The Maryland Geological Survey (MGS) Land-Based Core Collection consists of approximately 1,110 boxes of rock and/or sediment core material from 250 known borehole or well locations. These locations include sites in 18 Maryland counties: Anne Arundel, Calvert, Caroline, Carroll, Cecil, Charles, Dorchester, Frederick, Garrett, Harford, Kent, Prince George's, Queen Anne's, St Mary's, Somerset, Talbot, Wicomico, and Worcester Counties. Two cores in the Land-Based Core Collection were collected in Virginia (borehole IDs VA 53T 58 and VA 58H 4). To see the geospatial distribution of source boreholes for cores in this collection, click on the word "Map" in the upper right-hand portion of this page. The majority of the core locations [...]
Summary
The Maryland Geological Survey (MGS) Land-Based Core Collection consists of approximately 1,110 boxes of rock and/or sediment core material from 250 known borehole or well locations. These locations include sites in 18 Maryland counties: Anne Arundel, Calvert, Caroline, Carroll, Cecil, Charles, Dorchester, Frederick, Garrett, Harford, Kent, Prince George's, Queen Anne's, St Mary's, Somerset, Talbot, Wicomico, and Worcester Counties. Two cores in the Land-Based Core Collection were collected in Virginia (borehole IDs VA 53T 58 and VA 58H 4). To see the geospatial distribution of source boreholes for cores in this collection, click on the word "Map" in the upper right-hand portion of this page. The majority of the core locations are in the Maryland Coastal Plain; some are in the Piedmont, Blue Ridge, and Appalachian Plateaus physiographic provinces. Depending upon location and depths recovered, some cores include both sediment (unlithified materials) and rock. Core intervals vary from select depths to nearly continuous. The cores were collected between approximately 1964 and 2013 (drill dates of some cores are unknown at this time).
The cores are currently stored in wooden and cardboard boxes of varying sizes. The condition of these boxes varies from very poor (needing replacement) or poor (needing reinforcement) to fair (minor dents/rips) and/or good (no damage). Most cores are located in the MGS Core Library in the Kenneth M. Weaver building. However, due to space constraints in the Core Library, several additional cores are stored in the Weaver Annex building Basement.
The URLs provided in the "onlineResource" field of the CSV metadata file (and shown under "Related External Resources" in the child items) provide additional information about the borehole or well. For example, some URLs link to MGS, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), or Delaware Geological Survey (DGS) reports. Cores listed with the USGS National Water Information System (NWIS) website -- https://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/inventory -- are cores associated with wells that have been entered into this national database by either the MGS or the USGS. Users can go to the NWIS website and use the core identification (e.g., AA Cc 115) as the NWIS "Site Name" to search for related information. NWIS typically provides general site description information and, if available, links to groundwater level and water quality information.
The "Land-Based Core Collection" combines two collections, the "Collection of Rock Cores from MD" and the "Collection of Sediment Cores from MD, MD Coastal Plain," that were originally envisioned as separate in the National Digital Catalog (NDC). The logic for integrating these two collections became evident during the detailed inventory effort completed during the FY2016 U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Geological and Geophysical Data Preservation (NGGDPP) grant cycle. This inventory revealed that a number of cores include intervals of both sediment and rock. As a result, grouping core on the basis of material type was not practical or particularly beneficial to potential users. Therefore, the NDC pages are being revised to reflect this change (pages that referred to these two separate collections are being removed). Core collected in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, and offshore in MD's Continental Shelf, will remain separate.
For more information about these cores, please contact the Maryland Geological Survey at (410) 554-5500.
