The Midvale 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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Midvale’s center stands about 2,540 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,520 ft to 2,940 ft, a difference of 420 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Sturgill Peak, about 7,550 ft, 15 miles northwest.
The section below crosses 6 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.
Basalt, basaltic-andesite. Age: Early Miocene to Late Miocene, 6 to 18 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Mixed-clastic. Age: Early Miocene to Late Miocene, 8 to 17 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Middle Miocene to Late Pliocene, 3 to 15 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gravel. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 5.3 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 Midvale reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of the Weiser, the Snake and the Columbia: about 700 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Umatilla, Brownlee Reservoir 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 Midvale; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
