The Siler City 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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Siler City’s center stands about 630 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 530 ft to 770 ft, a difference of 240 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Pilot Mountain, about 950 ft, 13 miles west-southwest.
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 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 48×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Metadacite, metarhyolite, metavolcanic. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Slate, argillite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Metabasalt. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Metagranite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Middle Cambrian, 520 to 650 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.
Metasedimentary. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 0.9 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 Siler City reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Loves Creek, the Rocky, the Deep River 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 Siler City; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
