USGS Science⌕ Search

SEARCH · USGS Science

Results for “Oil and Gas Preliminary Investigations Map”

Search indexed USGS publications on groundwater, aquifers, geologic maps, mineral resources and earthquakes. Explore source records by subject and place.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

13 recordsLinked to original sources
USGS1954

Preliminary geologic map of the Beautiful Mountain anticline, San Juan County, New Mexico

The Beautiful Mountain anticline is on the Navajo Indian Reservation in western San Juan County, N. Mex., near the Arizona-New Mexico State line; it lies along tbe western side of the Chuska Valley at the foot of the Chuska Mountains. Most of the area of this report is characterized by low, sharp relief. Beautiful Mountain, a buttelike outlier of the Chuska Mountains, contrasts strikingly with the otherwise low relief of the area--it rises above the western flank of the anticline to an alutude of nearly 9,000 feet. The general form of the partly breached anticlinal structure is expressed in the topography sharply delineated cuestas, mesas, buttes, and promontories, all capped by the resistant sandstone beds of the Tocito sandstone lentil of rhe Mancos shale. This report shows the distribution and thickness of the sedimentary rocks exposed in the area of the Beautiful Mountain anticline and the conformation of the anticline as represented by structure contours drawn on the top of the Dakota sandstone.

Oil and Gas Investigation Map↗
USGS2018

Prioritization of oil and gas fields for regional groundwater monitoring based on a preliminary assessment of petroleum resource development and proximity to California’s groundwater resources

The California State Water Resources Control Board initiated a regional monitoring program in July 2015 to determine where and to what degree groundwater quality may be adversely impacted by oil and gas development activities. A key issue in the implementation of the regional groundwater monitoring program is that each year, detailed characterization work can be done in only a few of California’s 487 onshore oil and gas fields. The first step in monitoring groundwater near petroleum development is to prioritize oil and gas fields using consistent statewide analysis of available data that indicate potential risk of groundwater to oil and gas development. The U.S. Geological Survey compiled data for four factors that characterize the intensity of petroleum resource development and proximity to groundwater resources: petroleum-well density, volume of water injected in oil fields, vertical proximity of groundwater resources to oil and gas resource development, and water-well density. An overall priority ranking for each field was determined by computing summary metrics, analyzing statewide distributions of summary metrics for all oil and gas fields, using those distributions to define relative categories of potential risk for each factor, and combining relative risk rankings for different factors into an overall priority ranking. This preliminary assessment does not represent an evaluation of groundwater risk to oil and gas development, which needs to be based on detailed analysis and data related to development activities including well stimulation, well integrity issues, produced water ponds, and underground injection. Based on the prioritization analysis, 22 percent (107 fields) of the total number of oil and gas fields in California were ranked as high priority, 23 percent (114 fields) as moderate priority, and 55 percent (266 fields) as low priority. These results indicate that between 100 and 200 oil fields are principal candidates for the next steps in the regional monitoring program. The land area of fields that ranked high priority accounted for 41 percent of the total field area (3,392 square miles). More than half of the high priority fields were in the southern San Joaquin Valley and the Los Angeles Basin. Some of the larger fields tended to have higher rankings because of greater intensity of petroleum development, sometimes coupled with proximity to groundwater resources. The U.S. Geological Survey, in collaboration with the California State Water Resources Control Board and other agencies, has begun regional groundwater monitoring near oil and gas fields selected for study through the California Oil, Gas, and Groundwater cooperative program. Groundwater monitoring includes compiling, analyzing, and developing three-dimensional visualizations of existing data, including geological frameworks, salinity mapping, identification of surface features that could potentially affect groundwater quality, locations and depths of oil/gas and water wells, cataloging well-construction integrity issues, and evaluating the directions of groundwater flow. These analyses are required to determine where existing wells should be monitored and where new monitoring wells may need to be drilled.

California↗
USGS2009

Geologic Map of the Santa Barbara Coastal Plain Area, Santa Barbara County, California

This report presents a newly revised and expanded digital geologic map of the Santa Barbara coastal plain area at a compilation scale of 1:24,000 (one inch on the map to 2,000 feet on the ground)1 and with a horizontal positional accuracy of at least 20 m. The map depicts the distribution of bedrock units and surficial deposits and associated deformation underlying and adjacent to the coastal plain within the contiguous Dos Pueblos Canyon, Goleta, Santa Barbara, and Carpinteria 7.5' quadrangles. The new map supersedes an earlier preliminary geologic map of the central part of the coastal plain (Minor and others, 2002; revised 2006) that provided coastal coverage only within the Goleta and Santa Barbara quadrangles. In addition to new mapping to the west and east, geologic mapping in parts of the central map area has been significantly revised from the preliminary map compilation - especially north of downtown Santa Barbara in the Mission Ridge area - based on new structural interpretations supplemented by new biostratigraphic data. All surficial and bedrock map units, including several new units recognized in the areas of expanded mapping, are described in detail in the accompanying pamphlet. Abundant new biostratigraphic and biochronologic data based on microfossil identifications are presented in expanded unit descriptions of the marine Neogene Monterey and Sisquoc Formations. Site-specific fault kinematic observations embedded in the digital map database are more complete owing to the addition of slip-sense determinations. Finally, the pamphlet accompanying the present report includes an expanded and refined summary of stratigraphic and structural observations and interpretations that are based on the composite geologic data contained in the new map compilation. The Santa Barbara coastal plain is located in the western Transverse Ranges physiographic province along an east-west-trending segment of the southern California coastline about 100 km (62 mi) northwest of Los Angeles. The coastal plain surface includes several mesas and hills that are geomorphic expressions of potentially active folds and partly buried oblique and reverse faults of the Santa Barbara fold and fault belt (SBFFB) that transects the coastal plain. Strong earthquakes have occurred offshore within 10 km of the Santa Barbara coastal plain in 1925 (6.3 magnitude), 1941 (5.5 magnitude), and 1978 (5.1 magnitude). These and numerous smaller seismic events located beneath and offshore of the coastal plain, likely occurred on reverse-oblique-slip faults that are similar to, or continuous with, Quaternary reverse faults crossing the coastal plain. Thus, faults of the SBFFB pose a significant earthquake hazard to the approximately 200,000 people living within the major coastal population centers of Santa Barbara, Goleta, and Carpinteria. In addition, numerous Quaternary landslide deposits along the steep southern flank of the Santa Ynez Mountains indicate the potential for continued slope failures and mass movements in developed areas. Folded, faulted, and fractured sedimentary rocks in the subsurface of the coastal plain and adjacent Santa Barbara Channel are sources and form reservoirs for economic deposits of oil and gas, some of which are currently being extracted offshore. Shallow, localized sedimentary aquifers underlying the coastal plain provide limited amounts of water for the urban areas, but the quality of some of this groundwater is compromised by coastal salt-water contamination. The present map compilation provides a set of uniform geologic digital coverages that can be used for analysis and interpretation of these and other geologic hazards and resources in the coastal plain region.

Scientific Investigations Map↗