The Bearcreek 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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−26° on Nov. 16, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1961. Next is −20° in 1978.
Bearcreek’s center stands about 4,570 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,280 ft to 5,770 ft, a difference of 1,490 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Tolman Mountain, about 9,860 ft, 12 miles west-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Tongue River Member of Fort Union Formation (sandstone, shale), from the Early Paleocene to Middle Paleocene, 59 to 66 million years old.
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 3×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Early Paleocene to Middle Paleocene, 59 to 66 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Archean. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Early Paleocene, 62 to 66 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 84 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Plutonic. Age: Cretaceous to Tertiary, 2.6 to 145 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 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 Bearcreek reaches the Gulf of America by way of Bear Creek, the Clarks Fork Yellowstone, the Yellowstone, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 3,190 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Oahe, Lake Sakakawea, Lake Sharpe and Lake Francis Case.
1,170 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Bearcreek; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Bearcreek has a cold desert climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 7° in January. A normal year brings about 21 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 8 inches of water.
On November 14 Bearcreek normally reaches 47° and falls to 19°. The record high is 78°, in 1999; the record low −20°, in 1978. The most rain on this date, 0.34 in, fell in 2005.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1961 at Clark 3 NE, 16 miles south, 450 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
