The Fairfield 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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Fairfield’s center stands about 1,610 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,200 ft to 1,980 ft, a difference of 780 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is The Priest, about 4,060 ft, 13 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Conococheague Formation (limestone), from the Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old.
The section below crosses 15 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 7×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Charnockite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Quartzite, conglomerate, sandstone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Arenite, shale, sandstone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 9 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 Fairfield reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the South River, the Maury and the James: about 310 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Fairfield; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
