The Utopia 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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Utopia’s center stands about 1,370 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,300 ft to 1,740 ft, a difference of 440 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Meridian Mountain, about 2,310 ft, 14 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Quaternary deposit, undivided (coarse-detrital, fine-detrital), from the Quaternary, less than 2.6 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 19×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Limestone, marlstone. Age: Early Cretaceous, 100 to 145 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Early Cretaceous, 100 to 145 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Black-shale, siltstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million 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 Utopia reaches Corpus Christi Bay and the Gulf of America by way of the Sabinal, the Frio and the Nueces: about 310 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Horseshoe Tank and Lake Corpus Christi.
120 miles of the trip are on the Frio.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Utopia; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
