The Presque Isle 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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Presque Isle’s center stands about 1,660 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,620 ft to 1,790 ft, a difference of 170 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Wolf Mountain, about 1,830 ft, 14 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Menominee Group; Blair Creek Formation (basalt), from the Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion 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 64×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Gneiss, amphibolite. Age: Paleoarchean, 3.2 to 3.6 billion years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gneiss, amphibolite. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Banded-iron-formation. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
Metagraywacke. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 0.4 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.
Presque Isle straddles the St. Lawrence Divide. Rain on the south side runs to the Gulf of America; most of the rest goes to Lake Superior.
From the center of town, a raindrop reaches Lake Superior by way of the South Branch Presque Isle, the West Branch Presque Isle and the Presque Isle: about 55 river miles. From there it moves on through the Great Lakes, over Niagara Falls and down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic. One that lands on the south side reaches the Gulf of America by way of Rice Creek, the Manitowish, the Flambeau, the Chippewa and the Mississippi: about 2,020 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Presque Isle; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
