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Research about Idaho

Source-linked reports with geographic coverage including Idaho.

At least 901 records · Page 50Linked to original sources
USGS1976

Water resources data for Idaho, water year 1975

Water resources data for the 1975 water year for Idaho consist of records of stage, discharge, and water quality of streams; stage, contents, and water quality of lakes and reservoirs; and water-levels and water quality of wells and springs. This report contains discharge records for 192 gaging stations; stage only records for two gaging stations; stage for six lakes; contents for 24 lakes and reservoirs; water-quality data for 100 gaging stations, 59 partial-record stations, two lakes, and 33 wells; and water levels for 79 observation wells. Also included are data for 58 crest-stage partial-record stations and 180 low-flow partial-record stations. Additional water data were collected at various sites, not part of the systematic data collection program, and are published as miscellaneous measurements. These data represent that part of the National Water Data System operated by the U.S. Geological Survey and cooperating State and Federal agencies in Idaho.

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USGS1976

Flood characteristics of streams in Owyhee County, Idaho

Channel-width measurements were used to estimate annual peaks with a recurrence interval of 10 years at 79 sites in Owyhee County, Idaho, and adjacent areas. These discharges and those from 33 gaging stations are plotted on a map of the area. The map will allow the user to interpolate between sites. (Woodard-USGS)

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USGS1976

Geology and geophysics of the southern Raft River Valley geothermal area, Idaho, USA

The Raft River valley, near the boundary of the Snake River plain with the Basin and Range province, is a north-trending late Cenozoic downwarp bounded by faults on the west, south, and east. Pleistocene alluvium and Miocene-Pliocene tuffaceous sediments, conglomerate, and felsic volcanic rocks aggregate 2 km in thickness. Large gravity, magnetic, and total field resistivity highs probably indicate a buried igneous mass that is too old to serve as a heat source. Differing seismic velocities relate to known or inferred structures and to a suspected shallow zone of warm water. Resistivity anomalies reflect differences of both composition and degree of alteration of Cenozoic rocks. Resistivity soundings show a 2 to 5 ohm·m unit with a thickness of 1 km beneath a large part of the valley, and the unit may indicate partly hot water and partly clayey sediments. Observed self-potential anomalies are believed to indicate zones where warm water rises toward the surface. Boiling wells at Bridge, Idaho are near the intersection of north-northeast normal faults which have moved as recently as the late (?) Pleistocene, and an east-northeast structure, probably a right-lateral fault. Deep circulation of ground water in this region of relatively high heat flow and upwelling along faults is the probable cause of the thermal anomaly.

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USGS1976

Digital-model analysis of the effects of water-use alternatives on spring discharges Gooding and Jerome Counties, Idaho

Springs discharging from the Snake Plain aquifer contribute approximately 6,000 cubic feet per second (170 cubic metres per second) to flow in the Snake River between Milner and King Hill. Before irrigation began on the Snake River Plain north and east of the springs, total spring discharge was about 4,200 cubic feet per second (120 cubic meters per second). Increasing amounts of irrigated acreage from the early 1900's to the mid-1940's contributed more irrigation-return water to the aquifer resulting in increased discharge at the springs. Maximum discharge of about 6,800 cubic feet per second (190 cubic metres per second) occurred during the late 1940's and early 1950's. Increased use of pumped ground water for irrigation and changing irrigation practices have since resulted in a decline in spring discharge.

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USGS1976

Geologic mapping and earthquakes in southeastern Idaho

On April 14, 1973, a magnitude 4.75 earthquake occurred in Oneida County, Idaho. The intensity of ground motion was too slight to cause damage, and local interest in this event was so slight that it was not even noted in the weekly newspaper, the Idaho Enterprise , published in Malad City, the county seat. Two years later, an earthquake of magnitude 6.1 and three shocks, each of a magnitude greater than 4, occurred in nearly the same place under Pocatello Valley (fig 1). The main shock on March 27, 1975, was the strongest in the United States since the 1971 San Fernando Valley, Calif., event and was reported in newspapers across the country.

