Mesozoic Basins Physiography Topics

1. Regional Setting
2. Extent and Boundaries
3. Characteristic Features
• Introduction to Physiography
• Coastal Plain
• Piedmont
• Mesozoic Basins
• Blue Ridge
• Valley and Ridge
• Appalachian Plateaus
• Virginia's Rivers

Mesozoic Basins Physiography: Regional Setting

• Mesozoic Basins are exposed within the eastern Appalachians from South Carolina to Canada.  In Virginia, they form a series of separate regions in the physiographic Piedmont.


The larger Mesozoic Basins in Virginia (blue). All the basins are exposed within the physiographic Piedmont. However, the Culpeper, Barboursille and Scottsville Basins border or are found in the geologic Blue Ridge. Most of the Taylorsville Basin is buried on its eastern side by younger Coastal Plain sedimentary rock. The Taylorsville Basin is actually one of the larger basins, if one includes the part that is buried. (Base map by the Virgiia Division of Geology and Mineral Resources, labels by Jon Tso)

• Mesozoic Basins form lowland depressions with higher ridges developed on more resistant rocks.


Above: View of ridges in Mesozoic Basin in Culpeper County.  The low-relief surface in the foreground is formed on older Piedmont rocks. Buzzard Mountain in the distance, is developed on harder igneous rocks in the Culpeper Mesozoic Basin. (Photogrpah by Stan Johnson)




• Buried Mesozoic Basins beneath Coastal Plain sediments extend from Georgia into Florida and the Gulf Coast region, and east into the Atlantic Ocean.