The Becenti 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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Becenti’s center stands about 6,590 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 6,360 ft to 6,700 ft, a difference of 340 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Heart Rock, about 6,920 ft, 11 miles southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Menefee Formation (mudstone, shale, sandstone), from the Late Cretaceous, 72 to 87 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 11×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Mudstone, shale, sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 87 million years old. About 16 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 90 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 84 to 90 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 87 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 84 to 87 million years old. About 0.4 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 Becenti reaches the Gulf of California by way of Indian Creek, the Chaco, the San Juan and the Colorado: about 1,190 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Mead, Lake Powell, Lake Mohave and Lake Havasu.
Seldom reaches the sea. Dams and canals now take nearly all of the Colorado before its old delta in Mexico.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Becenti; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
