The Tsaile 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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Tsaile’s center stands about 7,040 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 6,850 ft to 7,570 ft, a difference of 720 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Roof Butte, about 9,790 ft, 13 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Chinle Formation (mudstone), from the Late Triassic, 210 to 230 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 6×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Mudstone. Age: Late Triassic, 210 to 230 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Conglomerate, sandstone. Age: Late Triassic, 210 to 230 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Conglomerate, sandstone. Age: Early Paleocene to Early Oligocene, 30 to 65 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Basalt, andesite, dacite. Age: Middle Eocene to Late Miocene, 11 to 38 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 Tsaile reaches the Gulf of California by way of Agua Sal Creek, Lukachukai Creek, Chinle Wash, Chinle Creek, the San Juan and the Colorado: about 1,110 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Mead, Lake Powell, 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 Tsaile; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
