hill
A hill is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain. It often has a distinct Summit (topography), summit.
Terminology
The distinction between a hill and a mountain is unclear and largely subjective, but a hill is universally con ...
Grays Harbor County
Grays Harbor County is a county in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2020 census, the population was 75,636. Its county seat is Montesano, and its largest city is Aberdeen. Grays Harbor County is included in the Aberdeen Micropolitan ...
in southwest
Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...
. The hills lie north of
Doty, Washington Doty, Washington is an unincorporated community located 1.3-miles directly west of Dryad and 5 miles east of Pe Ell on Washington State Route 6. Today, about 250 people reside in or around Doty, which boasts a general store, post office, fire depa ...
and west of
Chehalis Chehalis may refer to:
People
* Chehalis people, a Native American people of Washington state
**Lower Chehalis language
**Upper Chehalis language
* Sts'Ailes people (Chehalis people), a First Nation in British Columbia
* Chehalis First Nation, Bri ...
, between the
Black Hills
The Black Hills ( lkt, Ȟe Sápa; chy, Moʼȯhta-voʼhonáaeva; hid, awaxaawi shiibisha) is an isolated mountain range rising from the Great Plains of North America in western South Dakota and extending into Wyoming, United States. Black Elk P ...
to their north and the
Willapa Hills
The Willapa Hills is a geologic, physiographic, and geographic region in southwest Washington. When described as a physiographical province, the Willapa Hills are bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west, the Columbia River to the south, the Ol ...
to their south. They are considered part of the Willapa Hills physiographic province. "Willapa Hills: Mountain range extending from the Columbia River N to the Chehalis River."
Geography and geology
The highest point in the Doty Hills, an unnamed summit, appears in the list of Washington State's top 200 peaks by
topographic prominence
In topography, prominence (also referred to as autonomous height, relative height, and shoulder drop in US English, and drop or relative height in British English) measures the height of a mountain or hill's summit relative to the lowest contou ...
.
The geology of the hills is
Tertiary
Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago.
The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...
Augite
Augite is a common rock-forming pyroxene mineral with formula . The crystals are monoclinic and prismatic. Augite has two prominent cleavages, meeting at angles near 90 degrees.
Characteristics
Augite is a solid solution in the pyroxene group. ...
crystals can be found in the hills amongst porphyry tuff.
Natrolite
Natrolite is a tectosilicate mineral species belonging to the zeolite group. It is a hydrated sodium and aluminium silicate with the formula . The type locality is Hohentwiel, Hegau, Germany.
It was named natrolite by Martin Heinrich Klaproth i ...
tree farm
In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are u ...
s in the unpopulated hills, which receive over annual precipitation, and possess a cool, cloudy climate. Native tree species include
Pacific silver fir
''Abies amabilis'', commonly known as the Pacific silver fir, is a fir native to the Pacific Northwest of North America, occurring in the Pacific Coast Ranges and the Cascade Range. It is also commonly referred to as the white fir, red fir, lov ...
,
Douglas fir
The Douglas fir (''Pseudotsuga menziesii'') is an evergreen conifer species in the pine family, Pinaceae. It is native to western North America and is also known as Douglas-fir, Douglas spruce, Oregon pine, and Columbian pine. There are three va ...
wind farm
A wind farm or wind park, also called a wind power station or wind power plant, is a group of wind turbines in the same location used Wind power, to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundre ...
called was proposed in the Doty Hills. It was to be built on tree farm land leased from Weyerhaeuser, and would be the first large wind farm in the Pacific Northwest coastal hills. In November 2013, the developer put the project on hold due to insufficient demand for renewable energy.