Cloudland Canyon State Park - Geology

Geology

The park is located on the Cumberland Plateau, atop Lookout Mountain. On the summit of Lookout Mountain the waters of Daniel Creek and Bear Creek cut gorges through the rock, converging to form Sitton Gulch Creek. The flat-topped mountains of the Cumberland Plateau are significantly different from the narrow Armuchee ridges beyond nearby Chickamauga Valley to the east. From a geological standpoint Lookout Mountain is transitional between the flat-lying sedimentary beds of central Tennessee, and the ridges and valley lying to the east, which display more intensive folding and faulting. Most of the canyon's rock formations consist of sandstone; shale layers below the sandstone are marked by pine trees.

Lookout Mountain was created through a combination of seismic activity and erosion. It was uplifted during the period of mountain building that formed the Appalachians, known as the Appalachian orogeny. Over 200 million years ago the modern-day park lay beneath an ocean. When first formed, the entire mountain was therefore underwater, but the rim of the canyon eventually became a beach along the edge of the receding ocean. As the ocean dried up, Sitton Gulch Creek and its tributaries, particularly Daniel Creek, eroded the rock. The sandstone forming the bluffs has a tendency to fracture into blocks, creating unusual boulder formations. The concave shape of the top of Lookout Mountain also drains rainwater through fissures into the underlying limestone, forming miles of subterranean caves in the area.

The canyon is more than 1,000 feet (300 m) deep, ranging in elevation from 800 feet (240 m) to over 1,800 feet (550 m); the park's peak elevation is 1,980 feet (600 m). The bottom of Cloudland canyon contains a slope of rock talus, which are sandstone and shale fragments. The valley floor is also rich in fossil-bearing limestone.