The Bolton Valley 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.
Bolton Valley’s center stands about 1,880 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 780 ft to 3,320 ft, a difference of 2,540 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is The Chin, about 4,350 ft, 9 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Fayston Formation - albite schist member (muscovite-schist), from the Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian, 521 to 1,000 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 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.
Muscovite-schist, gneiss, quartzite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian, 521 to 1,000 million years old. About 13 mi of the line.
Muscovite-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian, 521 to 1,000 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Muscovite-schist, phyllite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian, 521 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Mica-schist, granofels, graywacke. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Quartz-feldspar-schist, phyllite, metagraywacke. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 0.6 mi of the line.
Muscovite-schist, phyllite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 0.5 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale.
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 Bolton Valley reaches the St. Lawrence River by way of Joiner Brook, the Winooski and the Richelieu: about 160 river miles. The St. Lawrence carries it on to the Atlantic.
Lake on the way: Lake Champlain.
80 miles of the trip are on the Richelieu.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Bolton Valley; river miles along the main stem, rounded.