The Salem 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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Salem’s center stands about 500 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 390 ft to 610 ft, a difference of 220 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Davis Hill, about 740 ft, 10 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Biotite Gneiss (biotite-gneiss), 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 43×. 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. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 14 mi of the line.
Gneiss, mica-schist, amphibolite. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 4 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 2 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Clay, sand. Age: Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Mylonite. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 0.4 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.
A raindrop that lands in Salem reaches the Gulf of America by way of Raines Branch, Auchumpkee Creek, the Flint and the Apalachicola: about 340 river miles.
230 miles of the trip are on the Flint.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Salem; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
