Appalachian Plateau

Appalachian zones in the US - USGS

The Appalachian Plateau is the northwestern part of the Appalachian Mountains, stretching from New York to Alabama. The plateau is a second level United States physiographic region, covering parts of the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia.

From the east the escarpment that forms the edge of the plateau has the appearance of a mountain range.[1] However, technically it is an eroded plain of sedimentary rock, not mountains.[2] A large portion of the plateau is a coalfield formed during the Pennsylvanian Period.[3] The surface of the plateau slopes gently to the northwest and merges into the Interior Plains.

The main physiographic sections (generally ordered from the northeast to the southwest) of the plateau are named the Mohawk section, the Catskill section, the southern New York section, the Allegheny Plateau section, the Kanawha section, the Cumberland Plateau section, and the Cumberland Mountains section.[4]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Dryer, Charles Redway (1911). High School Geography. New York: American Book Company. found online at
  2. ↑ Elliott, Brook; Barbara Elliott (1998). Hiking Kentucky. Champagne, IL: Human Kinetics. ISBN 0-88011-812-1. found online at
  3. ↑ Montrie, Chad (2003). To Save the Land and People: A History of Opposition to Surface Coal Mining in Appalachia. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-5435-2. found online at
  4. ↑ "Physiographic Regions". A Tapestry of Time and Terrain: The Union of Two Maps - Geology and Topography. Archived from the original on 15 May 2006. Retrieved 2006-05-14.

Coordinates: 40°N 78°W / 40°N 78°W / 40; -78


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