The Wright 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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Wright’s center stands about 5,100 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,830 ft to 5,100 ft, a difference of 270 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Rocky Butte, about 5,280 ft, 7 miles west.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Wasatch Formation (mudstone, sandstone), from the Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 29×. 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 24 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 Wright reaches the Gulf of America by way of Hay Creek, the Belle Fourche, the Cheyenne, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,860 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 Wright; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
