Canal Overlook EarthCache
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Kentucky and Barkley Lakes are connected by the Barkley Canal. The canal is located in Grand Rivers and is 1.75 miles in length. The canal provides a navigable channel for both commerce and recreation craft moving on the two waterways.
The Tennessee and Cumberland watersheds are connected by the Barkley Canal, which intersects the Tennessee River at mile 25.3 and the Cumberland River at mile 32.8. It has a bottom width of 400 feet and became navigable in 1967. At minimum pool level, El. 346, the depth of the canal is 11 feet. At this level a barge could clear the bottom of the bridge by 70 feet..
The land to the south and north of this location is a rough, hilly area that defines the western margin of the Pennyroyal Plateau. This area is developed on cherty Lower and Middle Mississippian limestones, deeply buried in places by resistant and unconsolidated Upper Cretaceous Period gravels. This is a period of geologic time from 145 to 65 million years ago. Rocks of this age in Kentucky are only found at the Land Between the Lakes and in eastern parts of the Jackson Purchase. The area lacks the karst features found to the east of Lake Barkley in the Pennyroyal region which has numerous many faults acting as conduits for mineral-dissolving waters.
In 1944 the dam on the Tennessee River was completed to create Kentucky Lake, which is visible to the west. Look to the east to view Lake Barkley which was created in the early 1960s when a dam was constructed on the Cumberland River, only a couple of miles from Kentucky Dam. Both reservoirs are operated as a unit for flood control and the production of hydroelectric power. Empoundment of the Kentucky and Barkly Lakes have greatly increased the alluvial deposits in the channels as well as the low-lying shorelines. Alluvium is the general term for clay, silt, sand, and gravel deposited during relatively recent geologic time by streams or other bodies of running water.
The Cumberland River is 688 miles (1,106 km) long, draining
approximately 18,000 square miles. It starts in eastern Kentucky on the Cumberland Plateau, flows through southeastern Kentucky and crosses into northern Tennessee, and then curves back up into western Kentucky before draining into the Ohio River at Smithland, Kentucky.
The Tennessee River is the largest tributary of the Ohio River. It is approximately 652 miles (1049 km) long, draining approximately 40,000 square miles. It has its beginnings in eastern Tennessee, flows south through northern Alabama, then turns north to flow through western Tennessee and Kentucky before draining into the Ohio River at Paducah, Ky. The river was once popularly known as the Cherokee River.
Sixteen miles to the northwest is the Ohio River. The Ohio River is the largest tributary by volume of the Mississippi River. It is approximately 981 miles (1,579 km) long.
The Cumberland, the Tennessee, and the Ohio are the three major Kentucky .rivers.
Facing the canal, you can see to your left the 'Between the Rivers Memorial Bridge' connecting with the peninsula of Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area created in the 1960's.
For more information about the geology of this area and Kentucky visit: (visit link) to Kentucky Geological Survey.
SUCCESSFULLY LOG THIS EARTHCACHE:
A. Email me the answer to the two questions below:
1) State the clearance to the bottom of the bridge. Use this information and information above to determine the water level (i.e. 360 feet). Give the time and date of the measurement also.
2) Technically speaking the land you are standing on is surrounded by water...Barkley Canal and the three rivers mentioned above. So what type of land form are your standing on, technically speaking?
3) What is karst topography and why are karst features absent from the "land between the rivers?
B. Post to your log a picture of your and the devise you used to determine the water level in the canal in the background.
FTF CONGRATS goes to "Torr Bopp"
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