Thickness of the Glacial Drift in Western Ohio

Abstract

In the preparation of this paper twenty thousand well records were examined and six thousand of the significant ones were plotted. The average thickness of the drift in western Ohio is 69.5 feet. Great thicknesses up to more than 530 feet are recorded along the buried valley of the old Teays, which passes in a northwesterly direction through Madison, Champaign, Shelby, Auglaize, and Mercer counties into Indiana. The preglacial Maumee, Portage, Sandusky, Huron, Cuyahoga, and Ohio rivers were tributaries of a large stream which flowed eastward draining the valley now occupied by Lake Erie. A preglacial divide separated western Ohio into three drainage areas-the Erie lowland, the southwestern basin, and the area drained by the old Teays River. In preglacial time the valleys of western Ohio were broad, such as would exist in a region worn down to an advanced stage of erosion. During the Deep stage, which preceded the Illinoian stage, they were deepened considerably.