The Crystal 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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Crystal’s center stands about 7,520 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 7,290 ft to 8,590 ft, a difference of 1,300 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Sonsela Buttes, about 8,990 ft, 7 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Morrison Formation (sandstone, shale), from the Late Jurassic, 145 to 164 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 8×. 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. Age: Late Triassic, 210 to 230 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Oligocene, 23 to 34 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone. Age: Late Triassic, 202 to 237 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Late Jurassic, 145 to 164 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Basaltic-andesite, andesite. Age: Late Oligocene to Early Miocene, 22 to 26 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 Crystal reaches the Gulf of California by way of Crystal Creek, Coyote Wash, Chinle Wash, Chinle Creek, the San Juan and the Colorado: about 1,160 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 Crystal; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
