wunder beta🗺️ The Cumberland Plateau
See how hard sandstone, breached folds, and rivers shape the Cumberland Plateau's flat-topped table and deep slots.
What you’ll learn
- A lifted, level floorRecognize the Cumberland Plateau as a high, broadly level section of the Appalachian Plateaus.Horizontal Pennsylvanian beds and uneven erosion produce a table-like upland.
- The valley that was an archExplain how erosion can turn an anticline into a valley through topographic inversion.Sequatchie Valley and Walden Ridge expose the structure of a folded, eroded plateau margin.
- Rivers take the table apartDistinguish a breached structural valley from a gorge cut by a river and an escarpment waterfall.Edges, streams, and falls keep lowering the plateau's resistant rim.
- People use the openingsConnect gaps, rivers, and coal-bearing rocks to how people move through and use the plateau.Natural openings make routes, while layered Pennsylvanian rocks also hold useful resources.
Questions this course answers
What makes the Cumberland Plateau look table-like?
The USGS and Encyclopedia of Alabama describe mostly horizontal Pennsylvanian rocks, with resistant sandstone supporting the uplands while softer rocks erode into valleys.
Why can an anticline become a valley?
The Encyclopedia of Alabama identifies the Sequatchie Valley district as an anticline where the sandstone cap was eroded and softer rocks were worn down.
What is the Obed's approximately 500-foot feature?
The National Park Service describes the free-flowing Obed as having 500-foot-deep gorges.
Grounded in trusted sources
- https://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/0813l/report.pdf
- https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/cumberland-plateau-physiographic-section/
- https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/walden-ridge-and-sequatchie-valley/
- https://www.nps.gov/obed/index.htm
- https://www.nps.gov/articles/nps-geodiversity-atlas-obed-wild-scenic-river-tennessee.htm
- https://www.tn.gov/content/tn/environment/natural-areas/what-we-do/sna/cu/fall-creek-falls.html
- https://www.nps.gov/parkplanning/parkplan.cfm?park=CUGA
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