Kentucky


Kentucky is a state located in the East Central U.S.A. between West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. The northern border is formed by the Ohio River and the western border by the Mississippi River. It belongs to the Southern States, the climate is humid subtropical. The state is divided into five primary regions: the Cumberland Plateau in the east, the north-central Bluegrass region, the south-central and western Pennyroyal Plateau, the Western Coal Fields and the far-west Jackson Purchase.

The Cumberland Plateau is the southern part of the Appalachian Plateau province, dissected plateaus west of the main Appalachian Mountains. To the west it is bordered by the Pottsville Escarpment, with many spectacular cliffs, gorges, rockhouses, natural bridges, and waterfalls. It consists of sedimentary rocks of Mississippian and Pennsylvanian age, near shore sediments of the Appalachian Mountains like cross-bedded sandstones and occasionally conglomerates with bituminous coal seams which formed onshore in swampy environments. The Bluegrass region is characterized by underlying fossiliferous limestone, dolostone, and shale of Ordovician age. The Pennyroyal Plateau is commonly called Pennyrile, a karst area with rolling hills bordered by the Pottsville Escarpment and Muldraugh Hill. The St. Louis Limestone or Ste. Genevieve Limestone capped with a soft sandstone continues as the Highland Rim of Middle Tennessee. This is the main caves area of the state and the area where Mammoth Cave is. The Western Coal Fields is an area with sandstones, shales and coal seams, which were mined. As far as we know there are no coal mines open to the public. The Jackson Purchase, named so because it was purchased it in 1818 from the Chickasaw Indians by President Andrew Jackson, is primarily alluvial and is geologically part of the Mississippi Delta, with no caves or mines at all.

Kentucky is a cave state, together with Missouri and Tennessee, and has 15 show caves [2021].

Literature