The Blackfoot 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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Blackfoot’s center stands about 4,150 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,100 ft to 4,320 ft, a difference of 220 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Houseman Hill, about 5,100 ft, 14 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Glacial deposit (unconsolidated), from the Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 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 20×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 16 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 72 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 0.7 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 Blackfoot reaches the Gulf of America by way of Flatiron Creek, Willow Creek, Cut Bank Creek, the Marias, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 3,450 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Oahe, Lake Sakakawea, Lake Fort Peck and Lake Sharpe.
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 Blackfoot; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
