From the east the escarpment that forms the edge of the plateau has the appearance of a mountain range.[1] However, technically it is an eroded plain of sedimentary rock not mountains.[2] A large portion of the plateau is a coalfield formed during the Pennsylvanian Period.[3] The surface of the plateau slopes gently to the northwest and merges imperceptibly into the Interior Plains.
The main physiographic sections (generally ordered from the northeast to the southwest) of the plateau are named the Mohawk section, the Catskill section, the southern New York section, the Allegheny Plateau section, the Kanawha section, the Cumberland Plateau section, and the Cumberland Mountains section.[4]
^ Dryer, Charles Redway (1911). High School Geography. New York: American Book Company. found online at [1]
^ Elliott, Brook; Barbara Elliott (1998). Hiking Kentucky. Champagne, IL: Human Kinetics. ISBN 0-88011-812-1. found online at [2]
^ Montrie, Chad (2003). To Save the Land and People: A History of Opposition to Surface Coal Mining in Appalachia. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-5435-2. found online at [3]
^ "Physiographic Regions". A Tapestry of Time and Terrain: The Union of Two Maps - Geology and Topography. Retrieved on 2006-05-14.
