The Story 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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Story’s center stands about 5,040 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,450 ft to 6,450 ft, a difference of 2,000 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Little Goose Peak, about 9,310 ft, 10 miles west.
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 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 4×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Mudstone, sandstone. Age: Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Gneiss, quartz-diorite, quartz-monzonite. Age: Archean. About 9 mi of the line.
Clay, silt, sand. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Middle Cambrian to Late Ordovician, 445 to 521 million years old. About 0.5 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Late Devonian to Carboniferous, 324 to 384 million 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.
A raindrop that lands in Story reaches the Gulf of America by way of Spring Creek, North Piney Creek, Piney Creek, Clear Creek, the Powder River, the Yellowstone, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 3,220 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Oahe, Lake Sakakawea, Lake Sharpe and Lake Francis Case.
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 Story; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
