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The Highland Rim is a geographic term for the area in Tennessee, North Alabama, and Kentucky which surrounds the Central Basin. Geologically, the Central Basin is a dome. The Highland Rim is a cuesta surrounding the basin, and the border where the difference in elevation is sharply pronounced is an escarpment.
The Highland Rim is a physiographic section of the larger Interior Low Plateaus province, which in turn is part of the larger Interior Plains physiographic division. [1] Most of the Highland Rim is located in U.S. EPA Ecoregion 71, Interior Plateau, which is a part of the Eastern Temperate Forest.
The sections of the Highland Rim are referred to the four cardinal directions, e.g., "Northern Highland Rim", etc. The Highland Rim is rather continuous and any division of it, including the ones made below, are somewhat arbitrary. The term "highland" here is relative: it is certainly higher than the basin it surrounds, but it nonetheless is seldom at an elevation above 1,100 feet (340 m) above sea level and never more than about 1,400 feet (430 m) above sea level except where interrupted, primarily to the southeast, by outliers of the Cumberland Plateau. With the exception of a few broad stream bottoms, the land is characterized by ridges and valleys with a few fairly low hills. The entire region is well watered with many perennial streams. There are occasional waterfalls which sometimes delineate the Highland Rim from the Central Basin which it surrounds.
The Western Highland Rim is encountered a few miles west of Nashville and extends to the western valley of the Tennessee River. The area is a hilly area that is bisected by the Tennessee River and the Cumberland River valleys. Underlying bedrock of the region is chiefly Mississippian limestone, chert, shale, and sandstone with exposures of Devonian, Silurian, Ordovician, and Cambrian limestone, chert, and shale. [2] In the northern part of the Western Highland Rim, sinkholes readily occur in an area with a southern extension of the Pennyroyal plateau of Kentucky, where the karst is best developed on the Mississippian St. Louis Limestone and the Ste. Genevieve Limestone. [3]
The Eastern Rim rises approximately fifty miles east of Nashville and is bordered to its east by even higher terrain, the Cumberland Plateau. Erosion has exposed carbonate bedrock of Late Paleozoic age. These carbonate rocks contain variable amounts of chert and are often interbedded with fine grained clastic rocks. As a result, these rocks are more resistant to erosion than the underlying purer limestones of the Lower (Early) Paleozoic. The geology is diverse and is typically limestone at valley floors (around 500 feet (150 m) elevation) and sandstone on ridges (to around 1,000 feet). [4] The constituent bedrock is composed primarily of Mississippian aged St. Louis, and Warsaw limestones with Fort Payne chert underlain by Chattanooga Shale that forms a large part of the escarpment. [2] This area is mostly undulating plains, hills, and karst.
The Northern Highland Rim is encountered a few miles north of Nashville and extends to the Kentucky border, and the region of Kentucky adjacent to it called the Pennyroyal is largely a continuation of it under another name.
For the most part the Southern Rim is the farthest from Nashville, rising at some points just a few miles north of the border with Alabama. The landforms are continuous with those in adjacent portions of Alabama, although perhaps the most spectacular landforms of any portion of the Rim are to be found there.
The stratigraphy of the Southern Highland Rim is primarily composed of flat-lying limestones, dolomites, and shales, and to a much lesser extent, of cherts, siltstones, mudstones, and very fine grained to conglomeratic sandstones.
Karst is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble carbonate rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. It is characterized by features like poljes above and drainage systems with sinkholes and caves underground. It has also been documented for more weathering-resistant rocks, such as quartzite, given the right conditions.
The Pennyroyal Plateau or Pennyroyal Region, often spelled Pennyrile, is a large physiographic region of Kentucky that features rolling hills, caves, and karst topography in general. It is named for Hedeoma pulegioides, a wild mint that grows in the area. It is also called the "Mississippian Plateau," for the Mississippian geologic age in which it was formed.
The Cumberland Plateau is the southern part of the Appalachian Plateau in the Appalachian Mountains of the United States. It includes much of eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, and portions of northern Alabama and northwest Georgia. The terms "Allegheny Plateau" and the "Cumberland Plateau" both refer to the dissected plateau lands lying west of the main Appalachian Mountains. The terms stem from historical usage rather than geological difference, so there is no strict dividing line between the two. Two major rivers share the names of the plateaus, with the Allegheny River rising in the Allegheny Plateau and the Cumberland River rising in the Cumberland Plateau in Harlan County, Kentucky.
The Nashville Basin, also known as the Central Basin, is a term often used to describe the area surrounding Murfreesboro, Tennessee, in which Nashville is located. The Central Basin was caused by an uplifting which produced a dome known as the Nashville Dome. The Nashville Dome is evidenced by the underlying rock strata that all dip downward away from Nashville. The uplifting of the Nashville Dome fractured overlying strata, making it more easily eroded, and thus the "dome" resulted in a "basin". Uplifted strata in the center of a geological dome have higher potential erosive energy than the surrounding strata, because they are physically higher. Erosion thus acts on the uplifted area at a greater rate than on the surrounding flat-lying area, creating a low area, i.e., a basin. This area is more correctly referred to as the "Central Dome" of Tennessee.
The Tradewater River is a tributary of the Ohio River, approximately 136 miles (219 km) long, in western Kentucky in the United States. It drains an area of 932 square miles (2,410 km2) in the limestone hills south of Evansville, Indiana, between the basins of the Cumberland River on the west and the Green River on the east.
The Falling Water River is a 46.8-mile-long (75.3 km) stream in the east-central portion of Middle Tennessee in the United States. It rises just west of Monterey at the edge of the Cumberland Plateau, and traverses the Eastern Highland Rim before dropping off to the Nashville Basin and emptying into Center Hill Lake along the Caney Fork. The river is noted for the 136-foot (41 m) Burgess Falls, which it spills over near the end of its course.