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USGS1975

Basic ground-water data for the Moscow Basin, Idaho

The Moscow basin encompasses an area of 65 square miles (170 square kilometres) in Latah County and borders the Idaho Washington State line (fig. 1). The basin is along the eastern edge of the "Palouse Country" where the rolling Palouse hills merge with the low mountains of northern Idaho. It is drained by the South Fork Palouse River, Paradise Creek, and Missouri Flat Creek, and their headwater tributaries. All water supplies for the basin are derived from wells and springs. Virtually all large-capacity wells are owned by the City of Moscow and the University of Idaho. These wells are open to the basalt of the Columbia River Group and the interbedded sands in the Latah Formation (Stevens, 1960, p. 335; Jones and Ross, 1972, p. 12-13, fig. 4). Many domestic and a few commercial wells are also open to these same formations. Most of the City and University wells tap thick sections of these water-bearing formations. However, only about 25 percent of the total basin area is underlain by basalt. The approximate subsurface extent of the area underlain by basalt, as determined by well logs and geophysical data, is shown in figure 2. The purpose of this report is to present basic geologic and hydrologic data that are available in the basin. Included are a table of well records, well logs, a table of annual ground-water withdrawals, water levels in observation wells, a contour map showing the approximate elevation of the water-level in the upper series of basalt flows and interbedded sediments in the southern part of the area (fig. 2), and a bibliography of the more important reports pertaining to ground water in the area. More than 90 percent of the wells tapping basalt were visited, but only a representative number of wells tapping other rocks were visited. Data that may have become available after December 1972 are not given except for water-level measurements made in March 1973.

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USGS1975

A model for earthquakes near Palisades Reservoir, southeast Idaho

The Palisades Reservoir seems to be triggering earthquakes: epicenters are concentrated near the reservoir, and quakes are concentrated in spring, when the reservoir level is highest or is rising most rapidly, and in fall, when the level is lowest. Both spring and fall quakes appear to be triggered by minor local stresses superposed on regional tectonic stresses; faulting is postulated to occur when the effective normal stress across a fault is decreased by a local increase in pore-fluid pressure. The spring quakes tend to occur when the reservoir level suddenly rises: increased pore pressure pushes apart the walls of the graben flooded by the reservoir, thus decreasing the effective normal stress across faults in the graben. The fall quakes tend to occur when reservoir level is lowest: water that gradually infiltrated poorly permeable (fault-gouge?) zones during high reservoir stands is then under anomalously high pressure, which decreases the effective normal stress across faults in the poorly permeable zones.

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USGS1975

Land subsidence and tectonism, Raft River Valley, Idaho

A comparison of 1974 leveling data with elevations established 40 years earlier reveals two types of vertical ground movement which have occurred in Raft River Valley, Idaho: (1) regional differential movement of about 0.22 ft (6.4 cm), apparently due to tectonism, and (2) extensive land subsidence of as much as 2.61 ft (0.80 m) caused by withdrawal of ground water. Data are too sparse to calculate the magnitude or areal extent of subsidence; however, tentative lines of equal subsidence suggest that the area affected by subsidence probably exceeds 100 mi 2 (260 km 2 ). In order to estimate historic subsidence or subsidence potential in Raft River Valley serious consideration should be given to a field program of basic-data collection. Leveling along a few carefully selected lines of existing control and the installation and operation of extensometer water-level recorders in areas of continuing water-level decline would provide useful data for evaluating past and estimating future subsidence.

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USGS1975

A model for earthquakes near Palisades Reservoir, southeast Idaho

The Palisades Reservoir seems to be triggering earthquakes: epicenters are concentrated near the reservoir, and quakes are concentrated in spring, when the reservoir level is highest or is rising most rapidly, and in fall, when the level is lowest. Both spring and fall quakes appear to be triggered by minor local stresses superposed on regional tectonic stresses; faulting is postulated to occur when the effective normal stress across a fault is decreased by a local increase in pore-fluid pressure. The spring quakes tend to occur when the reservoir level suddenly rises: increased pore pressure pushes apart the walls of the graben flooded by the reservoir, thus decreasing the effective normal stress across faults in the graben. The fall quakes tend to occur when the reservoir level is lowest: water that gradually infiltrated poorly permeable (fault-gouge?) zones during high reservoir stands is then under anomalously high pressure, which decreases the effective normal stress across faults in the poorly permeable zones.

