The Elbert 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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Elbert’s center stands about 1,150 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,120 ft to 1,260 ft, a difference of 140 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Twin Mountain, about 1,420 ft, 14 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Sedwick and Moran Formations, undivided (claystone), from the Permian, 252 to 299 million 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 61×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Fine-detrital, coarse-detrital. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Siltstone-mudstone. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Claystone. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Siltstone-mudstone. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gravel. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 million years old. About 1 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 Elbert reaches the Gulf of America by way of Boggy Creek and the Brazos: about 800 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Possum Kingdom Lake and Lake Granbury.
550 miles of the trip are on the Brazos.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Elbert; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
