The Midland 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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Midland’s center stands about 320 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 260 ft to 470 ft, a difference of 210 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Wildcat Mountain, about 1,390 ft, 15 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Newark Supergroup; Triassic shale and siltstone (shale, siltstone), from the Triassic, 202 to 252 million years old.
The section below crosses 13 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 48×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Metabasalt. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone. Age: Triassic, 202 to 252 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Early Jurassic, 175 to 202 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Monzogranite. Age: Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Siltstone, sandstone. Age: Early Jurassic, 175 to 202 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Amphibolite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 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. 7 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 Midland reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Licking Run, Cedar Run, the Occoquan and the Potomac: about 140 river miles.
85 miles of the trip are on the Potomac.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Midland; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
