The Sundance 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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Sundance’s center stands about 4,730 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,550 ft to 5,910 ft, a difference of 1,360 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Warren Peaks, about 6,630 ft, 6 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Spearfish Formation (shale, siltstone), from the Permian to Late Triassic, 202 to 299 million years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 11×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale, siltstone. Age: Permian to Late Triassic, 202 to 299 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Limestone, shale. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Plutonic, volcanic. Age: Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 252 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Cambrian to Permian, 252 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale, dolostone. Age: Middle Jurassic to Late Jurassic, 145 to 175 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 3 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 Sundance reaches the Gulf of America by way of Sundance Creek, South Redwater Creek, Redwater Creek, the Belle Fourche, the Cheyenne, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,620 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Oahe, Lake Sharpe, Lake Francis Case and Lewis and Clark Lake.
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 Sundance; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
