The Newkirk 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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Newkirk’s center stands about 4,560 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,500 ft to 4,840 ft, a difference of 340 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Luciano Mesa, about 5,590 ft, 9 miles southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Upper Chinle Group, Garita Creek through Redonda Formations, undivided (sandstone, mudstone), from the Late Triassic, 202 to 237 million years old.
The section below crosses 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 17×. 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, mudstone. Age: Late Triassic, 202 to 237 million years old. About 20 mi of the line.
Sand. Age: Middle Miocene to Early Pliocene, 3.6 to 16 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 0.1 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Late Jurassic, 145 to 164 million years old. About 1 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 Newkirk reaches the Gulf of America by way of Pajarito Creek, the Canadian, the Arkansas and the Mississippi: about 1,770 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Murray Lake, Ozark Lake and Ute Reservoir.
720 miles of the trip are on the Canadian.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Newkirk; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
