Roadside Geology of TennesseeTennessee, extending 500 diagonal miles between Bristol and Memphis, cuts across numerous rock types, from the deformed gneiss of the Blue Ridge along the North Carolina border to the young sediments exposed in the Chickasaw Bluffs that rise 100 feet above the Mississippi River floodplain. The states more than 1 billion years of geologic history includes continental collisions that built enormous mountains and rifting forces that almost split the