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Point cloud of Fern Ridge Lake, Oregon, during annual low pool, February 2 and February 8, 2023

Metadata Updated: July 24, 2025

In cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) deployed ground control points and coordinated aerial photograph acquisition of Fern Ridge Lake, a multi-purpose reservoir in western Oregon impounded by the 13-m tall Fern Ridge Dam. Aerial photographs were acquired by the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) during winter 2023 when water levels were at or near typical annual “low pool” or minimum pool, a target elevation (108 m NGVD 29) for flood-control operations. Photographs were acquired at two different altitudes with a WaldoAir XCAM Ultra 50 camera mounted on a Cessna aircraft and captured the entire reservoir area as defined by full pool (or maximum conservation pool elevation), including major tributaries entering the reservoir such as the Long Tom River and Coyote Creek, upstream of Fern Ridge Dam. Dam operations at the 3,700-hectare Fern Ridge Lake, located 39 kilometers upstream of the confluence of the Long Tom River and the Willamette River, along with other hydrogeomorphic conditions, result in a diverse array of geomorphic processes and landforms within the reservoir. To document reservoir floor geomorphology, the USGS applied structure-from-motion (SfM) techniques to these aerial photographs, following the workflow outlined in Over and others (2021), and generated three-dimensional xyz point clouds, digital surface models (DSMs), and orthomosaics of Fern Ridge Lake at low pool. This data release includes ground control points, dataset footprints, original aerial photographs, processed point clouds, DSMs, and orthomosaics of Fern Ridge Lake with varying aerial extents and resolutions that were all developed from imagery acquired in January and February of 2023: (1) the January 30 model (FernRideLake_10cm) covered the entire reservoir area with an average point density of 7.47 points per square meter, DSM resolution of 36.6 centimeters per pixel, and orthomosaic ground resolution of 9.15 centimeters per pixel; (2) the January 31 model (FernRidgeLake_5cmLongTomRiver) covered the Long Tom River within the reservoir with an average point density of 25 points per square meter, DSM resolution of 20 centimeters per pixel, and orthomosaic ground resolution of 5 centimeters per pixel; (3) the combined February 2 and February 8 model (FernRidgeLake_5cmCoyoteCreek) covered Coyote Creek within the reservoir with an average point density of 36.3 points per square meter, DSM resolution of 16.6 centimeters per pixel, and orthomosaic ground resolution of 4.15 centimeters per pixel. All DSMs and orthomosaics are formatted as Cloud Optimized GeoTIFFs (COGs) for enhanced web visualization (GDAL 2024). This documentation describes a high-resolution point cloud (LAZ file) of Coyote Creek within Fern Ridge Lake, Oregon, generated from SfM techniques using aerial photographs acquired on February 2 and February 8, 2023.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date July 24, 2025
Metadata Updated Date July 24, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI EDI

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date July 24, 2025
Metadata Updated Date July 24, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
@Id http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/cd2c2600980a227c019e0baa27f9de58
Identifier USGS:65b145ead34e36a39044a8b9
Data Last Modified 20250311
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://datainventory.doi.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id d857a465-ed34-4d92-89bd-fc04de0ab9f7
Harvest Source Id 52bfcc16-6e15-478f-809a-b1bc76f1aeda
Harvest Source Title DOI EDI
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -123.3146,44.0501,-123.2672,44.106
Publisher Hierarchy White House > U.S. Department of the Interior > U.S. Geological Survey
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash dce3bd9eed3878dda5687d7c0746be897952287a4dc5b13c0eb28cdece952996
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -123.3146, 44.0501, -123.3146, 44.106, -123.2672, 44.106, -123.2672, 44.0501, -123.3146, 44.0501}

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