The Spanish Valley 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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Spanish Valley’s center stands about 5,130 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,770 ft to 7,100 ft, a difference of 2,330 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Peale, about 12,680 ft, 11 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Older alluvial deposits (coarse-detrital), from the Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 10 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 2×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Arenite. Age: Early Jurassic, 175 to 202 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Sand. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Diorite, monzodiorite. Age: Oligocene, 23 to 34 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone-mudstone. Age: Late Jurassic, 145 to 164 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone-mudstone. Age: Late Triassic, 202 to 237 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. 4 smaller units 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 Spanish Valley reaches the Gulf of California by way of Pack Creek, Mill Creek and the Colorado: about 1,060 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 Spanish Valley; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
