The Rumford 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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Rumford’s center stands about 500 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 430 ft to 1,820 ft, a difference of 1,390 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Jackson Mountain, about 3,550 ft, 14 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Devonian granite (muscovite accessory mineral), tonalite (granite, tonalite), from the Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old.
The section below crosses 14 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 9×. 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, shale. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Metasiltstone, pelitic-schist. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Granite, tonalite. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Silurian, 425 to 434 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 8 smaller units 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 Rumford reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Scotty Brook, the Androscoggin and the Kennebec: about 110 river miles.
90 miles of the trip are on the Androscoggin.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Rumford; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
