The Ira 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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Ira’s center stands about 2,240 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 480 ft to 2,390 ft, a difference of 1,910 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Killington Peak, about 4,190 ft, 14 miles east.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Bull Formation - Mettawee slate facies (phyllite), from the Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 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 9×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Phyllite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Slate, phyllite. Age: Early Ordovician to Middle Ordovician, 459 to 487 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Slate, phyllite. Age: Early Cambrian to Middle Cambrian, 497 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Quartzite. Age: Early Cambrian, 521 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Dolostone, metasandstone. Age: Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian, 521 to 1,000 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Shale, phyllite, limestone. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 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 Ira reaches the St. Lawrence River by way of the Castleton, the Poultney and the Richelieu: about 240 river miles. The St. Lawrence carries it on to the Atlantic.
Lake on the way: Lake Champlain.
100 miles of the trip are on the Poultney.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Ira; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
