An intrashelf basin located on the Upper Cambrian carbonate-rimmed shelf (miogeocline) of the Appalachian orogene, appears to have controlled facies distribution during deposition of the Nolichucky Formation (0 to 985 ft; 0 to 300 m thick). The intrashelf basin was bordered along strike and toward the regional shelf edge by a rim of peritidal carbonates and by nearshore clastics toward the craton. The peritidal carbonates passed into the intrashelf basin by way of a gently sloping carbonate ramp.

Peritidal facies are cyclic, upward-shallowing stromatolitic carbonates (Elbrook and/or Honaker Dolomite) that grade basinward into cross-bedded ooid and oncolitic intraclast grainstones. These pass downslope into subwave-base, deeper ramp, ribbon carbonates and thin limestone conglomerate (Maryville, Nolichucky lower limestone, and Maynardville limestone). Ribbon limestones are layers and lenses of trilobite packstone, parallel and wave-ripple-laminated quartzose calcisiltite, and lime mudstone arranged in storm-generated fining-upward sequences (0.39 to 2 in.; 1 to 5 cm thick) that may be burrowed. Intrashelf basin facies (Nolichucky lower and upper shale) are storm-generated sequences of green calcareous shale with open-marine biota; parallel with hummocky laminated calcareous siltstone; and intraformational flat-pebble conglomerate, and skeletal or ooid limestone with trace fossils, glauconite zones, and hardgrounds. A 49 ft (15 m) thick tongue of bioherm-bearing cyclic carbonates within the shale package (Nolichucky middle limestone) developed during a period of shoaling of the intrashelf basin.

Development of the Late Cambrian carbonate-rimmed shelf and its intrashelf ramp and basin may have been influenced by high carbonate production along the regional shelf edge, by tectonic subsidence associated with a major shelf depocenter, and by influx of terrigenous sediments which suppressed carbonate deposition in the basin.