Blue Ridge Physiography Topics

1. Regional Setting

2. Extent and Boundaries

3. Characteristic Features

• Part 1
• Part 2

4.  Drainage

• Major River Systems
• The New River
• Wind Gaps
• Escarpments

5. Special Features

• Aerial Tour of the Southern Blue Ridge
• The Skyline Drive

• Introduction to Physiography

• Coastal Plain

• Piedmont

• Mesozoic Basins

• Blue Ridge

• Valley and Ridge

• Appalachian Plateaus

• Virginia's Rivers

Blue Ridge Physiography: Special Features (Part 1)

Special physiographic features of Virginia’s Piedmont and Blue Ridge include:

1. Aerial tour of the Southern Blue Ridge

2. Skyline Drive

Aerial Tour of the Southern Blue Ridge

• The Blue Ridge in southwestern Virginia is dramatically different from the northern Blue Ridge.  The southern Blue Ridge is a broad, highland plateau that has even higher peaks, including Mount Rogers, reaching above the stream-eroded plateau surface.

• The following aerial tour takes an airplane trip across the southern Blue Ridge in Virginia.  These views are typical of the beautiful scenery and interesting geology in this region.

Aerial Tour Location Map. (Maps courtesy of the Virginia Division of Geology and Mineral Resources)

Looking east across the Valley and Ridge in southern Pulaski County to the foothills along the western edge of the Blue Ridge in the distance.  These rocks in these foothills are Chilhowee Group sedimentary rocks, late Precambrian to early Paleozoic shales, conglomerates, and sandstones. (Photograph by Robert Whisonant)
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Quarry in Antietam Sandstone (Chilhowee Group) in the Blue Ridge south of Wytheville in Wythe County. The Antietam is a quartz-rich sandstone commonly found along the western flanks of the Blue Ridge. (Photograph by Robert Whisonant)
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