GROUND WATER IN NORTH-CENTRAL TENNESSEE
GROUND WATER IN NORTH-CENTRAL TENNESSEE
GROUND WATER IN NORTH-CENTRAL TENNESSEE
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<strong>GROUND</strong> WATEB <strong>IN</strong> NOKTH-CENTBAL <strong>TENNESSEE</strong> 131<br />
DAVEDSON COUNTY<br />
[Area, 511 square mites. Population, 222,8641<br />
GENERAL FEATURES<br />
Davidson County, which adjoins Cheatham County on the east,<br />
occupies the east-central part of the region covered by this report.<br />
(See pi. 1.) Its county seat, Nashville (population, 153,866), is also<br />
the capital and second largest city of the State; it is situated on the<br />
Cumberland River about at the geometric center of the county. Old<br />
Hickory (estimated population, 3,050), about 10 miles northeast of<br />
Nashville, is an industrial city devoted to the manufacture of rayon<br />
products. With the exception of these urban districts, the county<br />
is for the most part a fertile rural area.<br />
The greater part of Davidson County is drained by the Cumber<br />
land River, which follows a meandering westward course through<br />
Nashville and gathers the tributary drainage of Mansker, Whites, and<br />
Little Marrowbone Creeks from the north and of the Stone River<br />
and Mill Creek from the south. The Harpeth River crosses the<br />
extreme southwestern part of the county at Belleview and drains a<br />
small area in the county.<br />
Davidson County embraces approximately equal areas in two<br />
physiographic districts, the northwestern quadrant of the Nashville<br />
Basin (p. 18) and the contiguous encircling escarpment of the<br />
Highland Rim plateau (pp. 16-17). Its extreme topographic relief<br />
is about 525 feet, the highest point being about 900 feet above sea<br />
level on the divide between Sycamore and Mansker Creeks, in the<br />
vicinity of Ridgetop, and the lowest about 375 feet above sea level,<br />
where the Cumberland River crosses the western boundary of the<br />
county. From the meander belt of the Cumberland River as it was<br />
in the Nashville Basin erosion cycle the Highland Rim escarpment<br />
rises northward about 300 feet to the plateau that extends northward<br />
beyond the county. The face of this erosion escarpment is trenched<br />
by closely spaced subparallel youthful drains several miles in length.<br />
The extreme northwestern part of the county, hi the vicinity of Joel-<br />
ton, lies upon the gently undulating peneplain that constitutes the<br />
Highland Rim plateau. A salient of the plateau, now reduced to a<br />
group of mature hills, extends eastward into the county to and beyond<br />
Nashville and forms the divide between the Cumberland and Harpeth<br />
Rivers. The portion of the county that lies south and east of the<br />
escarpment is gently rolling, the product of submature dissection of<br />
the Nashville Basin peneplain by streams adjusted to the Cumber<br />
land River in its present cycle. The accordant summits peneplain<br />
remnants are about 600 feet above sea level. Sink holes are locally<br />
abundant in the limestones that underlie this physiographic district,<br />
particularly between the limbs of river meanders and in the acute<br />
angle between converging streams in the vicinity of their confluence.