The Batesland 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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Batesland’s center stands about 3,400 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,320 ft to 3,520 ft, a difference of 200 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Porcupine Butte, about 3,640 ft, 12 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Arikaree Group (siltstone, sandstone), from the Oligocene to Miocene, 5.3 to 34 million years old.
The section below crosses 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 56×. 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, sandstone. Age: Oligocene to Miocene, 5.3 to 34 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Silt, sand. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, limestone, siltstone. Age: Miocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 23 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.
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 Batesland reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Little White, the White River, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,440 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Francis Case and Lewis and Clark Lake.
1,170 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Batesland; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
