DOGAMI GEOLOGIC MAP SERIES
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GMS-128, Geologic map of the Mill Creek Area, Hood River and Wasco Counties, Oregon, by Jason D. McClaughry, Clark A. Niewendorp, Carlie J.M. Azzopardi, Heather H. Herinckx, and Brian M. Webb; 3 map plates, scale 1:24,000; Esri format geodatabase; shapefiles; metadata..
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INTRODUCTION [from the report pamphlet]
The Fivemile Butte, Ketchum Reservoir, and Brown Creek 7.5′ quadrangles along with the northern part of the Flag Point 7.5′ quadrangle in Hood River and Wasco counties, Oregon (herein referred to as the Mill Creek area) encompass an area of 435 km2 (168 mi2) in the Middle Columbia Basin. The Mill Creek area is located along the eastern slopes of the northern Oregon Cascade Range, ~25 km (15 mi) ENE of Mount Hood volcano (Figure 1 1; Plates 1, 2, and 3). The oldest rocks cropping out in the map area are part of the Columbia River Basalt Group (CRBG), the youngest flood basalt province in the world (Reidel and others, 2013a). Upper Miocene and lower Pleistocene volcanic rocks unconformably overlie the CRBG in the map area, recording part of the volcano-tectonic development of the northern Oregon Cascade Range over the past 9 million years (McClaughry and others, 2020a, 2021). The geology and structure of the Mill Creek area was mapped by the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI) between 2011 and 2023. Detailed geologic mapping in this part of the Middle Columbia Basin is a high priority of the Oregon Geologic Map Advisory Committee, supported in part by grants from the STATEMAP component of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program under cooperative agreement numbers G15AC00180, G16AC00179, and G21AC00647. Additional funds were provided by the state of Oregon through DOGAMI.
Beginning in 2011, the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI) has sought to provide an updated and spatially accurate geologic framework for the Mill Creek area as part of a multiyear study of the geology of the larger Middle Columbia Basin (Figure 1 1, Figure 1 2). Additional key objectives of this study are to: 1) determine the geologic history of volcanic rocks in this part of northern Oregon’s Cascade Range; 2) provide significant new details about the structure and fault history of the Yakima Fold Belt and eastern slopes of northern Oregon’s Cascade Range; 3) characterize the stratigraphic framework and geologic conditions controlling the distribution of water resources; 4) determine the distribution of potential aggregate sources and other mineral resources; and 5) describe the nature of geologic hazard. New detailed geologic data presented here also provides a basis for future geologic, geohydrologic, and geohazard studies in the Middle Columbia Basin.
Earlier geologic maps and reports displaying the bedrock geology in the Mill Creek area include those by Piper (1932), Waters (1968), Swanson and others (1981), Bela (1982), Sherrod and Scott (1995), and Sherrod and Smith (2000). We locally used county soil surveys produced for Hood River and Wasco counties by the Soil Conservation Service and the Natural Resources Conservation Service to interpret the distribution of surficial units (Green, 1981, 1982). Additional sources of information are cited in the Explanation of Map Units and in the DataSourcePolys feature class in the geodatabase.
The core products of this study are this report, accompanying geologic maps and cross sections (Plates 1, 2, and 3), Esri ArcGIS™ geodatabases, and Microsoft Excel® spreadsheets tabulating point data. The geodatabases present new geologic mapping in a digital format consistent with the Level 3 standard USGS National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program Geologic Map Schema (GeMS Level 3)(U.S. Geological Survey National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program, 2020). They contain spatial information, including geologic polygons, contacts, structures, geochemistry, geochronology, magnetic observation, orientation points, field stations, and well data. The geodatabases also contain data about each geologic unit such as age, lithology, mineralogy, and structure. Geodata Digitization at scales of 1:8,000 or better was accomplished using a combination of high-resolution lidar topography and imagery. Surficial and bedrock geologic units in the geodatabase are depicted on Plates 1, 2, and 3 at a scale of 1:24,000. Both the geodatabases and geologic maps are supported by this report describing the geology in detail.
GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM (GIS) DATA
Geodatabase is Esri® version 10.7 format.
Metadata is embedded in the geodatabase and is also provided as separate .xml formatted files.
MAP PLATES (georeferenced PDFs)
Note: The map plate PDFs are in geospatial PDF format, allowing you to turn on and off layers in the map frame and to find geographic coordinates in the PDF.
Plate 1. Geologic Map of the Brown Creek 7.5′ Quadrangle, Wasco County, Oregon, scale 1:24,000 (36" x 42", 13.7 MB PDF)
Plate 2. Geologic Map of the Ketchum Reservoir 7.5′ Quadrangle, Hood River and Wasco Counties, Oregon, scale 1:24,000 (36" x 46"; 9.6 MB PDF)
Plate 3. Geologic Map of the Fivemile Butte and Northern Part of the Flag Point 7.5′ Quadrangles, Hood River and Wasco Counties, Oregon, scale 1:24,000 (37" x 44"; 9.9 MB PDF)