Natural Resources
Conservation Service
Ecological site F128XY502WV
Thermic Floodplain Alluvium
Accessed: 12/22/2024
General information
Provisional. A provisional ecological site description has undergone quality control and quality assurance review. It contains a working state and transition model and enough information to identify the ecological site.
MLRA notes
Major Land Resource Area (MLRA): 128X–Southern Appalachian Ridges and Valleys
MLRA 128, partially shown as the gray shaded area on the accompanying figure, falls into the East and Central Farming and Forest Region. This MLRA is in Tennessee (36 percent), Alabama (27 percent), Virginia (25 percent), and Georgia (12 percent). It makes up about 21,095 square miles (54,660 square kilometers).
Most of this MLRA is in the Tennessee Section of the Valley and Ridge Province of the Appalachian Highlands. The thin stringers in the western part of the area are mostly in the Cumberland Plateau Section of the Appalachian Plateaus Province of the Appalachian Highlands. A separate area of the MLRA in northern Alabama is in the Highland Rim Section of the Interior Low Plateaus Province of the Interior Plains. The western side of the area is dominantly hilly to very steep and is rougher and much steeper than the eastern side, much of which is rolling and hilly. Elevation ranges from 660 feet (200 meters) near the southern end of the area to more than 2,400 feet (730 meters) in the part of the area in the western tip of Virginia. Some isolated linear mountain ridges rise to nearly 4,920 feet (1,500 meters) above sea level.
The MLRA is highly diversified. It has many parallel ridges, narrow intervening valleys, and large areas of low, irregular hills. The bedrock in this area consists of alternating beds of limestone, dolomite, shale, and sandstone of early Paleozoic age. Ridgetops are capped with more resistant carbonate and sandstone layers, and valleys have been eroded into the less resistant shale beds. These folded and faulted layers are at the southernmost extent of the Appalachian Mountains. The narrow river valleys are filled with unconsolidated deposits of clay, silt, sand, and gravel.
Classification relationships
South-Central Interior Large Floodplain (NatureServe)
Ecological site concept
Natureserve describes a similar system as follows: "This floodplain system is found in the Interior Highlands as far west as eastern Oklahoma, as well as throughout the Interior Low Plateau, Cumberlands, Southern Ridge and Valley, and Western Allegheny Plateau, and lower elevations of the Southern Blue Ridge. Examples occur along large rivers or streams where topography and alluvial processes have resulted in a well-developed floodplain. A single occurrence may extend from river's edge across the outermost extent of the floodplain or to where it meets a wet meadow or upland system...Although vegetation is quite variable in this broadly defined system, examples may include Acer saccharinum, Platanus occidentalis, Liquidambar styraciflua, and Quercus spp. Understory species are mixed, but include shrubs, such as Cephalanthus occidentalis and Arundinaria gigantea ssp. gigantea, and sedges (Carex spp.). This system likely floods at least once annually and can be altered by occasional severe floods. Impoundments and conversion to agriculture can also impact this system."
Table 1. Dominant plant species
| Tree |
(1) Quercus nigra |
|---|---|
| Shrub |
(1) Lindera benzoin |
| Herbaceous |
(1) Arundinaria gigantea |
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