The Appalachian Plateau is a series of rugged dissected plateaus located on the western side of the Appalachian Mountains. The Appalachian Mountains are a range that run from Nova Scotia in Canada to Alabama in the United States.
The geology of Tennessee is as diverse as its landscapes. Politically, Tennessee is broken up into three Grand Divisions: East, Middle, and West Tennessee. Physically, Tennessee is also separated into three main types of landforms: river valley plain, highlands and basins, and mountains.
The Nashville metropolitan area is a metropolitan statistical area. Its largest principal city is Nashville, Tennessee, the capital and largest city in Tennessee, in the United States. With a population of just over 2 million, it is the most populous metropolitan area in Tennessee. It is also the largest metropolitan area in Tennessee, in terms of land area.
The Appalachian Highlands is one of eight government-defined physiographic divisions of the contiguous United States. The links with the Appalachian Uplands in Canada to make up the Appalachian Mountains. The Highlands includes seven physiographic provinces, which is the second level in the physiographic classification system in the United States. At the next level of physiographic classification, called section/subsection, there are 20 unique land areas with one of the provinces having no sections.
The Geology of Pennsylvania consists of six distinct physiographic provinces, three of which are subdivided into different sections. Each province has its own economic advantages and geologic hazards and plays an important role in shaping everyday life in the state. From the southeast corner to the northwest corner of the state, the include: the Atlantic Plain Province province, the Piedmont Province, the New England Province, the Ridge and Valley Province, the Appalachain Province, and the Central Lowlands Province.
The geology of Kansas encompasses the geologic history and the presently exposed rock and soil. Rock that crops out in the US state of Kansas was formed during the Phanerozoic eon, which consists of three geologic eras: the Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic. Paleozoic rocks at the surface in Kansas are primarily from the Mississippian, Pennsylvanian, and Permian periods.
The U.S. state of Tennessee is geographically diverse, with varying terrains and several distinct physiographic regions. Its landforms range from the Blue Ridge Mountains in the eastern part of the state to flat and fertile plains along the Mississippi River. The state is geographically, legally, culturally, and economically divided into three Grand Divisions: East Tennessee, Middle Tennessee, and West Tennessee.
The Ozark Highlands is a Level III ecoregion designated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in four U.S. states. Most of the region is within Missouri, with a part in Arkansas and small sections in Oklahoma and Kansas. It is the largest subdivision of the region known as the Ozark Mountains, less rugged in comparison to the Boston Mountains in Arkansas, the highest part of the Ozarks.
Stone box graves were a method of burial used by Native Americans of the Mississippian culture in the Midwestern United States and the Southeastern United States. Their construction was especially common in the Cumberland River Basin, in settlements found around present-day Nashville, Tennessee.
The Window Cliffs State Natural Area covers 275 acres (111 ha) in Putnam County, Tennessee, near Cookeville. The Window Cliffs is the name of a prominent group of natural bridges in a narrow 200-foot-tall (61 m) ridge in the neck of a meander of Cane Creek. The day-use area is only accessible by hiking a 2.7 miles (4.3 km) trail. The Window Cliffs was an acclaimed destination in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The area contains several state-listed endangered plants.
The Interior Low Plateaus are a physiographic region in eastern United States. It consists of a diverse landscape that extends from north Alabama across central Tennessee and Kentucky into southern Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Its natural communities are a matrix of temperate forests, woodlands, and prairies.
Cedar Sink is a vertical-walled large depression, or sinkhole, in the ground, that is located in Edmonson County, Kentucky and contained within and managed by Mammoth Cave National Park. The sinkhole measures 300 feet (91.4 m) from the top sandstone plateau to the bottom of the sink and was caused by collapse of the surface soil. The landscape is karst topography, which means the region is influenced by the dissolution of soluble rocks. Sinkholes, caves, and dolines typically characterize these underground drainage systems. Cedar Sink has a bottom area of about 7 acres (2.8 ha) and has more fertile soil compared to the ridgetops.
The geology of Kentucky formed beginning more than one billion years ago, in the Proterozoic eon of the Precambrian. The oldest igneous and metamorphic crystalline basement rock is part of the Grenville Province, a small continent that collided with the early North American continent. The beginning of the Paleozoic is poorly attested and the oldest rocks in Kentucky, outcropping at the surface, are from the Ordovician. Throughout the Paleozoic, shallow seas covered the area, depositing marine sedimentary rocks such as limestone, dolomite and shale, as well as large numbers of fossils. By the Mississippian and the Pennsylvanian, massive coal swamps formed and generated the two large coal fields and the oil and gas which have played an important role in the state's economy. With interludes of terrestrial conditions, shallow marine conditions persisted throughout the Mesozoic and well into the Cenozoic. Unlike neighboring states, Kentucky was not significantly impacted by the Pleistocene glaciations. The state has extensive natural resources, including coal, oil and gas, sand, clay, fluorspar, limestone, dolomite and gravel. Kentucky is unique as the first state to be fully geologically mapped.
The geology of Mississippi includes some deep igneous and metamorphic crystalline basement rocks from the Precambrian known only from boreholes in the north, as well as sedimentary sequences from the Paleozoic. The region long experienced shallow marine conditions during the tectonic evolutions of the Mesozoic and Cenozoic, as coastal plain sediments accumulated up to 45,000 feet thick, including limestone, dolomite, marl, anhydrite and sandstone layers, with some oil and gas occurrences and the remnants of Cretaceous volcanic activity in some locations.
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