The Dakota Ridge 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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−11° on Nov. 13, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1918. Next is −9° in 1955.
Dakota Ridge’s center stands about 5,780 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,510 ft to 6,360 ft, a difference of 850 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Bergen Peak, about 9,690 ft, 14 miles west-northwest.
The section below crosses 14 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.
Biotite-gneiss, schist, migmatite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Sandstone, mudstone, conglomerate. Age: Late Cretaceous to Paleocene, 56 to 100 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Gravel, unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, 0.2 to 1.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Arkose, conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 252 to 324 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 8 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 Dakota Ridge reaches the Gulf of America by way of Dutch Creek, the South Platte, the Platte, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,420 river miles.
1,170 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Dakota Ridge; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Dakota Ridge has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 17° in January. A normal year brings about 62 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 18 inches of water.
On November 14 Dakota Ridge normally reaches 55° and falls to 26°. The record high is 79°, in 1933; the record low −6°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 0.78 in, fell in 1994.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1918 at Kassler, 9 miles south-southeast, 280 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
