The Mexico 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.
Mexico’s center stands about 810 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 730 ft to 840 ft, a difference of 110 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Marmaton Group (limestone, shale), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 324 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 64×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale, sandstone, siltstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Limestone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 3 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 Mexico reaches the Gulf of America by way of the South Fork Salt, the Salt River and the Mississippi: about 1,380 river miles.
Lake on the way: Mark Twain Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Mexico; river miles along the main stem, rounded.