The La Plata 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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74° on Nov. 12, 1967, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1895. Next is 74° in 1973.
La Plata’s center stands about 5,780 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,640 ft to 6,080 ft, a difference of 440 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Barker Dome, about 7,150 ft, 8 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Alluvium (unconsolidated), from the Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 0.1 million years old.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 13×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, shale, conglomerate. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 0.1 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Mudstone, shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 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. 2 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 La Plata reaches the Gulf of California by way of Allen Arroyo, the La Plata, the San Juan and the Colorado: about 1,120 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Mead, Lake Powell, Lake Mohave and Lake Havasu.
290 miles of the trip are on the Colorado.
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 La Plata; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
La Plata has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 94° in July; winter nights fall to about 17° in January. A normal year brings about 11 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 10 inches of water.
On November 14 La Plata normally reaches 58° and falls to 26°. The record high is 73°, in 1999; the record low 4°, in 1929. The most rain on this date, 0.73 in, fell in 1910.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1895 at Aztec Ruins Natl Monument, 12 miles east-southeast, 140 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
