The Reed 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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Reed’s center stands about 550 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 390 ft to 640 ft, a difference of 250 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Peekaboo Mountain, about 1,090 ft, 13 miles east.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Devonian - Silurian Madrid Formation (quartzite, calc-silicate-rock), from the Silurian to Devonian, 359 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 41×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Quartzite, calc-silicate-rock. Age: Silurian to Devonian, 359 to 445 million years old. About 15 mi of the line.
Conglomerate. Age: Late Ordovician to Silurian, 422 to 459 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Slate, sandstone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Slate. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 0.9 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 0.4 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 Reed reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Mattawamkeag and the Penobscot: about 110 river miles.
85 miles of the trip are on the Penobscot.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Reed; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
