The Junction City 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.
Junction City’s center stands about 990 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 920 ft to 1,280 ft, a difference of 360 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Sand Knob, about 1,470 ft, 6 miles southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows New Albany, Chattanooga, and Ohio Shales, Boyle Dolomite (Limestone), and Sellersburg Limestone, undivided (black-shale), from the Devonian to Carboniferous, 324 to 422 million years old.
The section below crosses 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 28×. 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. Age: Middle Ordovician, 459 to 471 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Devonian to Carboniferous, 324 to 422 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Devonian to Carboniferous, 324 to 422 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 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. 1 smaller unit 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 Junction City reaches the Gulf of America by way of White Oak Creek, Hanging Fork Creek, the Dix, the Kentucky, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,580 river miles.
Lake on the way: Herrington Lake.
970 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Junction City; river miles along the main stem, rounded.