The Hanksville 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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78° on Nov. 12, 1973, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1910. Next is 75° in 1928.
Hanksville’s center stands about 4,300 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,240 ft to 4,670 ft, a difference of 430 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Factory Butte, about 6,120 ft, 12 miles west-northwest.
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 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 10×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 100 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Middle Jurassic to Late Jurassic, 145 to 175 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Sand. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 94 to 125 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Arenite. Age: Early Jurassic, 175 to 202 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone-mudstone. Age: Late Jurassic, 145 to 164 million years old. About 2 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 Hanksville reaches the Gulf of California by way of Bull Creek, the Fremont, the Dirty Devil and the Colorado: about 1,020 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Mead, Lake Powell, Lake Mohave and Lake Havasu.
290 miles of the trip are on the Colorado.
Seldom reaches the sea. Dams and canals now take nearly all of the Colorado before its old delta in Mexico.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Hanksville; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Hanksville has a cold desert climate. Summer afternoons average 99° in July; winter nights fall to about 15° in January. A normal year brings about 7 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 6 inches of water.
On November 14 Hanksville normally reaches 57° and falls to 24°. The record high is 70°, in 1995; the record low 6°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 1.10 in, fell in 1910.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1910 at Hanksville, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
