The Eton 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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Eton’s center stands about 780 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 700 ft to 1,210 ft, a difference of 510 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Cowpen Mountain, about 4,160 ft, 12 miles east-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Knox Group undifferentiated (dolostone), from the Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old.
The section below crosses 8 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.
Slate, quartzite, conglomerate. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 10 mi of the line.
Limestone, shale. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Middle Ordovician, 459 to 471 million years old. About 0.6 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian, 521 to 1,000 million years old. About 0.5 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 2 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 Eton reaches Mobile Bay and the Gulf of America by way of Mill Creek, the Conasauga, the Oostanaula, the Coosa, the Alabama and the Mobile: about 730 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lay Lake.
310 miles of the trip are on the Alabama.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Eton; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
