The Pinon 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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Pinon’s center stands about 5,940 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,710 ft to 6,310 ft, a difference of 600 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Chatfield Peak, about 7,150 ft, 9 miles west-southwest.
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 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 7×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Permian, 260 to 290 million years old. About 18 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 0.1 million years old. About 6 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 Pinon reaches the desert basins of the Rio Grande country by way of Pi¿on Creek: about 45 river miles. The desert basins of the Rio Grande country has no outlet to the sea: the water leaves only by evaporating or soaking into the ground.
Often dry. About 100% 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 Pinon; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
