Structural and stratigraphic controls on cave development in the Oak Ridge area, Tennessee
The Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR) is located in the northwestern part of the Valley and Ridge province in east Tennessee. The Valley and Ridge province is the topographic expression of the southern Appalachian foreland fold-thrust belt, which formed during the late Paleozoic Alleghanian orogeny. In the Oak Ridge area, three major northwest verging thrust faults (Kingston, Whiteoak Mountain, and Copper Creek) imbricate and juxtapose carbonate and clastic stratigraphic units that range in age from the lower Cambrian to the lower Mississippian. The carbonate stratigraphic units range in thickness from 1278 to 1748 m and include the Maynardville Limestone in the Conasauga Group (hereby included as part of the Knox Group), the Knox Group, and the Chickamauga Group. Stratigraphic relationships and repetition of units by thrust faulting has produced three northeast striking and southeast dipping carbonate bands bounded to the northwest and southeast by noncarbonate units. Preliminary results indicate that within two of these carbonate bands, formations composed of mudstone and argillaceous limestone appear to further subdivide groundwater basins. Our efforts have focused on relating the stratigraphic and structural characteristics of these rock units with cave development in the region.
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE; USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-84OR21400
- OSTI ID:
- 6708819
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9210228-1; ON: DE93003568
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 5. Tennessee water resources symposium, Nashville, TN (United States), 19-21 Oct 1992
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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