The Hollister 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.
Hollister’s center stands about 260 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 180 ft to 340 ft, a difference of 160 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Metamudstone and Meta-Argillite (slate, argillite), from the Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old.
The section below crosses 11 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 64×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Mica-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Slate, argillite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand. Age: Tertiary, 2.6 to 66 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss, mica-schist, amphibolite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Granitic. Age: Early Pennsylvanian to Permian, 270 to 320 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Metaandesite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 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. 5 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 Hollister reaches Pamlico Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Porter Creek, Little Fishing Creek, Fishing Creek, the Tar and the Pamlico: about 170 river miles.
55 miles of the trip are on Fishing Creek.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Hollister; river miles along the main stem, rounded.