The Colton 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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Colton’s center stands about 1,640 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,340 ft to 1,740 ft, a difference of 400 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Matumbla, about 2,710 ft, 14 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Biotite and/or hornblende granite gneiss, from the Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion 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 23×. 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 12 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Metasedimentary, migmatite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Metasedimentary, gneiss. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion 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.
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 Colton reaches the St. Lawrence River by way of the Blue Mountain Stream, the Middle Branch Grass, the Grass and the Saint Lawrence: about 100 river miles. The St. Lawrence carries it on to the Atlantic.
75 miles of the trip are on the Grass.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Colton; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
