The Wisdom 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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Wisdom’s center stands about 6,040 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 6,000 ft to 6,200 ft, a difference of 200 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Odell Mountain, about 9,390 ft, 10 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Alluvium (gravel, sand, silt), from the Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old.
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 6×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sedimentary. Age: Tertiary, 2.6 to 66 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Granitic. Age: Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Metasiltstone, argillite, quartzite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 1.8 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Granitic. Age: Tertiary, 2.6 to 66 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. 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 Wisdom reaches the Gulf of America by way of Steel Creek, the Big Hole, the Jefferson, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 3,660 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 Wisdom; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
