The Sumner 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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Sumner’s center stands about 480 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 420 ft to 1,420 ft, a difference of 1,000 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Spruce Mountain, about 2,410 ft, 7 miles west.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Silurian Sangerville Formation, Anasagunticook member (metasandstone), from the Silurian, 434 to 445 million years old.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 11×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Marble. Age: Silurian, 428 to 445 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Schist. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Metasandstone. Age: Silurian, 434 to 445 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Schist. Age: Early Devonian, 394 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.
Metasandstone, pelitic-schist, metasiltstone. Age: Early Devonian, 394 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. 2 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 Sumner reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the West Branch Nezinscot, the Nezinscot, the Androscoggin and the Kennebec: about 90 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Sumner; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
