The Malta 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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Malta’s center stands about 4,520 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,450 ft to 5,160 ft, a difference of 710 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Harrison, about 9,250 ft, 15 miles west.
The section below crosses 4 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.
Gravel. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 15 mi of the line.
Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Rhyolite. Age: Middle Miocene to Late Miocene, 8 to 14 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 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.
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 Malta reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Cassia Creek, the Raft, the Snake and the Columbia: about 1,040 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Umatilla, Brownlee Reservoir, Cove Arm Lake and Hells Canyon Reservoir.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Malta; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
