The Duluth 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.
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Sunny
Sunny
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Duluth’s center stands about 1,070 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 900 ft to 1,110 ft, a difference of 210 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Stone Mountain, about 1,670 ft, 14 miles south.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Metagraywacke/ Mica Schist (metagraywacke, mica-schist), from the Precambrian to Paleozoic.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 39×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Amphibolite, biotite-gneiss, mica-schist. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 12 mi of the line.
Metagraywacke, mica-schist. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 4 mi of the line.
Gneiss, amphibolite. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 3 mi of the line.
Schist. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 3 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 2 mi of the line.
Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. 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.
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.
Duluth straddles the Eastern Continental Divide. Rain on the southeast side runs to the Atlantic Ocean; most of the rest goes to the Gulf of America.
From the center of town, a raindrop reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Chattahoochee and the Apalachicola: about 440 river miles. One that lands on the southeast side reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Sweetwater Creek, the Yellow, the Ocmulgee and the Altamaha: about 440 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Walter F George Reservoir, West Point Lake and Bartletts Ferry Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Duluth; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
