The Empire 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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Empire’s center stands about 4,040 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,910 ft to 5,240 ft, a difference of 1,330 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Kumiva Peak, about 8,190 ft, 12 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Alluvium, undifferentiated (coarse-detrital, fine-detrital), from the Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 6×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Granodiorite, granite. Age: Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Andesite, basalt. Age: Oligocene to Miocene, 5.3 to 34 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Volcanic, carbonate, mudstone. Age: Late Triassic to Early Jurassic, 175 to 237 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sedimentary, volcanic. Age: Miocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 23 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. 3 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.
