The Sanford 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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Showers likely
Sanford’s center stands about 1,210 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,140 ft to 1,260 ft, a difference of 120 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Volcaniclastic rocks of felsic to intermediate composition (felsic-volcanic), from the Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old.
The section below crosses 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 54×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Felsic-volcanic. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Schist. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Tonalite, granodiorite, diorite. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Schist, paragneiss. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion 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.
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.
Sanford straddles the Laurentian Divide. Rain on the east side runs to the Gulf of America; most of the rest goes to Hudson Bay.
From the center of town, a raindrop reaches Hudson Bay by way of the Mustinka, the Bois de Sioux, the Red River of the North and the Nelson: about 1,300 river miles. Past the border it runs north through Canada to Hudson Bay. One that lands on the east side reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Pomme de Terre, the Minnesota and the Mississippi: about 2,220 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Traverse and Lake Winnipeg.
550 miles of the trip are on the Red River of the North.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Sanford; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
