The Ethel 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.
Ethel’s center stands about 440 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 410 ft to 600 ft, a difference of 190 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Ironstone Hills, about 690 ft, 10 miles east-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Tallahatta formation and Neshoba sand (claystone, clay), from the Eocene, 34 to 56 million 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 57×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Claystone, clay. Age: Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Clay, sand. Age: Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Sand, clay. Age: Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sand, clay. Age: Eocene, 34 to 56 million 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.
A raindrop that lands in Ethel reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Yockanookany and the Pearl: about 400 river miles.
Lake on the way: Cypress Lake.
310 miles of the trip are on the Pearl.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Ethel; river miles along the main stem, rounded.