The Nickerson 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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Nickerson’s center stands about 1,280 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,170 ft to 1,350 ft, a difference of 180 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Chengwatana volcanic rocks (mafic-volcanic), from the Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old.
The section below crosses 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 31×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Mafic-volcanic. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.2 billion years old. About 10 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.
Nickerson straddles the St. Lawrence Divide. Rain on the southwest side runs to the Gulf of America; most of the rest goes to Lake Superior.
From the center of town, a raindrop reaches Lake Superior by way of the Net, the South Fork Nemadji and the Nemadji: about 60 river miles. From there it moves on through the Great Lakes, over Niagara Falls and down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic. One that lands on the southwest side reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Willow, the Kettle, the Saint Croix and the Mississippi: about 1,950 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Nickerson; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
