Spring In Oneill Forebay
Drag the handle to compare the two views. The orange dot marks the spring, in a frame about three quarters of a mile wide.
This is an unnamed thermal point sitting in O'Neill Forebay, part of the San Luis Reservoir State Recreation Area in Merced County, about twelve miles from Gustine. The listed name is a location description. The water is barely warm. Access is open, and the land belongs to the Bureau of Reclamation and is run as a state recreation area.
Flat valley ground, low, a few hundred yards from the road. Dry country: about eleven inches of rain a year and no snow. The surrounding land is federal, managed within the San Luis Reservoir State Recreation Area, which means recreation area rules apply. The forebay itself is the reference point; the file names no road.
The file favors winter, and the climate would allow any month. The water is too cool for a soak in any real sense. Access is open. No campground and no fee are on record. Check the recreation area for day use rules.
Aircraft with laser scanners measured this ground to within inches. The scan strips out trees and buildings, leaving the bare shape of the land around Spring In Oneill Forebay.
- Setting
- Open ground
- Flat, open ground all around.
- Highest ground nearby
- 2 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the southeast
A slice through the ground from northwest to southeast, about 0.6 miles end to end.
Elevation data: USGS 3D Elevation Program. Aerial imagery: USGS The National Map. Public domain.
That's about 1½ times the US average of 65. It's higher than at 52% of the springs on this site.
Heat flow measures the warmth working its way up through the ground from deep inside the earth. Where it runs high, rain and snowmelt that seep down through cracks in the rock come back up hot.
See every spring on the geothermal heat map →
Heat flow estimate: Stanford Thermal Earth Model (Aljubran & Horne, 2024), CC BY 4.0.
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