The Albany 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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Albany’s center stands about 8,220 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 7,830 ft to 9,570 ft, a difference of 1,740 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Sugarloaf Mountain, about 11,360 ft, 15 miles northwest.
The section below crosses 11 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.
Gneiss, amphibolite, pelitic-schist. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Sandstone, claystone, conglomerate. Age: Late Miocene, 5.3 to 12 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1.4 to 1.4 billion years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Gabbroic. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Quartz-diorite, granodiorite, diorite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Clay, silt, sand. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 5 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 Albany reaches the Gulf of America by way of the South Fork Little Laramie, the Little Laramie, the Laramie, the North Platte, the Platte, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,510 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Wheatland Reservoir Number 2 and Grayrocks Reservoir.
1,170 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Albany; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
