Pennyroyal Plateau

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Pennyroyal Plateau

The Pennyroyal Plateau, or, as it is more commonly called in Kentucky

Kentucky

The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a U.S. state located in the East Central United States of America. Kentucky is normally included in the group of Southern United States , but it is uncommonly included, geographically and culturally, in the Midwestern United States....
, the Pennyrile, is a large area of the state that features rolling hills, cave

Cave

KARST

Kilometer-square Area Radio Synthesis Telescope is a Chinese telescope project to which Five hundred meter Aperture Spherical Telescope is a forerunner....
topography in general.

The Pennyrile is bordered by the Pottsville Escarpment

Pottsville Escarpment

The Pottsville Escarpment is a resistant sandstone belt of cliffs and steep sided, narrow crested valleys in eastern Kentucky, United States. It features spectacular cliffs, rock shelters, waterfalls, and natural archs....
in the east. The Pottsville Escarpment is the transition zone from the central part of Kentucky to the higher and geologically younger Cumberland Plateau

Cumberland Plateau

The Cumberland Plateau is the southern part of the Appalachian Plateau. It includes much of eastern Kentucky and western West Virginia, part of Tennessee, and a small portion of northern Alabama and northwest Georgia ....
in the eastern part of the state.

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What is the landforms of kentucky

Encyclopedia

The Pennyroyal Plateau, or, as it is more commonly called in Kentucky

Kentucky

Cave

KARST

Pottsville Escarpment

Cumberland Plateau

Bluegrass region

The Bluegrass Region is a region of the United States, mostly in northern Kentucky, containing a majority of the state's population. The region is centered on , with other major metropolitan areas including and , as it extends into southern Ohio....
borders the Chester Escarpment. This escarpment, mostly based on weathering-resistant sandstone

Sandstone

Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-size mineral or rock Particle size . Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust ....
, is a fairly dramatic one, featuring many cliff

Cliff

In geography and geology, a cliff is a significant vertical, or near vertical, rock exposure. Cliffs are formed as erosion landforms due to the processes of erosion and weathering that produce them....
s, canyon

Canyon

A canyon, or gorge, is a deep valley between cliffs often carved from the landscape by a river. Most canyons were formed by a process of long-time erosion from a plateau level....
s, waterfall

Waterfall

A waterfall is usually a geology geologic formation resulting from water, often in the form of a stream, flowing over an erosion-resistant rock formation that forms a nickpoint, or sudden break in elevation....
s and rock shelter

Rock shelter

A rock shelter is a shallow cave-like opening at the base of a bluff or cliff.Rock shelters form because a Rock stratum such as sandstone that is resistant to erosion and weathering has formed a cliff or bluff, but a softer stratum, more subject to erosion and weathering, lies just below the resistant stratum, and thus undercuts the cli...
s.

The Pennyrile is bordered on the north by Muldraugh Hill

Muldraugh Hill

Muldraugh Hill is an escarpment in central Kentucky separating the Bluegrass region on the north and north-east from the Pennyroyal Plateau on the south and south-west....
, the geological escarpment that forms the transition from the geologically older Bluegrass to the Pennyrile. This is a series of knobs and ridges based on hard siltstone

Siltstone

Siltstone is a sedimentary rock which has a composition intermediate in Particle size between the coarser sandstones and the finer mudstones and shales....
s.

The Pennyrile is bordered on the west by the younger Jackson Purchase

Jackson Purchase

The Jackson Purchase is a region in the U.S. state of Kentucky bounded by the Mississippi River to the west, the Ohio River to the north, and Tennessee River River to the east....
, a mostly alluvial area. The Pennyrile is usually thought to include the Western Coal

Coal

Coal is a readily combustion black or brownish-black sedimentary rock. The harder forms, such as anthracite, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure....
Fields of Kentucky, located in the northwestern area of the state, and separated from the rest of the Pennyrile by the Dripping Springs Escarpment, also based on sandstone.

To the south, the Pennyrile continues as the Highland Rim

Highland Rim

The Highland Rim is a geographic term for the area in Tennessee surrounding the Nashville Basin. Nashville, Tennessee is largely surrounded by higher terrain in all directions....
of Middle Tennessee

Middle Tennessee

Middle Tennessee is a distinct portion of the state of Tennessee, delineated according to state law as the 41 counties in the Middle Grand Divisions ....
.

The Pennyrile is largely in farmland where the bedrock is limestone

Limestone

File:Limestone Formation In Waitomo.jpgLimestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the mineral calcite . The deposition of limestone strata is often a by-product and indicator of biological activity in the geology record....
, and most of the Pennyrile is based on limestone, particularly the St. Louis Limestone

St. Louis Limestone

The St. Louis Limestone is a large geologic formation covering a wide area of the midwest of the United States. It is named after an exposure at St....
or Ste. Genevieve Limestone

Ste. Genevieve Limestone

The Ste. Genevieve Limestone is a geologic formation named for Ste. Genevieve, Missouri where it is exposed and was first described. It is a thick-bedded limestone that overlies the St....
. In some areas, the limestone is capped with a soft sandstone. This kind of formation—sandstone over limestone—is featured in the Mammoth Cave area, and has enabled the formation of the world's most extensive cave

Cave

A cave is a natural underground void large enough for a human to enter. Some people suggest that the term cave should only apply to cavities that have some part that does not receive daylight; however, in popular usage, the term includes smaller spaces like sea caves, rock shelters, and grottos....
system. Numerous other caves exist in the Pennyrile, where some of the most intensely cave-forming limestones of the world are to be found.

Where the capping sandstone is intact, the land surface is usually forested, rugged hills.