The Dulce 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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Dulce’s center stands about 6,780 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 6,710 ft to 7,720 ft, a difference of 1,010 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Chromo Mountain, about 9,830 ft, 15 miles east.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Lewis Shale (mudstone, shale), from the Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 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.
Andesite, conglomerate-sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous to Paleocene, 56 to 100 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Claystone, sandstone. Age: Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Mudstone, shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Arkose, shale, conglomerate. Age: Late Cretaceous to Paleocene, 56 to 100 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Hypabyssal-basaltic-andesite, hypabyssal-basalt. Age: Late Eocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 38 million years old. About 0.9 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 Dulce reaches the Gulf of California by way of Amargo Creek, the Navajo, the San Juan and the Colorado: about 1,200 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 Dulce; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
