The Orford 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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Orford’s center stands about 2,180 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 880 ft to 2,650 ft, a difference of 1,770 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Moosilauke, about 4,790 ft, 14 miles northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Clough Quartzite (quartzite, metaconglomerate), from the Silurian, 434 to 445 million years old.
The section below crosses 13 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.
Granodiorite. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Felsic-volcanic, mafic-volcanic. Age: Middle Ordovician to Late Ordovician, 445 to 471 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Mica-schist, quartzite. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Slate, schist. Age: Middle Ordovician to Late Ordovician, 445 to 471 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Quartzite. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Quartzite, metaconglomerate. Age: Silurian, 434 to 445 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 7 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 Orford reaches Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Jacobs Brook and the Connecticut: about 250 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Orford; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
