GROUND WATER IN NORTH-CENTRAL TENNESSEE
GROUND WATER IN NORTH-CENTRAL TENNESSEE
GROUND WATER IN NORTH-CENTRAL TENNESSEE
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140 <strong>GROUND</strong> <strong>WATER</strong> <strong>IN</strong> <strong>NORTH</strong>-<strong>CENTRAL</strong> <strong>TENNESSEE</strong><br />
DICKSON COUNTY<br />
GENERAL FEATURES<br />
[Area, 549 square mites. Population, 18,4911<br />
Dickson County lies in the southwestern part of the region covered<br />
by this report (pi. 1) and is bounded on the north by Montgomery<br />
County, on the east by Cheatham and Williamson Counties, on the<br />
south by Hickman County, and on the west by Humphreys and<br />
Houston Counties. The county seat, Charlotte, is a town of 291<br />
inhabitants approximately -ac the center of the county. The chief<br />
commercial center, however, is Dickson (population 2,902), which is<br />
on the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway in the south-<br />
central part of the county. The county is wholly rural.<br />
Dickson County lies entirely within the-Highland Rim plateau<br />
(pp. 16-18), and is drained for the most part by the Cumberland and<br />
Harpeth Rivers, which constitute parts of its northern and eastern<br />
boundaries. A small area in the southwestern part of the county,<br />
however, is drained by the Piney and Duck Rivers into the Tennessee<br />
River. In general, the county is a dissected plain, the summits of the<br />
main ridges being remnants of the Highland Rim plateau and having<br />
the slightly undulating surface characteristic of it. The most exten<br />
sive plateau remnants occur in the southwestern quadrant of the<br />
county along the divide between the Cumberland and Tennessee<br />
Rivers. The stream valleys have mature profiles near their heads and<br />
youthful profiles in their lower reaches; the mature profiles of dissec<br />
tion are adjusted to the Nashville Basin stage of the Cumberland<br />
River (pp. 20-22), and the youthful profiles are correlative with the<br />
present stage of downcutting by the river. The largest of these<br />
streams are Turnbull, Jones, Barton, and Yellow Creeks, which are<br />
tributaries of the Cumberland and Harpeth Rivers, and Piney River<br />
and its tributary, Garner Creek. The surface relief of the county is<br />
about 550 feet. The highest points, which are on the Highland Rim<br />
plateau in the southwestern part of the county, are about 900 feet<br />
above sea level; the lowest points, about 350 feet above sea level, are<br />
on the Cumberland River at the northeast corner of the county.<br />
Dickson County lies on the western flank of the Nashville dome<br />
(pp. 62-63), so that in general the rock strata constitute a monocline<br />
dipping slightly westward or northwestward. This regional structure<br />
is modified, however, by a superposed dome whose apex is in the vicin<br />
ity of White Bluff, in the central-eastern part of the county (p. 65),<br />
and probably by other secondary folds.<br />
The rocks that crop out in Dickson County range in age from Upper<br />
Cretaceous to the Chattanooga shale (Mississippian or Upper De<br />
vonian). The youngest stratigraphic unit is the Tuscaloosa forma<br />
tion, a coastal-plain gravel deposit that covers several square miles of