The Second Mesa 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.
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
Mostly sunny
Chance of showers
Chance of showers; cooler
Second Mesa’s center stands about 6,050 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,720 ft to 6,330 ft, a difference of 610 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Oraibi Mesa, about 6,560 ft, 12 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Sedimentary rocks of the Late Cretaceous Mesaverde Group (sandstone, shale, coal), from the Late Cretaceous, 84 to 88 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 20×. 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, coal. Age: Late Cretaceous, 84 to 88 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone. Age: Early Jurassic to Late Jurassic, 160 to 180 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 88 to 97 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Silt, clay. Age: Holocene, less than 10,000 years old. About 3 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.
