The Cedro 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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Cedro’s center stands about 7,190 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 6,610 ft to 7,710 ft, a difference of 1,100 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is South Sandia Peak, about 9,730 ft, 8 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Madera Group (limestone, sandstone, shale), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 324 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 7×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Limestone, sandstone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 19 mi of the line.
Granitic. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1.2 to 1.6 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Permian, 284 to 299 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 90 to 100 million years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
Sandstone, limestone. Age: Permian, 260 to 290 million years old. About 0.6 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale, siltstone. Age: Late Pennsylvanian, 299 to 307 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 Cedro reaches the Gulf of America by way of Tijeras Arroyo and the Rio Grande: about 1,570 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Paz Ramirez Lake, Amistad Reservoir, Elephant Butte Reservoir and Caballo Reservoir.
760 miles of the trip are on the Rio Grande.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Cedro; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
