The Pahrump 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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Pahrump’s center stands about 2,700 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,580 ft to 3,230 ft, a difference of 650 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Nopah Peak, about 6,320 ft, 14 miles south-southwest.
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 5 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.
Coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 15 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone, shale. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Ordovician to Early Devonian, 394 to 487 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Middle Devonian to Late Devonian, 359 to 394 million years old. About 1.0 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.
