The Highland 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.
Chance of showers
Mostly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
Highland’s center stands about 1,580 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 680 ft to 2,480 ft, a difference of 1,800 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Sugarloaf Mountain, about 4,210 ft, 11 miles west-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Devonian granite, from the Devonian, 359 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 5×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Granite. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Gabbro, ultramafic. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Quartzite, calc-silicate-rock. Age: Silurian to Devonian, 359 to 445 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Metasiltstone, pelitic-schist. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Mudstone. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 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. 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 Highland reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Barker Brook, the Sandy Stream, the Gilman Stream, the Carrabassett and the Kennebec: about 130 river miles.
100 miles of the trip are on the Kennebec.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Highland; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
