The Mocanaqua 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.
Mocanaqua’s center stands about 960 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 490 ft to 1,480 ft, a difference of 990 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Arbutus Peak, about 2,080 ft, 15 miles east.
The section below crosses 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 14×. 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 11 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone, sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Siltstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone. 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 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. 1 smaller unit 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 Mocanaqua reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Turtle Creek and the Susquehanna: about 180 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
130 miles of the trip are on the Susquehanna.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Mocanaqua; river miles along the main stem, rounded.