The Graham 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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Graham’s center stands about 640 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 500 ft to 670 ft, a difference of 170 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Cane Creek Mountains, about 1,020 ft, 9 miles south-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Mafic Metavolcanic Rock (metabasalt), from the Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 62×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Metagranite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Middle Cambrian, 520 to 650 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Metadacite, metarhyolite, metavolcanic. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Metabasalt. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Metagabbro, metadiorite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Paleozoic, 252 to 1,000 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Metaandesite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Slate, argillite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 0.6 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 Graham reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Haw and the Cape Fear: about 230 river miles.
190 miles of the trip are on the Cape Fear.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Graham; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
