Geology of Fort Donelson National Battlefield

300 million years in one battlefield

The bedrock and deposits of Fort Donelson National Battlefield, on the Kentucky–Tennessee line, span some 300 million years. They tell of:

• ancient warm, shallow seas;
• colliding continents and great mountain ranges;
• rivers changing course;
• the ice ages.

Then came people. Erosion of those deposits left high ground — the fort's strategic defenses. They were ultimately overcome by new technology: ironclad warships using the power of a landscape-shaping force, the river. The soils and loose deposits were no friend to the fort's defenders either, adding to the mud and mire. More recently, dams and armored shorelines have been built to tame floods and erosion.

Reenactors at Fort Donelson. National Park Service.

The park's Geologic Resources Inventory report. National Park Service.

Geologic features and processes

• river processes and features;
• windblown loess;
• historic resources;
• faults;
• karst features;
• bedrock exposures;
• fossils.

What managers deal with

The same features create resource-management issues for park staff:

• flooding;
• upland weathering;
• slope movements and their hazards;
• abandoned mineral lands and disturbed lands;
• fossil inventory, monitoring and protection.

More on NPS programs: geoconservation · geohazards · fossil stewardship · cave resources.

The region

Fort Donelson lies in the Interior Low Plateaus physiographic province, and shares its geologic history and characteristic formations with a region reaching far beyond the park.

The park's geologic map, from the Geologic Resources Inventory. National Park Service.

Maps, reports and soils

The Park Service's Geologic Resources Inventory makes digital geologic maps and reports for more than 270 natural resource parks:

• scoping summaries — records of the meetings where park staff and local geologists planned the mapping and report;
• digital geologic maps, for GIS software, with a user guide and supporting information;
• reports, using the maps to discuss the park's setting, notable features and processes, management issues and geologic history;
• posters of the map data.

Where to find them: the NPS DataStore, with a completed Soil Resources Inventory for the park. More: NPS Geodiversity Atlas.

Sources

Based on "NPS Geodiversity Atlas—Fort Donelson National Battlefield, Kentucky and Tennessee," National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain.