The Gorman 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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Gorman’s center stands about 1,450 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,330 ft to 1,490 ft, a difference of 160 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Blue Hills, about 1,700 ft, 13 miles northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Twin Mountains Formation (claystone, sandstone), from the Early Cretaceous, 100 to 145 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 46×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Claystone, sandstone. Age: Early Cretaceous, 100 to 145 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Sandstone, claystone. Age: Early Cretaceous, 100 to 145 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital, coarse-detrital. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 0.4 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 Gorman reaches the Gulf of America by way of Shinoak Branch, the Sabana, the Leon, the Little River and the Brazos: about 670 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Belton Lake and Proctor Lake.
320 miles of the trip are on the Brazos.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Gorman; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
