Today these “River Pirates” steal our hearts with their beauty
and threaten us with their devastation during flash floods.
Tectonic movements can change river courses, behead streams and
sometimes even make rivers disappear entirely. In Johnson County
Kentucky there is evidence that tectonics from geologic events
known as the Rome uplift and the Irvine Paint Creek Fault have
altered waterways here. A fault area near the Morgan and Johnson
Counties line is marked by escarpments with gorges eroded from
headwaters of waterways of ancient past. The gentle flowing Big
Paint Creek drains very old mature terrain. It is characterized by
entrenched meanders and incised channels that shows evidence of
uplifted terraces before it swerves across the terminus of the
Irvine Paint Creek Fault near Paintsville.
Changes in drainage of minor streams in the hills of Eastern
Kentucky are not uncommon. A careful observer traveling the creeks
portion of the state will notice an occasional low pass or wind gap
left here and there in the uniformly steep ridges that marks a
great topographic blaze of the former pathway of a watercourse. In
some instances, there is evidence of stream piracy. Some piracies
overlap with geological structural influences doubling the capture
of a given stream.
The direction of drainage from the Cumberland Plateau in Eastern
Kentucky is to the north or northwest. There is a gradual increase
in elevation of the plateau from the Ohio River. For streams with
headwaters in the Cumberland Mountains here in Johnson County
Kentucky the flow is to the southeast, indicating that the north or
northwest direction of flow may have been caused by the great
uplifting of the region after the Paleozoic Geologic Times.
In a way, Paint Creek was forced to steal another stream bed and
alter it’s course. Uplift of the terrain accentuated the
acceleration of erosion of the river terrace adjacent forcing Paint
Creek to take over a smaller branch and cut it’s course northward
much deeper by headward erosion. During rains the flood waters
rushed into the newer larger channel, beheading the smaller branch
at it’s origin. It is a case of river piracy resulted from headward
erosion and tectonic uplift of the terrain.
Stream piracy or capture is an interesting phenomenon that can
occur when two streams ‘run into each other’ by one of a number of
different means. Stream capture occurs when two streams (usually
one actively eroding low level stream and one higher level stream)
come together and the latter stream begins to fully or partly flow
out the lower level stream channel. The capturing stream erodes
more aggressively than an adjacent stream and captures its
discharge by intersecting its channel.
In Eastern Kentucky there exists an elongated structurally
elevated area of between 700-1000 square miles. This large
structural high has been called the Paint Creek Uplift. It has a
north-south axis and presents itself as a dip in the strata of the
region that is slightly south and east. The Paint Creek Uplift
culminated in the creation of two closed structural highs- the
Paint Creek and Laurel Domes. Johnson County Kentucky is crossed by
the Irvine Paint Creek Fault and fold on an east-west line through
it's central portions. The terminus is near the town of
Paintsville.
Faulting and Folding occurred on several occasions over geologic
time and created what is known as the Irvine Paint Creek Fault. The
Paint Creek Dome, Laurel Creek Dome and Paint Creek Anticline are
the chief geologic sub-structures of the county.
The latest episodes of crustal faulting and folding in this part
of Kentucky is seen by geologists as a factor in modifying the
drainage courses of major and minor waterways. Practically all
small and large streams are crossed transversely by large
anticlines of faults.
Big Paint Creek flows northwest into Johnson County and meets
Little Paint Creek, also flowing northwest. The larger stream
pirates the smaller stream and continues to the east and southeast
where Big Paint meets the Levisa Fork of the Big Sandy River east
of Paintsville. The angle at which the streams unite and steal
stream bed from is against the current of the larger river
presenting a situation where drainage is contrary to normal and is
impacted by the lay of the land and uplift. The capture constituted
piracy.
The folding and faulting impact here is clear when you look at
the Big Paint Creek origins in adjacent Morgan County where the
elevation is 790 feet above sea level. Low water at the mouth of
the Big Paint Creek as it enters the Big Sandy River is about 590
feet. The difference of elevation of 200 feet between the mouths of
these two minor competing streams has given the principal stimulus
to the headward cutting erosion of the headwaters for Big Paint
during the most recent geologic period of uplift.
