The Pinedale 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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Pinedale’s center stands about 7,010 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 6,870 ft to 7,630 ft, a difference of 760 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Powell, about 8,730 ft, 15 miles southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Mancos Shale, lower part (shale, limestone), from the Late Cretaceous, 90 to 100 million years old.
The section below crosses 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 11×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 94 to 100 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Late Jurassic, 145 to 164 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 90 to 100 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Mudstone, shale, sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 87 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 84 to 90 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 87 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. 1 smaller unit 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 Pinedale reaches the Gulf of California by way of the Puerco, the Little Colorado and the Colorado: about 1,090 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 Pinedale; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
