The Gerlach 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.
Gerlach’s center stands about 3,940 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,910 ft to 5,160 ft, a difference of 1,250 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Granite Peak, about 8,930 ft, 10 miles north-northwest.
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 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 4×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Granodiorite, granite. Age: Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Volcanic, carbonate, mudstone. Age: Late Triassic to Early Jurassic, 175 to 237 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.
Coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sand. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 0.5 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.