The Litchfield 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.
Mostly cloudy
Partly cloudy; warmer
Mostly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Litchfield’s center stands about 1,470 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,180 ft to 1,640 ft, a difference of 460 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Angel Hill, about 2,120 ft, 14 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Helderberg Group (limestone, dolostone), from the Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old.
The section below crosses 10 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 12×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Black-shale. Age: Middle Devonian, 388 to 394 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone, shale. Age: Silurian, 422 to 428 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Middle Ordovician, 459 to 471 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Siltstone, shale. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 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. 4 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.
A raindrop that lands in Litchfield reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of North Winfield Creek, the Unadilla and the Susquehanna: about 470 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
360 miles of the trip are on the Susquehanna.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Litchfield; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
