Fall Creek flows through the town between the old part of the town (nearer the river) and the newer part (established when the railroad was constructed through the area). Near the point where Monroe Street crosses the railroad, the creek falls over a sandstone ledge. The actual height of the waterfall has changed somewhat over the years, as pieces of the ledge have sheared off and fallen to the bottom of the falls. Below the falls, sandstone used to be quarried and was used to build the foundations of many local buildings.
The water flow was sufficiently substantial in the 19th century to support a mill located below the falls; but the flow is less consistent now, and the falls are frequently quiet. This is due to the conversion of woodlands and grasslands to intensive mechanized farming and the diversion of natural water flows to impoundments used to provide reliable water supplies for irrigation and other purposes. A feasibility study on providing a steady flow of water was conducted, but the expense was determined to be too great.
Just across the tracks on the left is a fire station, and behind the fire station is a parking area from which you can view the falls. There is a trail that leads downstream into the gorge. If you are willing to get wet you can get behind the falls. The sign claims this is the highest free falling waterfall in Indiana. I have been told there are taller falls in southern Indiana, but they may not be free falling. The caprock over which the creek falls is nearly 40 feet thick and is rather impressive even if the water is not flowing. Above the falls the water has carved a channel a few feet deep into the rock so that the water appears to shoot out of a notch in the cliff.
Scarcely a stone's throw from the courthouse in downtown Williamsport (Warren County) is one of Indiana's highest waterfalls. Small, intermittent Fall Creek tumbles over a ledge of resistant Pennsylvanian sandstone at the base of the Mansfield Formation. Below this ledge are siltstone and shale of the Borden Group, and weathering of this softer rock causes the falls to slowly recede as the harder cap rock is undermined, and block by block, collapses into the gorge below. Interesting small potholes, scallops, and other features characteristic of abrasive action of water can be seen in the streambed just above the falls.
Williamsport Falls is one of many geologic features that testify to glacial rearrangement of stream patterns. In cutting downward through unconsolidated deposits left behind by the latest glacier, Fall Creek encountered a ridge of resistant sandstone. The course of the creek is now fixed across this ledge, but more easily eroded glacial deposits have been carried away.
Williamsport Falls is one of many geologic features that testify to glacial rearrangement of stream patterns:
Missippian Age: Approximately 320 to 360 million years ago the area of the Williamsport was with in the delta of a broad river that deposited massive amounts of fine sediment as it emptied into a large inland sea. Those sediments formed into siltstone, limestone, sandstone, and shale.
Pennsylvanian Period: Approximately 320 to 280 million years ago new material was deposited on the eroded Mississippian sediment. This sediment was coarse quartz sand that became the Mansfield Formation.
Pleistocene Epoch: In cutting downward through unconsolidated deposits left behind by the latest glacier, Fall Creek encountered a ridge of resistant sandstone. Glacial ice extended and retreated several times in the Midwest during the Great Ice Age. Yet every glacier that spread over Indiana never extended past the central region of the state. Once the glaciers melted; the dirt, rocks and sand - or glacial till - that were picked up by the ice were all that was left behind. Any hills or valleys created by previous ice ages were filled with this till which left the land flat. Today this central area is known as the Tipton Plain Till. In the northern part of the state, where glaciers retreated more quickly, moraines - or glacial till ridges - were left, but was still left relatively level. In general, geologists divide these events and the glacial deposits of the Ice Age into three great stages, each of which experienced several ice advances.
•The Wisconsin Stage, which began about 50,000 years ago. Nearly all of the modern landscape of the northern two-thirds of the state, and a large part of the deposits beneath, are the product of this stage.
•The Illinoian Stage, which took place from about 300,000 to 140,000 years ago. These deposits are exposed at the modern land surface in southeast and southwest Indiana, beyond the limit of the Wisconsin ice sheets. They also occur in the subsurface throughout the rest of the state, beneath the overlying Wisconsin deposits.
•The pre-Illinoian Stage, which is much less clearly understood and includes everything else before the Illinoian. Several events from this stage are known to have affected Indiana, and the deposits that record them occur in widely scattered localities in the subsurface.
To claim this earthcache as a find, please send the answers to my registered account.
1. What color is the sandstone here?
2. How deep is the erosion cut in the sandstone at the top of the falls?
3. Describe the look of the sandstone.
4. Post a picture of yourself (face not required) or a personal item at the falls.
Thanks to Bass Brigade for additional information on the timeline ages of the falls!