is not usually consolidated . Most till consists predominantly of clay, silt , and sand , but with pebbles, cobbles, and boulders scattered through

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588-417: Is likely eroded from bedrock rather than being created by glacial processes. The sediments carried by a glacier will eventually be deposited some distance down-ice from its source. This takes place in the ablation zone , which is the part of the glacier where the rate of ablation (removal of ice by evaporation, melting, or other processes) exceeds the rate of accumulation of new ice from snowfall. As ice

637-705: Is removed, debris are left behind as till. The deposition of glacial till is not uniform, and a single till plain can contain a wide variety of different types of tills due to the various erosional mechanisms and location of till with respect to the transporting glacier. The different types of till can be categorized between subglacial (beneath) and supraglacial (surface) deposits. Subglacial deposits include lodgement, subglacial meltout, and deformation tills. Supraglacial deposits include supraglacial meltout and flow till. Supraglacial deposits and landforms are widespread in areas of glacial downwasting (vertical thinning of glaciers, as opposed to ice-retreat. They typically sit at

686-691: The Great Lakes at Buffalo, New York . The lower part of the Mohawk River has five permanent dams , nine movable dams (seasonal), and five active hydropower plants . Schoharie Creek and West Canada Creek are the principal tributaries of the Mohawk River. Both of these tributaries have several significant dams including the Hinckley Dam on the West Canada and the Gilboa Dam on the upper reaches of Schoharie Creek. The Gilboa Dam, which

735-784: The Green Mountains of Vermont ; and westward to the border with the Iroquoian Oneida Nation 's traditional homeland territory. The river has long been important to transportation and migration to the west as a passage through the Appalachian Mountains , between the Catskill Mountains and Allegheny Plateau to the south and the Adirondack Mountains to the north. The Mohawk Valley allowed easier passage than going over

784-563: The Precambrian Snowball Earth glaciation event hypothesis. Tills sometimes contain placer deposits of valuable minerals such as gold. Diamonds have been found in glacial till in the north-central United States and in Canada. Till prospecting is a method of prospecting in which tills are sampled over a wide area to determine if they contain valuable minerals, such as gold, uranium, silver, nickel, or diamonds, and

833-434: The entrainment by the moving ice of previously available unconsolidated sediments. Bedrock can be eroded through the action of glacial plucking and abrasion , and the resulting clasts of various sizes will be incorporated to the glacier's bed. Glacial abrasion is the weathering of bedrock below a flowing glacier by fragmented rock on the basal layer of the glacier. The two mechanisms of glacial abrasion are striation of

882-549: The Mohawk Barge Canal locks sustained major damage, especially near Waterford and Rotterdam Junction. Another major flood was on June 28, 2013. It was caused by heavy rain that had fallen in the region for weeks. On the night of June 27, 2013, the Jordanville area reported that 4 inches of rain fell in one hour. The next day, the Mohawk River flooded the valley, residents were stranded and without power for about

931-630: The Mohawk River. A new wing wall was installed on the left bank of South Chuctanunda Creek at the upstream end of the New York Central Railroad Bridge. The South Chuctanunda was realigned and reshaped for approximately 1,056 feet (322 m) and riprap was added where needed. The existing channel of the South Chuctanunda was slightly reshaped downstream of the Florida Avenue bridge. Construction plans for

980-434: The Mohawk, Delaware , and Susquehanna watersheds. Across the state, this event caused over $ 227 million in damage and resulted in the loss of four lives. This flooding was acute in the upper parts of the Mohawk watershed. The Mohawk River also saw significant flooding during the weeks between August 21, 2011, and September 5, 2011, due to torrential rains experienced from Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee . Many of

1029-496: The NY State Legislature in 1997 to improve historic preservation along the river. The Mohawk River has a relatively long record of flooding that has been documented back to settlement in the 17th century. The average volume of water that flows through the Mohawk is about 184 billion cubic feet (5.21 km) every year. Much of the water flows through the watershed in the spring as snow melts rapidly and enters

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1078-837: The Scotia Delta, which is also known as the Great Flats Aquifer. The river is named for the Mohawk Nation of the Iroquois Confederacy . In the 1700s and before, the Mohawk people, a section of Iroquois Confederacy , were based in the Mohawk Valley , which included the area around the creek. Their territory ranged north to the St. Lawrence River , southern Quebec and eastern Ontario ; south to greater New Jersey and into Pennsylvania; eastward to

1127-450: The bedrock by coarse grains moved by the glacier, thus gouging the rock below, and polishing of the bedrock by smaller grains such as silts. Glacial plucking is the removal of large blocks from the bed of a glacier. Much of the silt in till is produced by glacial grinding, and the longer the till remains at the ice-bedrock interface, the more thoroughly it is crushed. However, the crushing process appears to stop with fine silt. Clay in till

