The Marion 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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70° on Nov. 13, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1892. Next is 68° in 1930.
Marion’s center stands about 310 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 250 ft to 810 ft, a difference of 560 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Blacktail, about 1,680 ft, 14 miles east-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Lacustrine and fluvial sedimentary rocks (clay, silt, sand), from the Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 15×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Clay, silt, sand. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sand, gravel, silt. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Oligocene to Early Miocene, 16 to 34 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Gravel, boulders, clay. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Early Miocene to Middle Miocene, 12 to 23 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. 2 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 Marion reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Marion Creek, the North Santiam, the Santiam, the Willamette and the Columbia: about 230 river miles.
Lake on the way: Willamette Falls Hydroelectric Power Reservoir.
100 miles of the trip are on the Columbia.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Marion; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Marion has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 35° in December. About 40 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Marion normally reaches 54° and falls to 39°. The record high is 68°, in 2001; the record low 12°, in 1955. The most rain on this date, 3.00 in, fell in 1896.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1892 from the Salem Area threaded record (Salem Airport (Mcnary Field), 11 miles north-northwest, 100 ft lower). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
