The Buckfield 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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Buckfield’s center stands about 380 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 330 ft to 1,210 ft, a difference of 880 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Spruce Mountain, about 2,410 ft, 14 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Silurian Sangerville Formation, Patch Mountain member (marble), from the Silurian, 428 to 445 million years old.
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 13×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Marble. Age: Silurian, 428 to 445 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Metasandstone. Age: Silurian, 434 to 445 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Silurian, 428 to 434 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Schist. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Metasandstone, pelitic-schist, metasiltstone. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
Marble. Age: Silurian, 434 to 445 million years old. About 0.3 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 Buckfield reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the West Branch Nezinscot, the Nezinscot, the Androscoggin and the Kennebec: about 85 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Buckfield; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
