Quote Originally Posted by jrunger View Post
Wow, that is really a good and interesting question that got me thinking. I've never really thought about the bottom of the Ohio river until you asked.

As I thought about it, many creeks I have fished came to mind -- locally one's like Elkhorn, Floyd's Fork, Brashear's, and little Kentucky River. Your question made me think of those creeks and their bottoms. On the whole, those creeks have a lot of "shelves", some "pebbly" bottoms, and even some "silty" areas. It seems the bottoms change in all of them, some having to do with the surrounding areas (fields, bluffs, etc) and some with respect to flow (bends, straight areas, etc).

So, no, I have no idea if the river is just a "big creek" --- but your question sure had me wondering --- maybe there are different "bottoms", just like there are in the different creeks.

I'll be watching this post to listen and learn.

Great question,

Jeff
Your comment about creek bottoms is similar to my way of thinking on it. The natural processes are the same, so the same principles must apply, right? The biggest difference is scale.

I bet there are areas that change and shift pretty frequently, depending on conditions; a blanket of silt might deposit, and then a field of debris on top of it (logs, whiskey bottles...) and then the next "flood stage" might scrub it back to bare limestone for a while. I dunno. At any rate, I agree with you and MarkW that it must differ depending on the terrain around the river--I bet that around the knobs, there must be more rocks along the bottom.

I would also guess that the current must sometimes carve out a deeper hole that will shift and disappear again.

Here's another question for people who are commenting about the depth from their own experiences: is you measurement based on depth/fish finders? And are those sonar-based? If so, do varying water temperatures give odd readings regarding depth? (for instance, can it exagerate the depth, or hide how deep something truly is?)

I want to sit down and talk with a geologist/hydrologist...but I don't know any...