The Jay 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.
Chance of showers
Mostly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Jay’s center stands about 2,190 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,090 ft to 3,330 ft, a difference of 2,240 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Jay Peak, about 3,810 ft, 2 miles south-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Hazens Notch Formation - undivided (muscovite-schist, gneiss, quartzite), from the Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian, 521 to 1,000 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 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.
Phyllite, muscovite-schist, quartzite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Muscovite-schist, gneiss, quartzite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian, 521 to 1,000 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Phyllite. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 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.
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 Jay reaches the St. Lawrence River by way of Jay Branch, the Missisquoi and the Richelieu: about 200 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 Jay; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
