The Bruneau 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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Bruneau’s center stands about 2,540 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,460 ft to 2,970 ft, a difference of 510 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Pence Butte, about 3,710 ft, 14 miles southeast.
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 18×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Mixed-clastic, volcanic. Age: Early Miocene to Pleistocene, 2 to 16 million years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Late Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 3 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 5.3 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 1 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 Bruneau reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of the Bruneau, the Snake and the Columbia: about 820 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Umatilla, Brownlee Reservoir, Cove Arm Lake and Hells Canyon Reservoir.
240 miles of the trip are on the Snake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Bruneau; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
