The Southwest Harbor 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.
Southwest Harbor’s center stands about 50 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 870 ft, a difference of 870 ft: hilly country. Open water lies within three miles. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Cadillac Mountain, about 1,520 ft, 7 miles northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Devonian granite, from the Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old.
The section below crosses 4 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.
Granite. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Felsic-volcanic, mafic-volcanic. Age: Middle Cambrian, 499 to 507 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Granite. 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.
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.
Rain that falls on Southwest Harbor runs straight into the Atlantic Ocean.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Southwest Harbor; river miles along the main stem, rounded.