Surface and subsurface geologic data from previous USGS studies of the Gulf Coast region, south-central United States

Dates

Publication Date: 2023-04-18
Start Date: 1987
End Date: 2015

Citation

Sweetkind, D.S., Colgan, J.P., Smout, B., and Barrette, N.C., 2023, Surface and subsurface geologic data from previous USGS studies of the Gulf Coast region, south-central United States: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9F0X0YF.

Summary

This dataset captures in digital form the results of previously published U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Water Mission Area studies related to water resource assessment of Cenozoic strata and unconsolidated deposits within the Mississippi Embayment and the Gulf Coastal Plain of the south-central United States. The data are from reports published from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s by the Gulf Coast Regional Aquifer-System Analysis (RASA) studies and in 2008 by the Mississippi Embayment Regional Aquifer Study (MERAS). These studies, and the data presented here, describe the geologic and hydrogeologic units of the Mississippi embayment, Texas coastal uplands, and the coastal lowlands aquifer systems, south-central United States. This [...]

Summary

This dataset captures in digital form the results of previously published U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Water Mission Area studies related to water resource assessment of Cenozoic strata and unconsolidated deposits within the Mississippi Embayment and the Gulf Coastal Plain of the south-central United States. The data are from reports published from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s by the Gulf Coast Regional Aquifer-System Analysis (RASA) studies and in 2008 by the Mississippi Embayment Regional Aquifer Study (MERAS). These studies, and the data presented here, describe the geologic and hydrogeologic units of the Mississippi embayment, Texas coastal uplands, and the coastal lowlands aquifer systems, south-central United States. This dataset supercedes a previously released dataset on USGS ScienceBase (https://doi.org/10.5066/P9JOHHO6) that was found to contain errors. Following initial release of data, several types of errors were recognized in the well downhole stratigraphic data. Most of these errors were the result of unrecognized improper results in the optical character recognition conversion from the original source report. All downhole data have been thoroughly checked and corrected, data tables were revised, and new point feature classes were created for well location and WellHydrogeologicUnit. GIS data related to the geologic map and subsurface contours were correct in original release and are retained here in original form; only the well data have been revised from the initial data release. The Mississippi embayment, Texas coastal uplands, and coastal lowlands aquifer systems underlie about 487,000 km2 in parts of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas from the Rio Grande on the west to the western part of Florida on the east. The previously published investigations divided the Cenozoic strata and unconsolidated deposits within the Mississippi Embayment and the Gulf Coastal Plain into 11 major geologic units, typically mapped at the group level, with several additional units at the formational level, which were aggregated into six hydrogeologic units within the Mississippi embayment and Texas coastal uplands and into five hydrogeologic units within the Coastal Lowlands aquifer system. These units include the Mississippi River Valley alluvial aquifer, Vicksburg-Jackson confining unit (contained within the Jackson Group), the upper Claiborne aquifer (contained within the Claiborne Group), the middle Claiborne confining unit (contained within the Claiborne Group), the middle Claiborne aquifer (contained within the Claiborne Group), the lower Claiborne confining unit (contained within the Claiborne Group), the lower Claiborne aquifer (contained within the Claiborne Group), the middle Wilcox aquifer (contained within the Wilcox Group), the lower Wilcox aquifer (contained within the Wilcox Group), and the Midway confining unit (contained within the Midway Group). This dataset includes structure contour and thickness data digitized from plates in two reports, borehole data compiled from two reports, and a geologic map digitized from a report plate. Structure contour and thickness maps of hydrogeologic units in the Mississippi Embayment and Texas coastal uplands had been previously digitized by a USGS study from georeferenced images of altitude and thickness contours in USGS Professional Paper 1416-B (Hosman and Weiss, 1991). These data, which were stored on the USGS Water Mission Area’s NSDI node, were downloaded, reformatted, and attributed for present dataset. Structure contour maps of geologic units in the Mississippi Embayment and Texas coastal uplands were digitized and attributed from georeferenced images of altitude and thickness contours in USGS Professional Paper 1416-G (Hosman, 1996) for this data release. Borehole data in this data release include data compiled for USGS Gulf Coast RASA studies in which a scanned version of a USGS report (Wilson and Hosman, 1987) was converted through optical character recognition and then manipulated to form a data table, and from borehole data compiled for the subsequent MERAS study (Hart and Clark, 2008) where an Excel workbook was downloaded and manipulated for use in a GIS and as part of this dataset. The digital geologic map was digitized from Plate 4 of USGS Professional Paper 1416-G (Hosman, 1996) and then attributed according to the USGS National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program’s GeMS digital geologic map schema. The digital dataset a digital geologic map with contacts and faults and geologic map polygons distributed as separate feature classes within a geographic information system geodatabase. The geologic map database is a digital representation of the geologic compilation of the Guld Coast region originally published as Plate 4 of USGS Professional Paper 1416-G (Hosman, 1996). The dataset includes a second geographic information system geodatabase that contain digital structure contour and thickness data as polyline feature classes for all of the hydrogeologic units contoured in USGS Professional Paper 1416-B (Hosman and Weiss, 1991) and all of the geologic units contoured in USGS Professional Paper 1416-G (Hosman, 1996). The geodatabase also contains separate point feature classes that portray borehole location and the depth to hydrogeologic units penetrated downhole for all boreholes compiled for the USGS RASA sturdies by Wilson and Hosman (1987) and for the subsequent USGS MERAS study (Hart and Clark, 2008). Borehole data are provided in Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that includes separate TABs for well location and tabulation of the depths to top and base of hydrogeologic units intercepted downhole, in a format suitable for import into a relational database. Each of the geographic information system geodatabases include non-spatial tables that describe the sources of geologic or hydrogeologic information, a glossary of terms, and a description of units. Also included is a Data Dictionary that duplicates the Entity and Attribute information contained in the metadata file. To maximize usability, spatial data are also distributed as shapefiles and tabular data are distributed as ascii text files in comma separated values (CSV) format. The landing page to for this data release contains a url to an external web resource where the downhole well data from the data release are rendered in 3D and can be interactively viewed by the user.

