The Benson 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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71° on Nov. 12, 1960, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1956. Next is 70° in 2016.
Benson’s center stands about 4,430 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,410 ft to 4,460 ft, a difference of 50 ft: nearly flat ground. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Logan Peak, about 9,690 ft, 12 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Alluvium and colluvium (unconsolidated), from the Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 4×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 13 mi of the line.
Clay. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, carbonate. Age: Middle Pennsylvanian to Permian, 273 to 315 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Mudstone, unconsolidated. Age: Middle Miocene to Late Pliocene, 2.6 to 16 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Carbonate. Age: Early Mississippian to Late Mississippian, 324 to 359 million years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 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.
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 Benson reaches Great Salt Lake by way of the Bear River: about 75 river miles. Great Salt Lake has no outlet to the sea: the water leaves only by evaporating or soaking into the ground.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Benson; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Benson has a dry-summer hot-summer continental climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 14° in January. A normal year brings about 44 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 17 inches of water.
On November 14 Benson normally reaches 48° and falls to 25°. The record high is 69°, in 2025; the record low 7°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 1.49 in, fell in 1958.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1956 at Logan Radio Kvnu, 5 miles southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
