The Clifton 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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Clifton’s center stands about 1,690 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,430 ft to 1,850 ft, a difference of 420 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Long Tom Mountain, about 2,610 ft, 10 miles east-southeast.
The section below crosses 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 14×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Gneiss. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 17 mi of the line.
Metasedimentary, migmatite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 0.8 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 Clifton reaches the St. Lawrence River by way of the Oswegatchie and the Saint Lawrence: about 160 river miles. The St. Lawrence carries it on to the Atlantic.
Lake on the way: Lake Saint Lawrence.
110 miles of the trip are on the Oswegatchie.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Clifton; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
