Geodiversity is the full variety of a park's natural geologic and soil resources and processes — rocks, minerals, sediments, fossils, landforms and the processes that shape them. The NPS Geodiversity Atlas, a product of the Geologic Resources Inventory, supports education, geoconservation, and management of a park's living and non-living parts together. This is its page for Rock Creek Park, District of Columbia.
The Geologic Resources Inventory report for the park.
The park
Congress created Rock Creek Park on September 27, 1890, making it the fourth-oldest national park, to preserve "all timber, animals, or curiosities … and their retention, as nearly as possible."
- It protects a Piedmont stream valley in a heavily urban area — a refuge for many rare and unusual species and for cultural and natural resources alike.
- It is about 15 km (9.3 miles) long and up to 1.6 km (1 mile) wide, running south along the Rock Creek valley from the Maryland–D.C. border to the Potomac River.
- It ends at the Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) Canal National Historical Park, tying the Potomac to American history.
Rock Creek and its watershed
| Rock Creek | about 53 km (33 miles) long, rising near Laytonsville, in Montgomery County, Maryland; it meets the C&O Canal 0.40 km (0.25 miles) above its confluence with the Potomac |
| Its watershed | about 48,960 acres, nearly a quarter of it in Washington, D.C.; the NPS manages 1,754 acres of it as Rock Creek Park |
| The Potomac | 616 km (383 miles) long, the second-largest contributor to the Chesapeake Bay; its basin of 38,018 km² (14,679 square miles) spans Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, D.C. and West Virginia |
The land
The park protects part of the upland Piedmont Plateau, one of the geologically significant provinces of the eastern United States — a landscape of a steep, craggy stream valley and rolling hills. Rock Creek cuts through the Piedmont's deformed metamorphic crystalline rocks. Varied water influences and seasonal flooding make a complex environment with a wide range of habitats. The park lies in both the Piedmont and Coastal Plain provinces.
Hikers on a trail in Rock Creek Park. Image from the Park Service's page.
Maps and reports
The Geologic Resources Inventory makes scoping summaries, digital geologic maps, reports and posters for more than 270 natural resource parks; this park's are in the NPS DataStore, with its completed Soil Resources Inventory. More: the park's home page and the Maryland Geological Survey.
The park's geologic map from the Geologic Resources Inventory.
Sources
Based on "NPS Geodiversity Atlas—Rock Creek Park, District of Columbia," National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The source's list of "previous names for the park" — the names of other parks — is left out.
In these publicationsRock Creek Park
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from www.nps.gov
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