The Pondera Colony 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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Pondera Colony’s center stands about 3,920 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,770 ft to 4,110 ft, a difference of 340 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Black Buttes, about 4,180 ft, 8 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Gravel, from the Late Miocene to Holocene, less than 7.2 million years old.
The section below crosses 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 19×. 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, siltstone, mudstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 84 million years old. About 20 mi of the line.
Age: Late Miocene to Holocene, less than 7.2 million years old. About 5 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 Pondera Colony reaches the Gulf of America by way of Dupuyer Creek, Birch Creek, the Two Medicine, the Marias, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 3,410 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 Pondera Colony; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
