The Warner Valley 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.
Warner Valley’s center stands about 6,440 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,080 ft to 7,570 ft, a difference of 2,490 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Lassen Peak, about 10,370 ft, 10 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Tertiary volcanic flow rocks, unit 17 (Cascade Range) (andesite, basalt), from the Late Oligocene to Pleistocene, 2 to 24 million years old.
The section below crosses 2 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.
Andesite, basalt. Age: Late Oligocene to Pleistocene, 2 to 24 million years old. About 15 mi of the line.
Andesite, basalt. Age: Late Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 3.6 million years old. About 10 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 Warner Valley reaches San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean by way of Willow Creek, the North Fork Feather, the Feather and the Sacramento: about 250 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Almanor.
75 miles of the trip are on the Sacramento.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Warner Valley; river miles along the main stem, rounded.