| Nescopeck Creek | |
|---|---|
 Partially frozen Nescopeck Creek | |
  Location of the mouth of Nescopeck Creek in Pennsylvania | |
| Etymology | From a Lenape word meaning "deep black waters"[2] |
| Location | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Pennsylvania |
| County | Luzerne |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Source | Olympus Pond |
| • location | Dennison Township |
| • coordinates | 41°05′15″N 75°50′29″W / 41.08750°N 75.84139°W[1] |
| • elevation | 1,154 ft (352 m)[3] |
| Mouth | Susquehanna River |
• location | Nescopeck |
• coordinates | 41°03′04″N 76°13′54″W / 41.05111°N 76.23167°W[1] |
• elevation | 479 ft (146 m)[1] |
| Length | 37.5 mi (60.4 km)[4] |
| Basin size | 143 sq mi (370 km2)[5] |
| Discharge | |
| • location | Nescopeck, 0 miles (0 km) from mouth |
| • minimum | 1 cu ft/s (0.028 m3/s) |
Nescopeck Creek is a 37.5-mile-long (60.4 km)[4] tributary of the Susquehanna River in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.[6] The creek is in the Coal Region of Pennsylvania. The meaning of the creek's name is "deep black waters". The waters of Nescopeck Creek have difficulty ratings between Class I and Class III. However, during parts of the year, Nescopeck Creek is impossible to navigate due to rapids, flooding, and tight bends. Nescopeck Creek is home to a number of species of trout, although the waters are not always optimal for them. Nescopeck Creek's water is acidic, with a pH as low as 3.6 in some studies.
Much of the land in the Nescopeck Creek's watershed is forest. Farmland is common in the lower portions of the Nescopeck Creek watershed and the Little Nescopeck Creek watershed, while coal mines are more common on Nescopeck Creek's tributaries Black Creek, Stony Creek, and Cranberry Creek. A 6-mile (10 km) portion of Nescopeck Creek is considered a cold-water fishery of high quality.[7] There are also seven natural areas in the creek's watershed, some of which contain rare species of plants and animals. On the Hilsenhoff Biotic Index, the streams in the watershed range from 0 to 18. There are 51 genera of macroinvertebrates in the creek's watershed. The habitats in the watershed primarily include mixed forest.
Nescopeck Creek's watershed is 143 square miles (370 km2) in area and lies in parts of three counties. Slightly over half of the land in the watershed is deciduous forest. The rest is perennial herbaceous vegetation, mixed vegetation and annual herbaceous vegetation, and barren land. Some sub-watersheds contain as much as 80 percent forest. Almost all of the streams in the watershed are within 330 feet (100 m) of a road. Most of the land in the watershed has a slope of 0 to 3 percent, although there are areas with a slope of 8 percent or more.
There are five main soil series in the Nescopeck Creek watershed. These are the Hazleton-Dekalb-Buchanan series, the Wellsboro-Oquaga-Morris series, the Leck Kill-Meckesville-Calvin series, the Udorthents-Urban Land-Volusia series, and the Lackawanna-Arnot-Morris series. There are also coal veins in the watershed. The creek discharges aluminum, iron, and manganese, nitrogen, and phosphorus. The pH of the streams in the Nescopeck Creek watershed range from 4.2 to 7.2. The main stem's discharge ranged from 31.8 to 227 cubic feet per second (0.90 to 6.43 m3/s) between 1919 and 1926. There are 10 dams in the watershed.
- ^ a b c "Nescopeck Creek". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey. August 2, 1979. Retrieved July 4, 2013.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
History of Luzerne, Lackawanna, and Wyoming Countieswas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Source elevation derived from Google Earth search using GNIS source coordinates.
- ^ a b U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data. The National Map, accessed August 8, 2011
- ^ Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (May 2, 2005). "Black Creek, Little Nescopeck Creek, and UNT Little Nescopeck Creek Watershed TMDS" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-07-05.
- ^ Gertler, Edward. Keystone Canoeing, Seneca Press, 2004. ISBN 0-9749692-0-6
- ^ "Nescopeck State Park". Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. Archived from the original on September 27, 2011. Retrieved June 28, 2013.