The Springfield 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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Springfield’s center stands about 560 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 360 ft to 780 ft, a difference of 420 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Bowers Mountain, about 1,170 ft, 6 miles east.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Silurian unnamed limestone, from the Silurian, 422 to 445 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 24×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Limestone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Slate, sandstone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Felsic-volcanic. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Mudstone, sandstone. Age: Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Mudstone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Mudstone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 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. 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 Springfield reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Wrights Mill Stream, the East Branch Mattakeunk Stream, the Mattawamkeag and the Penobscot: about 100 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 Springfield; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
