The Reading 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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Reading’s center stands about 1,850 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,040 ft to 2,380 ft, a difference of 1,340 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Killington Peak, about 4,190 ft, 13 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Waits River Formation - carbonaceous phyllite and limestone member (phyllite, limestone), from the Silurian to Early Devonian, 394 to 425 million years old.
The section below crosses 15 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 8×. 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, limestone. Age: Silurian to Early Devonian, 394 to 425 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Paragneiss. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1.2 to 1.4 billion years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Slate, phyllite, mica-schist. Age: Silurian to Early Devonian, 394 to 425 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Schist. Age: Cambrian to Early Ordovician, 471 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1.2 to 1.6 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Mica-schist, quartzite. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 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. 9 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 Reading reaches Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Darby Brook, the North Branch Black, the Black River and the Connecticut: about 210 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Reading; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
