The Buffalo 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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Buffalo’s center stands about 760 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 350 ft to 1,260 ft, a difference of 910 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Broad Mountain, about 1,790 ft, 13 miles east.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Duncannon Member of Catskill Formation (sandstone, siltstone), from the Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 19×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Siltstone, shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Siltstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone, sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Siltstone, mudstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Early Devonian to Middle Devonian, 384 to 422 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. 3 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 Buffalo reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Juniata and the Susquehanna: about 100 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Buffalo; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
