The West Branch 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.
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
Chance of showers
West Branch’s center stands about 1,190 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,150 ft to 1,320 ft, a difference of 170 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Green Hills, about 1,750 ft, 12 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Munising Formation (sandstone), from the Cambrian, 487 to 497 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 44×. 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 10 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 497 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 497 million years old. About 5 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.
A raindrop that lands in West Branch reaches Lake Michigan by way of the North Branch Ford and the Ford: about 75 river miles. From there it moves on through the Great Lakes, over Niagara Falls and down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of West Branch; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
