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At least 1,567 records · Page 87Linked to original sources
USGS1958

Preliminary report on ground water in the Bonanza Lake area, Power and Blaine counties, Idaho

The investigation in the Bonanza Lake area of northwestern Power and southeastern Blaine Counties was made to determine the direction of ground-water movement and to ascertain the relation of the regional ground-water body to the Snake River. The surface of the area is nearly flat to gently rolling, and slopes to the west. Lake Channel, an abandoned channel of the Snake River, and a few volcanic cones modify the gentle relief. The climate is semiarid, the annual precipitation ranging from 10 to 15 inches. Most of the area is uncultivated and covered with sagebrush, the predominate vegetation. A significant amount of the area is dry farmed; about 500 to 650 acres is irrigated with ground water pumped from wells or from ponds in Lake Channel. The Bonanza area and vicinity are underlin by windblown deposits of Recent age (not shown on the geologic map); alluvium with admixed windblown material and black basalt, both also of Recent age; undifferentiated Snake River basalt, of Pliocene to Recent age; the American Falls lake beds and Cedar Butte basalt, or Pleistocene age; of the Raft Lake beds and Massacre volcanic and associated rocks, of Pliocene(?) age. The alluvium contains ground water at shallow depth, but because of its limited areal extent it is not an important aquifer, The Snake River basalt is the most important aquifer in the area and yields water to irrigation, domestic, and stock wells. Several springs discharge from the basalt into Lake Walcott. The Cedar Butte basalt is a major aquifer supplying water to a number of stock and domestic wells and to Bonanza Lake. Ground water moves southward and southwestward through the area from the Aberseen-Springfield tract on the northeast and possibly from the downstream end of American Falls Reservoir. Part of the ground water is discharged to the Snake River and Lake Walcott and part moves westward out of the area of the main ground-water body. The amount of ground water can not be determined from the data bow available. Data from dam-site borings and wells suggest the possibility that a part of the ground water in the area may be perched above the regional water table.

Idaho↗
USGS1958

Preliminary report on the ground-water resources of the Klamath River basin, Oregon

The Klamath River basin, including the adjacent Lost River basin, includes about 5,500 square miles of plateaus, mountain-slopes and valley plains in south-central Oregon. The valley plains range in altitude from about 4,100 feet in the south to more than 4,500 feet at the northern end; the mountain and plateau lands rise to an average altitude of 6,000 feet at the drainage divide, some peaks rising above 9,000 feet. The western quarter of the basin is on the eastern slope of the Cascade Range and the remainder consists of plateaus, mountains, and valleys of the basin-and-range type. The rocks of the Klamath River basin range in age from Recent to Mesozoic. At the southwest side of the basin in Oregon, pre-Tertiary metamorphic, igneous, and sedimentary rocks, which form extensive areas farther west, are overlain by sedimentary rocks of Eocene age and volcanic rocks of Eocene and Oligocene age. These early Tertiary rocks dip east toward the central part of the Klamath River basin. The complex volcanic rocks of high Cascades include three units: the lowest unit consists of a sequence of basaltic lava flows about 800 feet thick; the medial unit is composed of volcanic-sedimentary and sedimentary rocksthe Yonna formation200 to 2,000 feet thick; the uppermost unit is a sequence of basaltic lava flows commonly about 200 feet thick. These rocks dip east from the Cascade Range and are the main bedrock formations beneath most of the basin. Extensive pumice deposits, which emanated from ancestral Mount Mazama, cover large areas in the northwestern part of the basin. The basin has an overall synclinal structure open to the south at the California boundary where it continues as the Klamath Lake basin in California. The older rocks dip into the basin in monoclinal fashion from the adjoining drainage basins. The rocks are broken along rudely rectangular nets of closely spaced normal faults, the most prominent set of which trends northwest. The network of fault displacements includes two main grabens, the Klamath and the Langell, which were downthrown approximately 50 and 1,000 feet, respectively. The average annual precipitation varies with the altitude, the higher parts of the Cascade Range getting more than 60 inches, and the semiarid valley plains receive as little as 13 inches in some places. Most precipitation occurs in the winter. The principal tributaries, Williamson and Sprague Rivers, rise near the higher parts of the eastern rim of the basin, flow through narrow valley plains to the western part, and discharge into Upper Klamath Lake. Wood River and associated creeks also empty into Upper Klamath Lake after draining southward along along the eastern foot of the Cascade Range. The Klamath River receives the outflow from Upper Klamath Lake, via Link River and Lake Ewauna, and flows southwestward through Keno Gap and hance through a youthful canyon, to its lower valley in California. The ground water occurs largely in an unconfined, or water-table, condition, though areas of local confinement are present. The regional water table is graded to a base level about equal to that of the major drainage on the valley plains. The slop of the water table, where water is confined, or the piezometric surface is downstream at about the same grade as that of the surface drainage in each of the larger valleys, and ground-water divides occur between the upper parts of adjacent major valleys. The principal water-bearing units are the lower lava rocks and upper lava rocks of the volcanic rocks of high Cascades, the pumice of Quaternary age, and the alluvium. In places layers of coarse fragmental material in the Yonna formation (Newcomb, 1958) also transmit water. The water-bearing units, especially the breccia layers of the lava rocks and the pumice, yield large amounts of water to wells and provide natural discharge outlets for the ground water. The spring outflows to the Williamson and Wood Rivers-Crooked Creek drainage, mea

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