According to the National Park "story of the park" the flat section may or
may not have been caused by a meteor strike, another possibility is the
collapse of a large underground cavern. And in this area , caverns are
extremely common.
IF anyone gets bored and wants to go on an adventure I would recomend a
trip along the top of Pine Mountain from Letcher County down into Harlan
County. Just a small one lane dirt road( more of a wide path) and it is
really like stepping back in time. I used to go hunting up there, and it
seemed to be just miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles.
Makes you daydream about being Daniel Boone....and a time before the
greed of man cut down entire forests off the sides of the mountains and
before we stripped mined what was left into a pile of rubble. Just look at
Jenkins , KY for that. Pitiful, on US 23 at the top of Pine Mountain,
looking toward Virginia is very pretty, you look back at Kentucky and see a
waste land around Jenkins..like a nuke went off.

Patrick
student SPL
aircraft structural mech