The Imperial 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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Imperial’s center stands about 450 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 380 ft to 760 ft, a difference of 380 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Frisco Hill, about 860 ft, 4 miles west-northwest.
The section below crosses 10 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 37×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Limestone. Age: Middle Ordovician to Late Ordovician, 445 to 471 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Middle Ordovician, 459 to 471 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Middle Mississippian, 331 to 347 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Late Ordovician, 447 to 454 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone, shale. Age: Middle Ordovician, 459 to 471 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 4 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 Imperial reaches the Gulf of America by way of Glaize Creek and the Mississippi: about 1,130 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Imperial; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
