The Nowata 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
Mostly sunny
Sunny
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
Nowata’s center stands about 700 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 650 ft to 770 ft, a difference of 120 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Blue Mound, about 1,000 ft, 13 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Nowata Formation (shale), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 60×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone, sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 2 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 Nowata reaches the Gulf of America by way of Oologah Lake, the Verdigris, the Arkansas and the Mississippi: about 1,120 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Oologah Lake, Murray Lake and Ozark Lake.
600 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Nowata; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
