The Rainsburg 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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Rainsburg’s center stands about 1,380 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,230 ft to 2,330 ft, a difference of 1,100 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Martin Hill, about 2,790 ft, 4 miles southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Coburn Formation through Loysburg Formation, undivided (limestone, shale, dolostone), from the Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old.
The section below crosses 14 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 11×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Quartzite. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Siltstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Silurian to Devonian, 359 to 445 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. 8 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 Rainsburg reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Cove Creek, the Raystown Branch Juniata, the Juniata and the Susquehanna: about 280 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Aldred and Raystown Lake.
90 miles of the trip are on the Juniata.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Rainsburg; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
