The Mars Hill 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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Mars Hill’s center stands about 430 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 400 ft to 1,450 ft, a difference of 1,050 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mars Hill, about 1,730 ft, 3 miles east.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Silurian - Ordovician Carys Mills Formation (siltstone, limestone), from the Late Ordovician to Silurian, 434 to 459 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.
Sandstone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Siltstone, limestone. Age: Late Ordovician to Silurian, 434 to 459 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Mudstone. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Conglomerate. Age: Ordovician to Silurian, 422 to 487 million years old. About 0.9 mi of the line.
Mudstone. Age: Late Ordovician to Silurian, 434 to 459 million years old. About 0.3 mi of the line.
Mudstone. Age: Ordovician to Silurian, 422 to 487 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 Mars Hill reaches the Bay of Fundy and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Prestile Stream and the Saint John: about 170 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Mars Hill; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
