The Marengo 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.
Marengo’s center stands about 610 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 580 ft to 890 ft, a difference of 310 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Pikes Peak, about 980 ft, 13 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Blue River Group (limestone), from the Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 37×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Sandstone, limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 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.
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 Marengo reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Brandywine Fork, Whiskey Run, the Blue River, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,320 river miles.
970 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Marengo; river miles along the main stem, rounded.