The Ekalaka 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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Ekalaka’s center stands about 3,430 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,340 ft to 3,850 ft, a difference of 510 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Chalk Buttes, about 4,180 ft, 15 miles southwest.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 21×. 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, siltstone, bentonite. Age: Early Paleocene, 62 to 66 million years old. About 15 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale, bentonite. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 84 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, bentonite. Age: Late Eocene to Late Oligocene, 23 to 38 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 84 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Siltstone, black-shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 84 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. 2 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 Ekalaka reaches the Gulf of America by way of Russell Creek, Little Beaver Creek, the Little Missouri, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 3,000 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 Ekalaka; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
