Physiographic regions of Kentucky USGS PP1151h-fig18

The Knobs Region or ''The Knobs'' is located in the

US state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

. It is a narrow, arc-shaped region consisting of hundreds of isolated hills. The region wraps around the southern and eastern parts of the

Bluegrass region The Bluegrass region is a geographic region in the U.S. state of Kentucky. It makes up the central and northern part of the state, roughly bounded by the cities of Frankfort, Kentucky, Frankfort, Paris, Kentucky, Paris, Richmond, Kentucky, Ric ...

in the north central to northeastern part of the state. The western end of the Knobs region begins near

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville is the List of cities in Kentucky, most populous city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, sixth-most populous city in the Southeastern United States, Southeast, and the list of United States cities by population, 27th-most-populous city ...

and continues southeastward through

Bullitt ''Bullitt'' is a 1968 American action thriller film directed by Peter Yates from a screenplay by Alan Trustman, Alan R. Trustman and Harry Kleiner and based on the 1963 crime novel ''Mute Witness'' by Robert L. Fish. It stars Steve McQueen, Ro ...

, Hardin, Nelson, LaRue, Marion County, Taylor, Boyle, Casey, Lincoln, and Garrard counties before turning northeast and running along the Pottsville Escarpment and the

Appalachian Plateau The Appalachian Plateau is a series of rugged dissected plateaus located on the western side of the Appalachian Mountains. The Appalachian Mountains are a range that run from Nova Scotia in Canada to Alabama in the United States. The Appalachi ...

. The Knob arc has a length of .The Kleber, John E., ed., ''Kentucky Encyclopedia'', University Press of Kentucky, 1992, pp. 521-2 Many of the hills are conical and up to several hundred feet high, some with capstones that form cliffs. The

monadnock An inselberg or monadnock ( ) is an isolated rock hill, knob, ridge, or small mountain that rises abruptly from a gently sloping or virtually level surrounding plain. In Southern Africa, a similar formation of granite is known as a koppie, an ...

s formed from the eroding margins of the

Pennyroyal Plateau The Pennyroyal Plateau or Pennyroyal Region, often spelled Pennyrile, is a large physiographic region of Kentucky that features rolling hills, caves, and karst topography in general. It is named for '' Hedeoma pulegioides'' (the American pennyroy ...

to the south and the

Cumberland Plateau The Cumberland Plateau is the southern part of the Appalachian Plateau in the Appalachian Mountains of the United States. It includes much of eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, and portions of northern Alabama and northwest Georgia. The terms " Al ...

to the east. The caprock is Mississippian Harrodsburg Limestone and the slopes are Borden Formation

shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of Clay mineral, clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g., Kaolinite, kaolin, aluminium, Al2Silicon, Si2Oxygen, O5(hydroxide, OH)4) and tiny f ...

s of

Devonian The Devonian ( ) is a period (geology), geologic period and system (stratigraphy), system of the Paleozoic era (geology), era during the Phanerozoic eon (geology), eon, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the preceding Silurian per ...

to Mississippian age.The Knobs Region, Kentucky Geological Survey
/ref>Newell, Wayne L., ''USGS Professional Paper 1151-H: The Geology of Kentucky: Physiography'', USGS, 2001

References

External links

Topomap of knobs
Regions of Kentucky Geography of Jefferson County, Kentucky Geography of Bullitt County, Kentucky Geography of Hardin County, Kentucky Geography of Nelson County, Kentucky Geography of LaRue County, Kentucky Geography of Marion County, Kentucky Geography of Taylor County, Kentucky Geography of Casey County, Kentucky Geography of Lincoln County, Kentucky {{LouisvilleMSA-stub

See also

References

Further reading

External links