INTRODUCTION 



Pamlico County is in the eastern section of North Carolina, 

 situated in the Coastal Plain Province. It was formed in 1872 

 from parts of Craven and Beaufort Counties, and has an area of 

 576 square miles, of which 341 are land and 235 are water (Powell, 

 1968). The approximately 369,000 acres encompass a variety of 

 habitats , ranging from open sound waters , brackish marsh and 

 embayed rivers to pocosins, wooded swamps, hardwood flats, pine 

 flatwoods, upland pine stands and upland mixed pine-hardwood 

 forests. 



Pamlico County occupies the outer part of a peninsula which 

 lies between the embayed lower portions of the Pamlico and Neuse 

 Rivers. Beaufort County bounds Pamlico on the north and occupies 

 the remainder of the peninsula; Craven bounds Pamlico County on 

 the west along Upper Broad Creek. The county is bordered on the 

 south by the embayed Neuse River and on the east by Pamlico Sound. 

 The Pamlico Sound shoreline of the county is highly dissected by 

 the embayment of local streams by sea level rise. This dissected 

 aspect is evident also along the Neuse and Pamlico River shorelines. 

 A major local embayment is the Bay River, which extends west nearly 

 halfway across the county from the sound. Other embayments include % 

 two Goose Creeks, Broad Creek, Upper Broad Creek, Mouse Harbor, 

 Jones Bay and numerous others. The entire drainage of the county 

 is directly into estuarine bodies of water (Pamlico Sound and the 

 Neuse and Pamlico River estuaries) . The southwestern quarter of 

 the county is the only section drained by a well-developed den- 

 dritic system of non-embayed creeks, Upper Broad being the major 

 one. The flow in these creeks is sluggish. Pocosin areas with 

 very poor natural drainage occupy much of the county interior. 

 There are no natural lakes; a few vegetated Carolina bays are 

 located on sandy surfaces in the western section. Elevations in 

 the county range from 0-50 feet above mean sea level; this rela- 

 tively great range is due to the fact that the western third of 

 the county lies on an older and higher surface known as the Chowan 

 marine terrace (see next section) . 



RECENT GEOLOGY 



The eastern two-thirds of Pamlico County is on the Pamlico 

 marine terrace or Pamlico surface. The Pamlico is the lowest 

 and youngest of the several generalized surfaces of the state's 

 Coastal Plain recognized as having been formed during periods 



