Talk:Atlantic Seaboard Fall Line

Baltimore and Elkridge on the Patapsco
I revised the list because it was a little misleading. Baltimore lies on the tidal Patapsco, but the Patapsco actually crosses the Fall Line SW of the city, at Elkridge. Elkridge Landing was once an important head of navigation until siltation raised the river bed, forcing shipping downstream to Baltimore. The small streams that cross the Fall Line within Baltimore were more important for water power than for navigation.--Bardobro (talk) 18:30, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Fall line at the Patuxent river
I don't think there is a reason to exclude Laurel MD from the fall line cities, but due to the diffuse nature of the coastal escarpment in that area, the Patuxent was only navigable up to Upper Marlboro, MD, on its Western Branch tributary, and the historical settlement of Queen Anne in Prince Georges County on the main branch. So it is a little different in that regard from the other fall line cities located on tidal waters. Nonetheless the significant change in elevation of the river would have provided an energy resource. I can gather sources for this but I don't know exactly how to incorporate these into the article. Danblum (talk) 01:46, 27 December 2020 (UTC)


 * The fall line is a geographic-define boundary so wherever the Piedmont meets and the Atlantic Seaboard. Typically you find navigable rivers up to where rapids are, but that's not always the case, like in Laurel. Another way to visualize it is over the past 100 million years, the oceans have risen and fallen dozens of times. The flat, sandy region is old ocean floor and the Piedmont the hills and the fall line the beach front. We'll be seeing it again, probably sooner than later. --  Green  C  03:53, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Fall Line
How can NYC be on the Fall Line if there are no rapids there 2603:6080:2E40:29F:F49E:7337:53E6:2206 (talk) 02:52, 18 November 2021 (UTC)


 * NYC is a bit messed up due to glaciers that scraped everything to bedrock and left large moraines like Long Island. From what I can tell, Manhattan and Long Island are in the Atlantic Seaboard and west of the Hudson is the Piedmont, making the Hudson the fall line but only at the very tail end around Manhattan. There are no rapids there, I think the flow of the Hudson eroded any rapids upstream into the Piedmont region, the salt line today is around Newburgh–Beacon Bridge but it moves around., it's kind of smoothed out. The fall line is a geographic boundary not one defined by rapids which are characteristic though not required. -- Green  C  03:46, 18 November 2021 (UTC)