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USGS1975

Possible extension of mineral belts, northern part of Coeur d'Alene district, Idaho

The ore deposits in the northern part of the Coeur d'Alene district are located within rocks of the Belt Supergroup that have been intruded by Cretaceous quartz monzonites. Lead-zinc-silver replacement veins constitute most of the deposits. The geometry of the district has been modified by post-ore faulting along the Osburn, Dobson Pass, and other faults. The original position of the Gem stocks, before their separation from the Diego Peak stocks by the Dobson Pass fault, can be approximately reconstructed by moving the truncated stocks and associated geochemical dispersion patterns back into matching positions. The known mineral belts are defined by dispersion patterns of both lead and the Pb:Zn ratio. Similar dispersion patterns of lead and the Pb:Zn ration northwest of the original position of the Gem stocks suggest that the mineral belts extend into that area.

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USGS1975

Ordovician and middle Silurian rocks of the Wildhorse window, northeastern Pioneer Mountains, central Idaho

Along Wildhorse Creek in the northeastern Pioneer Mountains, autochthonous Ordovician and Silurian rocks of an eastern carbonate assemblage are exposed in a structural window through allochthonous flysch deposits of the Mississippian Copper Basin Group. Graptolite-bearing Middle and Upper Ordovician dolomite and cherty dolomite 210 ft (64 m) thick are lithologically and faunally similar to the Hanson Creek Formation of central Nevada and the Saturday Mountain Formation of central Idaho. Monograptus -bearing Middle Silurian platy limestone at least 130 ft (40 m) thick resembles the Roberts Mountains Formation of central Nevada and rocks improperly designated Trail Creek Formation in the Bayhorse region of central Idaho. Allochthonous age-equivalent units of a more western transitional assemblage (the type Phi Kappa and Trail Creek Formations) occur 5 mi (8 km) west of the Wildhorse window, along the crest of the Pioneer Mountains.

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USGS1975

A proposed glacial history of the Henrys Lake Basin, Idaho

Deposits of several glaciations from oldest to youngest, pre-Bull Lake, Bull Lake, and Pinedale are in and near the Henrys Lake basin, a northwest-trending hourglass-shaped trough in southeastern Idaho. Glacial deposits of pre-Bull Lake age are represented by till remnants confined mostly to the higher levels of the surrounding mountains. The extent of Bull Lake ice into the basin is uncertain. Glacial deposits and ice-marginal features suggest that a lobe of Bull Lake ice the Henrys Lake ice lobe moved into the basin and advanced as far north as the north edge of Henrys Lake. After this lobe melted back far enough to expose the north end of the basin, melt waters, chiefly from alpine glaciers in Targhee Creek and its tributaries, formed the broad low Howard Creek fan at the mouth of the valley of Howard Creek. Shortly thereafter, a complex of channels was cut into the fan by periodic melt-water floods which flowed westward through Targhee Pass during the waste of another Bull Lake ice lobe which lay in the West Yellowstone Basin. Melt waters from various sources ponded to form a shallow lake in front of the wasting Henrys Lake ice lobe. Waters from this lake drained southwestward around the southwest flank of the lobe via an ice-marginal channel. Upon total melt of the ice lobe, the lake was drained, the ice-marginal channel was abandoned, and the waters resumed their pre-ice course to the southeast. During the interglaciation, prior to the onset of the Pinedale Glaciation, northward-flowing streams deposited a veneer of obsidian sand and gravel along the south edge of the basin. In Pinedale time, alpine glaciers formed in the high mountain valleys near the basin, but none advanced into the basin.

