The Jordan 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.
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Jordan Valley’s center stands about 4,470 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,340 ft to 4,970 ft, a difference of 630 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Twin Peaks, about 7,060 ft, 13 miles northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Tuffaceous sedimentary rocks, tuffs, pumicites, and silicic flows (rhyolite), from the Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 10×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, siltstone, mudstone. Age: Miocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 23 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Sand, gravel, silt. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Rhyolite. Age: Middle Miocene to Late Miocene, 8 to 14 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.
Rhyolite. Age: Miocene, 5.3 to 23 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. 3 smaller units along the line are not listed.
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 Jordan Valley reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Jordan Creek, the Owyhee, the Snake and the Columbia: about 890 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Umatilla, Brownlee Reservoir, Lake Owyhee 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 Jordan Valley; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
