The Indian Wells 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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Indian Wells’s center stands about 5,770 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,600 ft to 6,410 ft, a difference of 810 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Hauke Mesa, about 6,810 ft, 15 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Glen Canyon Group (sandstone), from the Late Triassic to Early Jurassic, 180 to 210 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 17×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Basalt. Age: Late Miocene to Early Pliocene, 4 to 8 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Triassic to Early Jurassic, 180 to 210 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Sand, silt, clay. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Mudstone. Age: Late Triassic, 210 to 230 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 Indian Wells reaches the Gulf of California by way of Bidahochi Wash, Pueblo Colorado Wash, Cottonwood Wash, the Little Colorado and the Colorado: about 970 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Mead, Lake Mohave and Lake Havasu.
290 miles of the trip are on the Colorado.
Often dry. About 30% of the way is mapped as streams that run only after rain or snowmelt; the water makes the whole trip in floods.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Indian Wells; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
