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Download one of our karst wallpapers by clicking on the thumbnail. Wait until the full size image loads in your browser, then right click the image and click Set As Background. Images are 1024x768.
Photo by Sean Roberts |
Buzzards Cliff
This is a view from Buzzards Cliff located
in southern Kentucky near the Tennessee border and is a good example of the Cumberland Plateau - an important karst region stretching
from north-central Alabama through Tennessee and Kentucky and Pennsylvania to the western New York border. The Cumberland Plateau
is a large, flat-topped tableland composed of sedimentary rocks 296-360 million years old that rises over 1000 feet above the region
around it. A view from any over-look quickly confirms that the area is indeed a plateau. The adjoining ridges are all the same height,
presenting a flat horizon. The top half of the plateau is insoluble sandstone while the bottom half of is composed of massive layers
of soluble limestone. Water accumulates on the top of the plateau and seeps downward through cracks and crevices, where it dissolves
the limestone and creates miles of underground caves, and then finally reappears at numerous springs around the base of the plateau.
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Photo by Sean Roberts |
Russell
Cave
Russell Cave, located along the southern end of the Cumberland Plateau in northeastern Alabama, offers one of the longest and most complete archeological records in the eastern United States. The artifacts found here indicate intermittent human habitation for almost 9,000 years. The cave itself is a conduit system that drains the west side of Doran Cove - a fourteen square mile area. The seven mile long cave system completely floods in times of heavy rainfall.
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