Contacts

Point of Contact :: Donald S Sweetkind
Originator :: Donald S Sweetkind, Joseph P Colgan, Brooklyn Smout, Nolan C Barrette
Metadata Contact :: Donald S Sweetkind
Publisher :: U.S. Geological Survey
Distributor :: U.S. Geological Survey - ScienceBase
USGS Mission Area :: Core Science Systems
SDC Data Owner :: Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center

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GulfCoast_Metadata.xml Original FGDC Metadata	View	69.18 KB	application/fgdc+xml
GulfCoastgraphic.JPG “Graphic for webpage”		121 KB	image/jpeg
GulfCoast_RASA_GeologicMapGDB.zip “Zipped Geologic Map GDB”		8.99 MB	application/zip
GeologicMapSHP.zip “Zipped Geologic Map shapefiles”		1 MB	application/zip
GulfCoast_RASA_SubsurfaceDataGDB.zip “Zipped subsurface spatial data”		2.01 MB	application/zip
SubsurfaceDataSHP.zip “Zipped subsurface data as shapefiles”		2.64 MB	application/zip
GulfCoastNonspatialTablesExcelFormat.zip “Nonspatial tables and well table”		1.67 MB	application/zip
GulfCoastNonspatialTables_nonprop.zip “Nonspatial tables common format”		983.58 KB	application/zip
GulfCoastNonspatialTablesCSV.zip “Nonspatial tables CSV format”		354.14 KB	application/zip
GulfCoastdata_revision history.txt “Data Release revision history”		4.17 KB	text/plain

Related External Resources

Type: Related Primary Publication

Hosman, R.L., 1996, Regional stratigraphy and subsurface geology of Cenozoic deposits, Gulf coastal plain, south-central United States: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1416–G, 35 p.	https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/pp1416G
Wilson, T.A., Hosman, R.L., 1987, Geophysical well-log data base for the Gulf Coast aquifer systems, south-central United States: U.S. Geological Survey Open File Report 87-677, doi: 10.3133/ofr87677.	https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/ofr87677
Hart, R.M., and Clark, B.R., 2008, Geophysical log database for the Mississippi Embayment Regional Aquifer Study (MERAS): U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2008-5192, 8 p.	https://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2008/519
Hosman, R.L., and Weiss, J.S., 1991, Geohydrologic units of the Mississippi embayment and Texas coastal uplands aquifer systems, south-central United States: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1416-B, 19 p.	https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/pp1416B
U.S. Geological Survey, 2015, Geodatabase of the datasets used to represent the six subunits of the Texas Coastal Uplands and Mississippi Embayment aquifer system, Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas: Spatial data geodatabase hosted on the USGS Water Mission Area NSDI Node	https://water.usgs.gov/lookup/getspatial?ds19txclup_20msembm_a10

Type: Web Link

Gulf Coast boreholes display, 3D rendering	https://skfb.ly/oGqVT

Purpose

This digital dataset was created as part of U.S. Geological Survey efforts to inventory, catalog, and release subsurface geologic data in geospatial form as part of a broad directive to develop 2D and 3D geologic information at detailed, national, and continental scales. This digital dataset results from goal within the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program to convert subsurface data that were previously published in non-digital format to digital, vector-based data suitable for use by the public and in USGS studies. The objective of the data conversion is to reproduce the original published mapping with little to no added interpretation. The elevation, thickness, and extent of subsurface geologic units are required to define the geologic layering in any digital geologic framework model; these data, derived from previous USGS studies, provide a fundamental starting point. The intended uses of this dataset include, but are not limited to, natural resource modeling, mapping, and visualization.

Type	Scheme	Key
DOI	https://www.sciencebase.gov/vocab/category/item/identifier	doi:10.5066/P9F0X0YF
USGS_MissionArea	https://www.sciencebase.gov/vocab/category/item/identifier	Core Science Systems
USGS_keywords	https://www.sciencebase.gov/vocab/category/item/identifier	Information Sciences, Stratigraphy, Water Resources

Surface and subsurface geologic data from previous USGS studies of the Gulf Coast region, south-central United States

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