1176-498: The clasts dipping upstream. Though till is generally unstratified, till high in clay may show lamination due to compaction under the weight of overlying ice. Till may also contain lenses of sand or gravel , indicating minor and local reworking by water transitional to non-till glacial drift. The term till comes from an old Scottish name for coarse, rocky soil. It was first used to describe primary glacial deposits by Archibald Geikie in 1863. Early researchers tended to prefer

1225-413: The difficulties in accurately classifying different tills, which are often based on inferences of the physical setting of the till rather than detailed analysis of the till fabric or particle size. Subglacial lodgement tills are deposits beneath the glacier that are forced, or "lodged" into the bed below. As glaciers advance or retreat, the clasts that are deposited by the ice may have a lower velocity than

1274-474: The difficulties of European westward settler migration . The Mohawk Valley still plays an important role in transportation. Railroads followed the Water Level Route , as did major east–west roads such as Route 5 and Interstate 90 . The Mohawk River Heritage Corridor Commission was created to preserve and promote the natural and historic assets of the Mohawk River. This commission was created by

1323-484: The final stages of deglaciation, approximately 13,350 years ago, the catastrophic draining of Glacial Lake Iroquois , a pro-glacial lake, was through what would become the modern Mohawk Valley. In this final phase, the enormous discharge of water caused local deep scour features (e.g. the Potholes at Little Falls ), and extensive sand and gravel deposition, which is one of the key sources of municipal groundwater including

1372-410: The glacier. Many of the clasts are faceted, striated, or polished, all signs of glacial abrasion . The sand and silt grains are typically angular to subangular rather than rounded. It has been known since the careful statistic work by geologist Chauncey D. Holmes in 1941 that elongated clasts in tills tend to align with the direction of ice flow. Clasts in till may also show slight imbrication , with

1421-411: The glacier. Since the rate of deposition is controlled by the rate of basal melting, it is worth considering the factors that contribute to melting. These can be the geothermal heat flux, frictional heat generated by sliding, ice thickness, and ice-surface temperature gradients. Subglacial deformation tills refer to the homogenization of glacial sediments that occur when the stresses and shear forces from

1470-401: The glacier. These consist of clasts and debris that become exposed due to melting via solar radiation. These debris are either just debris that have a high relative position on the glacier, or clasts that have been transported up from the base of the glacier. Debris accumulation has a feedback-loop relationship with melting. Initially, the darker colored debris absorb more heat and thus accelerate

1519-403: The ice itself. When the friction between the clast and the bed exceeds the forces of the ice flowing above and around it, the clast will cease to move, and it will become a lodgement till. Subglacial meltout tills are tills that are deposited via the melting of the ice lobe. Clasts are transported to the base of the glacier over time, and as basal melting continues, they are slowly deposited below

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1568-409: The ice jam breakup happened in late February after record warm weather in the region. These ice jams can cause considerable damage to structures along the riverbanks and on the floodplain. The most severe flood of record on the main trunk of the Mohawk River was the spring breakup flood that occurred from 27 to 28 March 1914. This flood caused a tremendous amount of damage to the infrastructure because it

1617-650: The melting process. After a significant amount of melting has occurred, the thickness of the till insulates the ice sheet and slows the melting process. Supraglacial meltout tills typically end up forming moraines. Supraglacial flow tills refer to tills that are subject to a dense concentration of clasts and debris from meltout. These debris localities are then subsequently affected by ablation . Due to their unstable nature, they are subject to downslope flow, and thus named "flow till." Properties of flow tills vary, and can depend on factors such as water content, surface gradient, and debris characteristics. Generally, flow tills with

1666-545: The mountains to the north or south of the valley. As a result, it was strategically important during the French and Indian War and the American Revolutionary War , and a number of important battles were fought here. The fertile Mohawk Valley also attracted early settlers. The river was the highway of the native Mohawk people . The Mohawk name for the river is Teionontatátie , "a river flowing through

1715-470: The moving glacier rework the topography of the bed. These contain preglacial sediments (non glacial or earlier glacial sediments), which have been run over and thus deformed by meltout processes or lodgement. The constant reworking of these deposited tills leads to a highly homogenized till. Supraglacial meltout tills are similar to subglacial meltout tills. Rather than being the product of basal melting, however, supraglacial meltout tills are imposed on top of

1764-490: The project were issued on November 15, 1962. Construction work began on February 25, 1963, with construction being completed on June 4, 1965. The flood walls protect the city of Amsterdam from floods of 122,500 cu ft/s (3,470 m/s) from the Mohawk River and floods of 3,400 cu ft/s (96 m/s) from South Chuctanunda Creek. The floodwalls were able to prevent $ 13.6 million in damages from tropical storms Lee and Irene . In July 2012, governor Cuomo announced

