The Frailey 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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Frailey’s center stands about 1,390 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 800 ft to 1,700 ft, a difference of 900 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Big Mountain, about 1,830 ft, 12 miles north.
The section below crosses 12 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 15×. 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. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone, sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Siltstone, shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Siltstone, mudstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Early Devonian to Middle Devonian, 384 to 422 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. 6 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 Frailey reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Middle Creek, Swatara Creek and the Susquehanna: about 130 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
65 miles of the trip are on Swatara Creek.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Frailey; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
