The Staunton 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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Staunton’s center stands about 1,420 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,290 ft to 1,760 ft, a difference of 470 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Great North Mountain, about 4,460 ft, 13 miles west.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Beekmantown Group (dolostone, limestone), from the Ordovician, 445 to 487 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 11×. 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 8 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 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. 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 Staunton reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Lewis Creek, the Middle River, the North River, the South Fork Shenandoah, the Shenandoah and the Potomac: about 370 river miles.
180 miles of the trip are on the Potomac.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Staunton; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
