The Marion 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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13° on Nov. 15, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1894. Next is 13° in 2019.
Marion’s center stands about 2,150 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,120 ft to 3,200 ft, a difference of 1,080 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Rogers, about 5,720 ft, 12 miles south.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Moccasin or Bays Formation through Blackford Formation (shale), from the Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old.
The section below crosses 17 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 6×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, quartzite. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale, mudstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Rhyolite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 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. 11 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 Marion reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Middle Fork Holston, the South Fork Holston, the Holston, the Tennessee, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,900 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Guntersville Lake, White Lake (historical), Pickwick Lake and South Holston Lake.
970 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Marion; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Marion has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 23° in January. A normal year brings about 10 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 48 inches of water.
On November 14 Marion normally reaches 58° and falls to 31°. The record high is 77°, in 1958; the record low 14°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 0.61 in, fell in 1929.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1894 at Saltville 1 N, 15 miles west-northwest, 420 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
