Search USGSSearch

Geology topics

Research about Malheur County, Oregon

Source-linked reports with geographic coverage including Malheur County, Oregon.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

Chemical, isotopic, and dissolved gas compositions of the hot springs of the Owyhee Uplands, Malheur County, Oregon

Hot springs along the Owyhee River in southeastern Oregon between Three Forks and Lake Owyhee could be part of a north flowing regional system or a series of small separate geothermal systems Heat for the waters could be from a very young (Holocene) volcanic activity (basalt flows) of the Owyhee Uplands or the regional heat flow. The springs discharge warm to hot, dilute, slightly alkaline, sodium bicarbonate water. Chemically they are similar to the dilute thermal water at Bruneau Grand View and Twin Falls, Idaho. Maximum aquifer temperatures in the Owyhee Uplands, estimated from chemical geothermometry, are about 100°C. Dissolved helium concentrations, carbon 14 activity, and chemical and isotope data are examined fro systematic trends which would indicate a geothermal system of regional extent.

Oregon

Comparison of fire fuel maps produced using MSS and AVHRR data

The fuel information, in support of the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) national fire program, has been obtained through the manila interpretation of Landsat multi-spectral scanner images and digital image analysis of Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data. The BLM, in cooperation with the Earth Resources Observation Systems Data Center, determined that the accuracy (approximately 90 percent overall) was similar for deriving fire fuel information for Malheur County in eastern Oregon using either approach, and for an area the size of Malheur County (6.4 million acres), the costs were about the same (0.19 cents per acre). But the cost per acre was substantially lower (0.04 cents) where digital analysis of AVHRR data were used to derive fire fuel information for a 42-million-acre area in eastern Oregon. Based on these results, the BLM is using digital analysis of AVHRR data to support its operational fire fuel mapping program.

Oregon

Chert derived from magadiite in a lacustrine deposit near Rome, Malheur County, Oregon

Nodules and thin beds of chert occur in the upper part of the informally named Rome beds, about 8 11 km southwest of Rome, Oreg. The chert is in green to gray mudstone, about 8 m beneath a conspicuous gray and yellow zeolitic tuff. The bedded chert contains molds of saline minerals and it grades southward and marginward into nodular chert. The nodular chert is of two varieties: relatively large lobate nodules that have greenish-brown interiors and abundant saline crystal molds, and relatively small lobate nodules that have gray interiors and a surface reticulation. The latter variety is the so-called snakeskin agate prized by lapidaries. Both nodular varieties characteristically have a thin white rind. The cherts are similar, if not identical, to cherts reported from Quaternary lacustrine deposits in eastern Africa and from Pleistocene to Jurassic lacustrine deposits in Wyoming. The Rome chert probably formed from a hydrous sodium silicate precursor such as magadiite during diagenesis. Magadiite is generally a primary precipitate from a highly alkaline lake which is capable of attaining a high concentration of silica in solution.

Oregon