The New Washington 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.
New Washington’s center stands about 720 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 620 ft to 800 ft, a difference of 180 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Silver Hills, about 1,030 ft, 15 miles west.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Muscatatuck Group (limestone, dolostone), from the Devonian, 359 to 422 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 40×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Devonian to Carboniferous, 324 to 422 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Siltstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 2 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 New Washington reaches the Gulf of America by way of Fourteenmile Creek, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,380 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 New Washington; river miles along the main stem, rounded.