The Nordic 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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Nordic’s center stands about 6,130 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,660 ft to 9,000 ft, a difference of 3,340 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Man Peak, about 10,280 ft, 12 miles southeast.
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 6 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.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Middle Cambrian to Late Ordovician, 445 to 521 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Clay, silt, sand. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Late Devonian to Carboniferous, 324 to 384 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Mixed-clastic, volcanic. Age: Early Miocene to Pleistocene, 2 to 16 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Clay, volcanic, limestone. Age: Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old. About 0.9 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 Nordic reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of the Salt River, the Snake and the Columbia: about 1,240 river miles.
Lakes on the way: American Falls Reservoir, Palisades Reservoir, Lake Umatilla and Brownlee Reservoir.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Nordic; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
