Publication Date
2024
Document Type
Thesis
Committee Members
Christopher Barton, Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Ernest C. Hauser, Ph.D. (Committee Co-Chair); Doyle Watts, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Abstract
The Teays River Valley is an ancient river valley system that existed before the Pleistocene Ice Age and spanned present-day Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, and Virginia. During the Pleistocene Ice Age, the Teays River Valley was buried by advancing continental glaciers and meltwater throughout most of its length. Due to the Teays’ average width of roughly 2 miles and burial depth of approximately 200 meters (656 feet), the Ohio Geological Survey has been pursuing geophysical methods to map the location and depth of the Teays River Valley in Ohio. The present study is a refraction analysis using the first breaks from a seismic reflection dataset from west-central Ohio across the potential location of the buried Teays Valley. The seismic refraction results display a bedrock topography similar to the original seismic reflection profile, having an estimated bedrock depth along the profile roughly ranging from 24 m (79 ft) to 213 m (699 ft) in the buried valley. The refraction survey indicated average bedrock velocities of 3956 m/s (~13000 ft/s) and depths ranging from about 80 to 700 feet (24 to 213 meters), which is consistent with the reflection results and with a valley fill of unconsolidated sand and clay and limestone bedrock.
Page Count
38
Department or Program
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
Year Degree Awarded
2024
Copyright
Copyright 2024, some rights reserved. My ETD may be copied and distributed only for non-commercial purposes and may not be modified. All use must give me credit as the original author.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
