The Gibson 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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Gibson’s center stands about 2,050 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 850 ft to 2,180 ft, a difference of 1,330 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Old Round Top, about 2,360 ft, 9 miles west-southwest.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 13×. 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, siltstone. Age: Devonian to Carboniferous, 324 to 422 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 4 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 Gibson reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Mix Run, Bennett Branch Sinnemahoning Creek, Sinnemahoning Creek, the West Branch Susquehanna and the Susquehanna: about 260 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
110 miles of the trip are on the West Branch Susquehanna.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Gibson; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
