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Research about Cumberland Plateau

Source-linked reports with geographic coverage including Cumberland Plateau.

2 recordsLinked to original sources

Ground-water data for the Suck Creek area of Walden Ridge, southern Cumberland Plateau, Marion County, Tennessee

An investigation was made of the ground-water resources of the Suck Creek area, Marion County, Tennessee, 1990-91. Suck Creek is located on the Walden Ridge section of the Cumberland Plateau, and is about 16 miles northwest of Chattanooga. Eight wells were drilled into bedrock of Pennsylvania age. Drilling sites were chosen at or near fracture traces. Yields of the eight wells ranged from less than 1 to as much as 80 gallons of water per minute. Three wells had yields of 50 gallons per minute or more; two of these had estimated yields of 75 to 80 gallons per minute. These three wells produced water from a well- developed fracture within the Sewanee Conglomerate. Specific capacities for these three wells were 1.1, 1.3, 2.2 gallons per minute per foot of drawdown. Samples of water from six test wells and three domestic wells were analyzed for major inorganic constituents, nurients, major metals, trace elements, and bacteria. In addition, water samples from two of the test wells were analyzed for volatile organic compounds and scanned for the presence of semi-volatile organic compounds. Iron exceeded 300 micrograms per liter in five of the nine samples, and manganese exceeded 50 micrograms per liter in seven of the nine water samples. Toluene, a volatile organic compound, was detected in a concentration slightly above the reporting level; no other volatile organic compounds were detected.

Tennessee↗

Use of digital land-cover data from the Landsat satellite in estimating streamflow characteristics in the Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee

Characteristics of Streamflow at ungaged sites in coal-mining areas of the Cumberland Plateau may be estimated with regression equations that relate streamflow characteristics to the physiographic and climatic characteristics of the corresponding drainage basins. An experiment was performed to compare the accuracy of equations using basin characteristics derived from maps and climatological records (control group equations) with the accuracy of equations using basin characteristics derived from digital processing of Landsat spectral data as well as maps and climatological records (experimental group equations). Results of this experiment show that (with the exception of low flows and four of six annual peak logarithms) drainage area can explain more than 90 percent of the variance in all streamflow characteristics in both groups of equations. Seventeen of 39 experimental group equations that have two basin characteristics each are different from the corresponding control group equations. Five of the 17 differing experimental group equations have no counterpart in the control group because of lack of significance in control group basin characteristics, seven are slightly more accurate, and five are not measurably different in accuracy. When the equations in both groups are arranged into six flow categories, there is no substantial difference in accuracy between equations using basin characteristics derived from maps and climatological records (control group) and equations using basin characteristics derived from Landsat tapes as well as maps and climatological records (experimental group) for this particular study area, the Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee.

Tennessee↗