The Grand Canyon West 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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Grand Canyon West’s center stands about 3,890 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,180 ft to 4,860 ft, a difference of 3,680 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Tincanebitts Point, about 6,250 ft, 8 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Permian to Pennsylvanian sedimentary rocks (sandstone, shale, limestone), from the Middle Pennsylvanian to Permian, 280 to 310 million years old.
The section below crosses 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 4×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, shale, limestone. Age: Early Cambrian to Late Mississippian, 330 to 540 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale, limestone. Age: Middle Pennsylvanian to Permian, 280 to 310 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Sandstone, limestone. Age: Permian, 270 to 280 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Conglomerate, sandstone. Age: Early Miocene to Pleistocene, 2 to 16 million years old. About 2 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 Grand Canyon West reaches the Gulf of California by way of Lake Mead and the Colorado: about 520 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Mead, Lake Mohave and Lake Havasu.
290 miles of the trip are on the Colorado.
Seldom reaches the sea. Dams and canals now take nearly all of the Colorado before its old delta in Mexico.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Grand Canyon West; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
