The Carbondale 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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Carbondale’s center stands about 6,180 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 6,070 ft to 7,230 ft, a difference of 1,160 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Sopris, about 12,920 ft, 10 miles south.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Gravels and alluviums (gravel, unconsolidated), from the Pleistocene, less than 0.5 million years old.
The section below crosses 11 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.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 0.5 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Miocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 23 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Arkose, siltstone, conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 252 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gravel, unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 0.5 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Tertiary to Quaternary, less than 66 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, arkose. Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 252 to 324 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. 5 smaller units 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 Carbondale reaches the Gulf of California by way of the Roaring Fork and the Colorado: about 1,270 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Mead, Lake Powell, Lake Mohave and Lake Havasu.
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 Carbondale; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
