The Morenci 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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Morenci’s center stands about 4,230 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,450 ft to 5,440 ft, a difference of 1,990 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mitchell Peak, about 7,910 ft, 11 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Early Pleistocene to late Miocene basin deposits (gravel, sand), from the Late Miocene to Pleistocene, 0.8 to 10 million years old.
The section below crosses 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 5×. 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, andesite, dacite. Age: Middle Eocene to Late Miocene, 11 to 38 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Conglomerate, sandstone. Age: Early Miocene to Pleistocene, 2 to 16 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Granitic. Age: Paleoproterozoic to Mesoproterozoic, 1.4 to 1.8 billion years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand. Age: Late Miocene to Pleistocene, 0.8 to 10 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale, limestone. Age: Early Cambrian to Late Mississippian, 330 to 540 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Granite, granodiorite, diorite. Age: Late Cretaceous to Early Eocene, 50 to 82 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 1 smaller unit along the line are not listed.
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 Morenci reaches the Gulf of California by way of the San Francisco, the Gila and the Colorado: about 600 river miles.
460 miles of the trip are on the Gila.
Often dry. About 50% of the way is mapped as streams that run only after rain or snowmelt; the water makes the whole trip in floods.
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 Morenci; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
