The Watersmeet 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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Watersmeet’s center stands about 1,680 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,560 ft to 1,770 ft, a difference of 210 ft: rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Migmatitic gneiss and amphibolite (Late to Early Archean) (gneiss, amphibolite, migmatite), from the Paleoarchean to Neoarchean, 2.5 to 3.6 billion 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 28×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Gneiss, amphibolite, migmatite. Age: Paleoarchean to Neoarchean, 2.5 to 3.6 billion years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Mixed-clastic, metagraywacke. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Banded-iron-formation. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.2 billion years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
Metagraywacke. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 0.7 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 Watersmeet reaches Lake Superior by way of Bonifas Creek, the Middle Branch Ontonagon and the Ontonagon: about 80 river miles. From there it moves on through the Great Lakes, over Niagara Falls and down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
50 miles of the trip are on the Middle Branch Ontonagon.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Watersmeet; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
