The Malta 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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−18° on Nov. 14, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1996. Next is −18° in 2019.
Malta’s center stands about 2,260 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,240 ft to 2,530 ft, a difference of 290 ft: rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Claggett Formation (shale), from the Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 32×. 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: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Age: Late Miocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 12 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 million years old. About 0.3 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 Malta reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Milk River, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 3,150 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 Malta; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Malta has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 7° in January. About 13 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1996 at Malta, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
