History of the Ocoee River


Our rivers have seen a lot of comings and goings since the state of Tennessee was born two hundred years ago. Along forested banks floated Cherokees, Chickasaws, and Creeks. They left arrowheads and burial mounds and river names soft as morning mist, such as Ocoee and Hiwassee.
Then settlers came, packing their wordly goods and their courage aboard flimsy rafts. The rivers were our highways, carrying produce to market and soldiers to battle.
The rivers are just as alluring today. Take a raft ride down the turbulent Ocoee, site of the 1996 Olympic Games' Slalom Canoe/ Kayak Competition, or if you're a fisherman, come to the Hiwassee, one of Tennessee's most rewarding rivers.
The history of the Ocoee River is nothing short of amazing.

The Geologic Story of the Ocoee River

The Earth is approximately 4.5 billion (4,500,000,000) years old. Over long periods of time, the seven continents have moved great distances, oceans formed, and mountains have risen. Geologists read the history of Earth, in part, by studying the rocks at the surface. Present-day locations of different types of rocks, and the minerals, textures, and structures within rock units, are largely the result of plate tectonics-the formation, movement, and collision of plates. Here is a glimpse of part of the geologic story revealed by rocks in the southeastern United States:

750 to 570 million years ago (during the Late Proterzoic Era)
-- Ancient strems transported sand, clay, and gravel from a
large supercontinent into a deep ocean (named lapetus). The
sediments spread out in alternating layers on the sea floor. A
pile of sediments more than 6 miles(10 kilometers) thick
accumulated and later hardened to form alternating beds of
sand stone, shale, and conglomerate.

-- Large copper deposits formed in the area we know know
as Copper Basin, near Ducktown, Tennessee. Geologists
think that these ore deposits proabaly formed from hot
fluids escaping from deep within the Earth through vents
in this ancient sea floor. Metal-rich "black smokers"
discovered recently in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of
Washington and Oregon may represent a modern analogue.

570 to 240 million years ago (during the Paleozoic Era)
-- A chain of volcanic islands moving westward on a crustal
plate collided with the ancestral North American plate, causing
huge sheets of rock to be thrust westward along faults or breaks
in the rock layers. A second collision occured later when the lapetus
Ocean closed and the ancestral African plate (called Gondwanaland)
collided with the ancestral North American plate to create a
supercontinent known as Pangea.

-- Rocks buckled into folds and large blocks of rock slid over
each other along the Great Smoky fault. Heat and pressure
increased due to these collision and transformed sedimentary
rocks into metamorphic rocks. For example, shale became slate.
These events built the present-day Appalachain Mountains.

-- Light and dark gray bands in the rocks that we see along the Ocoee
River Gorge today were originally layers of sedimentsthat were
deformed during this era. The lighter colored layers are coarser
grained and harder than the darker layers. The hard, coarse grained
layers form ledges that make up many of the rapids in the river.

220 to 185 million years ago (during the Mesozoic Era)
-- Long after the last collision, the supercontinent began to split to
form the modern Atlantic Ocean, which continues to grow wider
even today. When this event began, dinosaurs were prevalent on Earth.

100 million years ago to the present (Cenozoic Era)
--Erosion by westward flowing water created the dramatic landscape and deep gorges
along the Ocoee River and its tributaries. The Ocoee River Gorge cuts across the northeast trend
of the Appalachain Mountains and has exposed a cross section through the rocks.

100,000 years ago (during the Quaternary Period)
--Evidence of modern humans on Earth appears in the geologic record.

150 years ago
--Mining and smelting were begun in Copper Basin (Ducktown).

85 years ago
-- The first dam (Ocoee Dam No. 1 or Parksville Dam) was completed on the Ocoee River
to generate hydroelectric power. This dam created Lake Ocoee (Parksville Lake).

Today
--Geologic processes and human activities continue to change
the landscape around you. Weathering from rain and snow erodes
the hills and mountains as the rivers and streams carve deeper
channels into the Earth.

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