The Waterloo 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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Waterloo’s center stands about 690 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 520 ft to 700 ft, a difference of 180 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Buck Knob, about 850 ft, 14 miles southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Warsaw Formation and Salem Limestone, from the Middle Mississippian, 331 to 347 million years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 46×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Early Pennsylvanian to Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 324 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Limestone, sandstone, shale. Age: Middle Mississippian, 331 to 347 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Middle Mississippian, 331 to 347 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Middle Mississippian, 331 to 347 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Late Ordovician, 447 to 454 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Early Mississippian to Middle Mississippian, 331 to 359 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. 3 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 Waterloo reaches the Gulf of America by way of Fountain Creek and the Mississippi: about 1,150 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Waterloo; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