The drainage courses of Little and Big Paint Creeks show
evidence of a modification and adjustment to the geologic structure
of the land. Big Paint lies in a pronounced syncline between Paint
Creek and Laurel Creek domes of principal uplift. The result of the
folding and faulting of the land assisted Paint Creek with it's
headward erosion and ultimate piracy of the waters of Little Paint
Creek. But the stealing doesn’t end here. There is evidence of a
double, even quadruple piracy involving Big Paint Creek which is a
very rare occurrence.
Geologists say four separate stream captures can actually be
attributed by to Big Paint Creek and say it is completely
attributable to the folding and faulting of terrain here. In fact
it is almost as if a trick was played on old Paint Creek by another
pirate called Jenny Creek.
Big Paint Creek is seen in the role of a real pirate, stealing
from her less aggressive neighbor, the Old Elk Fork. The first
large piracy was to the south at Little Paint Creek. Later, slowly
but surely to the north another tributary know as Open Fork was
captured. Big Paint however in pirating did not let the right one
know what the left one was doing and when Big Paint wasn't looking,
Jenny Creek captured the headwaters of the Old Elk Fork,
re-diverted the drainage and channeled their waters into the Big
Sandy via her way.
It is the lay of the land that is responsible for this series of
drainage complications. The uplift cored by a north-dipping normal
fault is cut by a south dipping thrust fault. The fault has an
apparent considerable strike-slip component, based on the splaying
of the fault higher in the section and the development of a
positive flower structure and draping of the land near Paintsville.
Also significant is the more than 4,000 feet of down-to-the-east
basement rock displacement that likely parallels the axis of the
Paint Creek Uplift in the Rome Trough. The faults bounding this
north-south low apparently were reactivated as wrench faults in the
development of the uplift.
The Rome Trough is a northeast-trending graben system thought to
be part of the Cambrian Geologic Period of time. Within the eastern
Kentucky portion of the Rome Trough, the Irvine-Paint Creek Fault
System accommodates a southeast deepening of the rift.
Northwest-striking faults also cut through the trough. Single-fold,
reflection-seismic data have revealed a series of small, imbricate
thrust faults within the deepest section of the trough in eastern
Kentucky. These faults lie between the Irvine-Paint Creek and
Rockcastle River Fault Zones and occur in a region approximately 10
miles wide. The thrust faults primarily cut the basement and the
lower Rome sequence and dip to the northwest.
All this tilting of the land means water will find the least
path of resistance and will alter it’s course to get to it’s lowest
point, no matter what is in it’s way. It will simply steal a path
of least resistance based on the terrain that it flows on.
Paint Creek winds around the City of Paintsville. Come visit the
Paint Creek Pirate at a downtown observation walkway. Just across
the bridge there is a public parking area. At a boardwalk to a
landing at the water’s edge take a picture and submit to verify you can see where the Big Paint Creek is pirating.
1. Estimate the distance across Paint Creek.
a/ 50’ b/75’ c/100’ d/125’
2. Take a reading as to what the elevation is just above the creek bed.
3. Email the answers above to us and post a picture of your GPS
or yourself with your log that shows the waterfall and rock ledge
in the background.
Judged in the broader perspective of geological evolution,
disappearance or disintegration of rivers, shifting of their
courses, and capture of one river by another (river piracy) are all
normal responses to tectonics (uplift, faulting, subsidence,
tilting), earthquakes, adverse climate and other natural events. It
just seems strange to know that these sometimes docile and
sometimes violent waterways we admire for their scenic beauty are
really considered pirates and have stolen to get where they are
today.
Man has exercised some control over the flow of Paint Creek by
damming it into a reservoir and creating a pristine lake. While it
may go where it chooses at times, it's flow is controlled to some
degree by releases from it's impoundment.
