In The Leatherstocking Tales, a series of historical novels set in the 18th century frontier of New York state, James Fenimore Cooper called Otsego Lake the Glimmerglass. He described “a bed of pure mountain atmosphere compressed into a setting of hills and woods.” It was a fitting description for the pristine, narrow lake which, despite some development around its shores, remains clean enough for swimming, for drinking, and for sheltering a wide array of fish. That’s not the case for every body of water in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
After pooling in the Glimmerglass for a time, a droplet of rain that falls in upstate New York will eventually make its way into a small, winding stream that drains the southern end of the lake. These are the headwaters of the Susquehanna River and the beginning of an epic journey toward the sea. The Susquehanna flows across 464 miles (747 kilometers) and three states—New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland—before emptying into the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.
As that raindrop makes its way down the river and through the Bay, it passes a diverse terrain with a fascinating geologic history. Over the past few decades, detective work by a group of scientists has uncovered at least three ancient river channels buried beneath the modern Bay, with the oldest flowing some 300,000 to 500,000 years ago.
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