1813-538: The reach of their efforts from the Hudson River to the Mohawk as well. West Branch Mohawk River (New York) West Branch Mohawk River is a river in Oneida County, New York . It begins at the confluence of Egger Brook and Lyman Brook , flows through the hamlet of West Branch , and empties into Mohawk River east of the hamlet. This article about a location in Oneida County, New York

1862-551: The river in the mid-18th century where he encountered some of the indigenous peoples belonging to the Iroquois confederacy, and has left a record for posterity of some of their customs in his journal. In the early nineteenth century water transport was a vital means of transporting both people and goods. A corporation was formed to build the Erie Canal off the Mohawk River to Lake Erie . Its construction simplified and reduced

1911-774: The south. Overall, this part of New York is represented by lower Paleozoic sedimentary rocks that unconformably overlie the Grenville -aged ( Proterozoic , here about 1.1 billion years old) metamorphic rocks of the Adirondacks. In the watershed, these rocks are only significant in the headwaters of the West Canada Creek. Much of the main trunk of the Mohawk River sits in Cambro - Ordovician carbonates ( limestone ) and Middle Ordovician sandstones and shales . The southern tributaries (Catskill Mountains) are underlain by

1960-464: The subglacial environment, such as in tunnel valleys . There are various types of classifying tills: Traditionally (e.g. Dreimanis , 1988 ) a further set of divisions has been made to primary deposits, based upon the method of deposition. Van der Meer et al. 2003 have suggested that these till classifications are outdated and should instead be replaced with only one classification, that of deformation till. The reasons behind this are largely down to

2009-412: The term boulder clay for the same kind of sediments, but this has fallen into disfavor. Where it is unclear whether a poorly sorted, unconsolidated glacial deposit was deposited directly from glaciers, it is described as diamict or (when lithified ) as diamictite . Tillite is a sedimentary rock formed by lithification of till. Glacial till is mostly derived from subglacial erosion and from

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2058-491: The till. The abundance of clay demonstrates lack of reworking by turbulent flow, which otherwise would winnow the clay. Typically, the distribution of particle sizes shows two peaks (it is bimodal ) with pebbles predominating in the coarser peak. The larger clasts (rock fragments) in till typically show a diverse composition, often including rock types from outcrops hundreds of kilometers away. Some clasts may be rounded, and these are thought to be stream pebbles entrained by

2107-413: The top of the stratigraphic sediment sequence, which has a major influence on land usage. Till is deposited as the terminal moraine , along the lateral and medial moraines and in the ground moraine of a glacier, and moraine is often conflated with till in older writings. Till may also be deposited as drumlins and flutes , though some drumlins consist of a core of stratified sediments with only

2156-452: The tributaries and the main trunk of the river. The maximum average daily flow on the river occurs between late March and early April. For the period between 1917 and 2000, the highest mean daily flow is c. 18,000 cu ft (510 m) as measured at Cohoes, near the confluence with the Hudson. The lowest mean daily flow of 1,400 cu ft (40 m) occurs in late August. There is

2205-539: The way. After North Western it receives Tannery Brook then Wells Creek in the Hamlet of Frenchville . At Frenchville it curves to the southwest and heads toward the Hamlet of Westernville receiving Deans Gulf along the way. In Westernville it enters Delta Reservoir . After exiting the reservoir it heads south toward the City of Rome receiving Hurlbut Glen Brook and passing the Rome Fish Hatchery along

2254-436: The way. On the south side of the City it enters the Erie Canal and begins to flow east. After Rome the river flows generally east through the Mohawk Valley , passing by the cities of Utica , Little Falls , Canajoharie , Amsterdam , and Schenectady before entering the Hudson River at Cohoes , just north of Albany. The river and its supporting canal, the Erie Canal , connect the Hudson River and port of New York with

2303-483: Was a spring breakup flood with enormous amounts of ice. Ice jams of some significance occur about every other year. One major flood on the Mohawk was on 26–29 June 2006, during the Mid-Atlantic United States flood of 2006 . Flooding was caused by a stalled frontal system that resulted in 50 to 330 millimeters (2.0 to 13.0 in) of rain across central New York and widespread flooding occurred in

2352-526: Was completed in 1926 as part of the New York City water supply system , is the subject of an active and aggressive rehabilitation project. The Mohawk watershed drains a large section of the Catskill Mountains , the Mohawk Valley proper, and a section of the southern Adirondack Mountains . All three regions have distinct bedrock geology, and the underlying rocks become progressively younger to

2401-528: Was the outpost of civilization and Dutch-English rule in the Mohawk valley." In 1712 the British, now in control of New York, built Fort Hunter at the confluence of the Mohawk and the Schoharie Creek , about 22 miles (35 km) upriver from Schenectady. Around 600 Palatine Germans were settled along the Mohawk and Schoharie Creek. Swedish explorer and botanist, Pehr Kalm , visited the area along

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