The Rifle 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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Rifle’s center stands about 5,350 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,260 ft to 6,350 ft, a difference of 1,090 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is North Mamm Peak, about 11,000 ft, 11 miles south-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Modern alluvium (unconsolidated), from the Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 15 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 3×. 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: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Claystone. Age: Paleocene to Eocene, 34 to 66 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, arkose. Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 252 to 324 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone. Age: Eocene, 34 to 56 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. 9 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 Rifle reaches the Gulf of California by way of the Colorado: about 1,230 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 Rifle; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
