Whiskeytown National Recreation Area: Gold Country Rocks

Whiskeytown National Recreation Area lies in the Klamath Mountains of northern California, in Shasta and Trinity counties, about 90 miles south of the California–Oregon border. Established on October 21, 1972, it protects about 17,200 hectares (42,503 acres) of mountain backcountry, the popular human-made Whiskeytown Lake, and historic sites of the 1849 Gold Rush.

The lake formed when Whiskeytown Dam impounded Clear Creek, and it offers fishing, kayaking, sailing, swimming and waterskiing.

Visitors at a waterfall in Whiskeytown. Image from the National Park Service's page.

Rocks and gold

The park's geology is dominated by igneous and metamorphic rock, which shaped the region's early mining history: Gold Rush prospectors were drawn by gold and sulfide deposits tied to igneous intrusions.

One of the most prominent features is the peak of Shasta Bally, 1,893 m (6,209 ft) high.

Geologic map of Whiskeytown National Recreation Area. Image from the National Park Service's Geologic Resources Inventory.

Whiskeytown belongs to the Pacific Border physiographic province and shares its geologic history, and some of its characteristic formations, with a region reaching far beyond the park.

Maps and inventories

The Park Service's Geodiversity Atlas, drawn from the Geologic Resources Inventory, describes the full variety of a park's geologic and soil resources and processes (rocks, minerals, sediments, fossils, landforms and the forces that shape them) to support education, geoconservation, and management that treats living and nonliving parts of the ecosystem together.

The Park Service's Geologic Resources Inventory, which produces digital geologic maps and reports for more than 270 natural resource parks, has a map and report for Whiskeytown. They are on the NPS DataStore.

Sources

Based on "NPS Geodiversity Atlas—Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, California," National Park Service Geologic Resources Inventory, which cites Anderson (2017) and Thornberry-Ehrlich (2007); a work of the United States government in the public domain. The Geologic Resources Inventory report cover shown on the atlas page is not reproduced.