The Navajo 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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Navajo’s center stands about 7,140 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 6,980 ft to 8,120 ft, a difference of 1,140 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Sonsela Buttes, about 8,990 ft, 14 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Triassic rocks, undivided (sandstone, shale), from the Triassic, 202 to 252 million years old.
The section below crosses 10 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 9×. 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, limestone. Age: Middle Pennsylvanian to Permian, 280 to 310 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Oligocene, 23 to 34 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone. Age: Middle Jurassic, 164 to 175 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Late Jurassic, 145 to 164 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Mudstone. Age: Late Triassic, 210 to 230 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Triassic, 202 to 252 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. 4 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 Navajo reaches the Gulf of California by way of Tohdildonih Wash, Black Creek, the Puerco, the Little Colorado and the Colorado: about 1,080 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Mead, Lake Mohave and Lake Havasu.
290 miles of the trip are on the Colorado.
Often dry. About 30% of the way is mapped as streams that run only after rain or snowmelt; the water makes the whole trip in floods.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Navajo; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
