The Oxford 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.
Oxford’s center stands about 340 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 300 ft to 720 ft, a difference of 420 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Streaked Mountain, about 1,740 ft, 9 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Carboniferous alkali feldspar granite (muscovite accessory mineral), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 359 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 14×. 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: Carboniferous, 299 to 359 million years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Metasandstone. Age: Silurian, 434 to 445 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 359 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Marble. Age: Silurian, 428 to 445 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Silurian, 428 to 434 million years old. About 0.7 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 Oxford reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Meadow Brook, the Little Androscoggin, the Androscoggin and the Kennebec: about 70 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Oxford; river miles along the main stem, rounded.