Nashville Basin
It is apparently uphill in any direction out of Nashville, as a visit to any of the taller bulidings in the downtown area will readily make apparent. Nashville itself is located in the northwestern portion of this basin. Travelling north or west out of Nashville one will soon begin the climb up the escarpment that marks the bordering geographic/geologic province, the Highland Rim. The basin extends for approximately forty-five to sixty miles to the east of Nashville, and about eighty miles to the south, near the Tennessee-Alabama line.
The Nashville Basin is underlain primarily by limestone from the Ordovician Period. This area and a similar, but smaller area surrounding Lexington, Kentucky referred to as the "Kentucky Bluegrass" area, are the two primary areas of this sort in the world.
The Inner Basin of the flattest terrain and most limestone-derived soil chemistry is located to the south and east of Nashville, primarily in the counties of Maury, Rutherford, Coffee, and Bedford. Here also are seen the horse farms somewhat reminiscient of the Kentucky Bluegrass region. Supposedly the underlying rock weathers to a soil particularly suited to the growing of the sorts of grasses most favored by horses. Limestone glades, open areas where the flat limestone rock is denuded of overlying soil or nearly so, provide an environment for flora unlike any other in the world.
