The Hampden-Sydney 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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Hampden-Sydney’s center stands about 510 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 360 ft to 580 ft, a difference of 220 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Woods Mountain, about 800 ft, 12 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Interlayered Mafic and Felsic Metavolcanic Rocks (biotite-gneiss), from the Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 47×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Biotite-gneiss. Age: Proterozoic, 542 to 2,500 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Granite, monzogranite. Age: Proterozoic, 542 to 2,500 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Amphibolite, biotite-gneiss, schist. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Paragneiss. Age: Proterozoic, 542 to 2,500 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Metavolcanic. 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. 3 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 Hampden-Sydney reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Buffalo Creek, the Appomattox and the James: about 190 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Chesdin.
75 miles of the trip are on the Appomattox.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Hampden-Sydney; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
