The Huntsville plate. Relief from Copernicus GLO-30; rivers and lakes from USGS NHD; watersheds from the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset; roads and city limits from Census TIGER 2024.
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Huntsville’s center stands about 1,510 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,260 ft to 1,830 ft, a difference of 570 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Hall Mountain, about 2,360 ft, 15 miles south.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Bloyd Shale, and Prairie Grove Member of the Hale Formation (shale, sandstone), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 19×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone, black-shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale, limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 0.9 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale.
Heights from Copernicus GLO-90 (a surface model: it includes buildings and tree canopy); summits from USGS GNIS; rivers from USGS NHDPlus HR; rock from the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation.
A raindrop that lands in Huntsville reaches the Gulf of America by way of Town Branch, Holman Creek, War Eagle Creek, the White River and the Mississippi: about 1,290 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Table Rock Lake and Beaver Lake.
620 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Huntsville; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
