The West 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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West Buffalo’s center stands about 2,040 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 610 ft to 1,990 ft, a difference of 1,380 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Buffalo Mountain, about 2,230 ft, 12 miles west-southwest.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 12×. 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, shale. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Silurian to Devonian, 359 to 445 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Quartzite. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 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. 2 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 West Buffalo reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Muddy Run, Spruce Run, the Mill Race, the West Branch Susquehanna and the Susquehanna: about 150 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
85 miles of the trip are on the Susquehanna.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of West Buffalo; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
