Geology of Tennessee

[1] Physically, Tennessee is also separated into three main types of landforms: river valley plain, highlands and basins, and mountains.

Most of the sedimentary rock across Middle Tennessee was deposited from the Ordovician to the Mississippian, roughly between 400 and 300 million years ago.

During the Pennsylvanian, the Cumberland Plateau formed along the edge of the Appalachians as beach and shore sediments, primarily sandstone today.

The Coon Creek Formation is one of these, deposited as a sandy shoreline along the Mississippi embayment during the Cretaceous.

Most Cenozoic deposits occur in West Tennessee near the Mississippi embayment as sands and silts.