The Capitan 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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Capitan’s center stands about 6,350 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 6,220 ft to 6,780 ft, a difference of 560 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Nogal Peak, about 9,910 ft, 14 miles west-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Mancos Shale, from the Late Cretaceous, 72 to 100 million years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 5×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Granitic, syenitic. Age: Eocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 56 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Andesite, dacite. Age: Late Eocene to Early Miocene, 16 to 38 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 94 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, mudstone, conglomerate. Age: Middle Triassic to Late Triassic, 202 to 247 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Arenite, shale. Age: Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 94 to 113 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. 3 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 Capitan reaches the Gulf of America by way of Magado Creek, Salado Creek, the Rio Bonito, the Rio Hondo, the Pecos and the Rio Grande: about 1,310 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Paz Ramirez Lake, Amistad Reservoir, Red Bluff Reservoir and Lake McMillan.
410 miles of the trip are on the Pecos.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Capitan; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
