The Clarendon 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.
Clarendon’s center stands about 2,750 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,680 ft to 2,880 ft, a difference of 200 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Ararat, about 3,150 ft, 13 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Sand sheet deposits, from the Holocene, less than 12,000 years old.
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 32×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sand. Age: Late Miocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 12 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Sand. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone-mudstone. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital, coarse-detrital. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 million years old. About 0.7 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 Clarendon reaches the Gulf of America by way of West Lelia Lake Creek, Lelia Lake Creek, the Salt Fork Red, the Red River, the Atchafalaya and the Lower Atchafalaya: about 1,260 river miles.
980 miles of the trip are on the Red River.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Clarendon; river miles along the main stem, rounded.