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USGS1975

Structure and Paleozoic stratigraphy of a complex of thrust plates in the Fish Creek Reservoir area, south-central Idaho

Permian, Pennsylvanian, Mississippian, Devonian, and Silurian marine rocks of diverse facies are brought together in a complex of six thrust sheets in the Fish Creek Reservoir area on the north edge of the Snake River Plain, Idaho. The lowest structural element, the parautochthon, is made of more than 450 m (1,500 ft) of folded and faulted Devonian miogeosynclinal carbonate rocks present in a 6.5-km 2 (2.5-mi 2 ) window. Along the east margin of the window, a sliver of continental margin transitional carbonate rocks of Early Devonian and Late Silurian age assigned to the Roberts Mountains Formation is thrust over the miogeosynclinal rocks. The window of middle Paleozoic rocks is overridden along the Fish Creek thrust fault by the flysch facies of the Copper Basin Formation, a turbidite-submarine-fan sequence more than 1,000 m (3,300 ft) thick, of Mississippian age. About 4.8 km (3 mi) southwest of the window, about 100 m (300 ft) of deepwater siliceous oceanic facies clastic rocks are exposed, which are assigned with question to the Milligen(?) Formation of Devonian age. These clastic rocks are interpreted to be thrust over the Copper Basin Formation. The highest structural elements are sequences more than 610 m (2,000 ft) thick of interbedded sandy and conglomeratic limestones, quartzites, and conglomerates and interbedded siltstones and argillites of the Wood River Formation of Middle Pennsylvanian to Early Permian age. The Wood River Formation is in thrust contact with the Milligen(?) Formation in the southwest part of the mapped area and with Copper Basin Formation along the west side of Fish Creek Reservoir. All the thrust sheets have moved eastward. The minimum distance moved is estimated from sedimentation models and facies reconstructions to range from perhaps several kilometres for the allochthon of the Roberts Mountains Formation to 48 km (30 mi) for the Milligen(?) Formation allochthon. The principal period of thrusting was post-Early Permian (post-Wood River Formation) and preEocene (pre-Challis Volcanics) and is of probable Sevier age. Middle Paleozoic rocks of the Milligen and Roberts Mountains Formations, however, also may have been involved in an earlier period of thrusting of latest Devonian to earliest Mississippian age related to the Antler orogeny. The thrust sheets were deformed into a northwest-trending dome in late Mesozoic time and were broken by basin-range faults during the Tertiary.

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USGS1975

Silurian and Devonian miogeosynclinal and transitional rocks of the Fish Creek Reservoir window, central Idaho

Documentation of Devonian continental-shelf shallow-water carbonate rocks in the core of the Fish Creek Reservoir window shifts the known westernmost limit of the Devonian miogeosyncline 50 km (30 mi) southwest across the structural grain from the well-known miogeosynclinal sequence in the Lost River Range. The miogeosynclinal carbonate sequence in the window has a minimum thickness of 450 m (1,500 ft). It comprises the upper Lower Devonian (Emsian) and lower Middle Devonian (Eifelian) Carey Dolomite (new), the upper Middle Devonian (Givetian) and Upper Devonian Jefferson Formation, and the Upper Devonian Picabo Formation (new). Conodont faunas precisely date the Carey. The Picabo Formation, composed of interbedded sandy dolomite-pebble conglomerate and dolomitic quartzose sandstone, is unlike any previously described formation of Late Devonian or Early Mississippian age in central Idaho. It resembles parts of the Stansbury, Beirdneau, Leatham, and Victoria Formations, which reflect areas of local Late Devonian uplift and erosion of older shelf rocks in northern Utah and southeastern Idaho. Transitional (continental-slope) rocks of the Roberts Mountains Formation representing reef and offreef facies are thrust over the Devonian shelf sequence within the Fish Creek Reservoir window. The Roberts Mountains Formation here is precisely dated as latest Silurian (Pridolian, eosteinhornensis Zone) through earliest Devonian (Lochkovian) by a sequence of conodont faunas. The easternmost known exposures of possible Devonian siliceous facies rocks assigned to the Milligen(?) Formation are present less than 4.8 km (3 mi) southwest of the shelf sequence. Structural relations and paleotectonic reconstructions suggest that they have a minimum eastward translation of 32 km (20 mi). The Devonian continent-ocean basin interface, along which the Antler orogenic belt developed at this latitude, probably was located near the east edge of the present Idaho batholith.

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