The Arlington 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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Arlington’s center stands about 7,710 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 7,430 ft to 9,300 ft, a difference of 1,870 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Rock Creek Knoll, about 11,120 ft, 13 miles south.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Alluvium and Colluvium (clay, silt, sand), from the Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 5×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Amphibolite, hornblende-gneiss, biotite-gneiss. Age: Archean. About 6 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Clay, silt, sand. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sand, gravel, boulders. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gneiss, metagabbro, amphibolite. Age: Archean. About 0.7 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 2 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 Arlington reaches the Gulf of America by way of Watkins Creek, Rock Creek, the Medicine Bow, the North Platte, the Platte, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,760 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Seminoe Reservoir and Pathfinder 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 Arlington; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
