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The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is
responsible for providing the Federal Government with objective
scientific information to support decisions regarding land management,
environmental quality, and economic,  energy , and strategic policy. To
fulfill this responsibility, the USGS periodically assesses the Nation’s
energy resources.
National Assessment of Oil and Gas
The Central Energy Resources Team (CERT) of
the USGS has completed assessments of the undiscovered oil and gas
potential in selected priority geologic provinces as part of the
National Assessment of Oil and Gas (NOGA) program.
Figure 1 is a map of the conterminous U.S.
illustrating the current status of assessment results and products, and
also contains a link to the NOGA Home Page (NOGA Online).
Assessments of the petroleum potential in
these priority provinces is based on geologic elements used to define a
total petroleum system (TPS) – hydrocarbon source rocks (source rock
maturation, hydrocarbon generation, and migration), reservoir rocks
(sequence stratigraphy and petrophysical properties), and hydrocarbon
traps (trap formation and timing). Using this geologic framework, the
USGS defines assessment units as parts of a TPS.
A GIS focusing on each TPS defined in a
province is developed as a visual-analysis tool for the USGS assessments
of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and natural gas resources.
The CERT has also developed an Internet Map Service to deliver GIS data
to the public. This mapping tool utilizes information from a database
about the oil and natural gas endowment of the U.S., including physical
locations of geologic and geographic data, and converts the data into
visual layers. Portrayal and analysis of geologic features on an
interactive map provides a better tool for understanding domestic oil
and gas resources that bears directly on strategic planning, formulating
economic and energy policies, evaluating lands in the purview of the
Federal government, and developing sound environmental policies.
Assessment results can be viewed and analyzed, or downloaded from the
internet website.
More than half of the electricity produced in
the U.S. is generated by coal-fired power plants (Energy Information
Administration, 2000). Understanding where coal is most readily
available and of sufficient quality to meet current emission standards
is important to ensure adequate energy supplies in the future. The
National Coal Resource Assessment (NCRA) was a multiyear effort (1995 –
2000) by the USGS Energy Resources Program with three general goals:
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To assess selected
coal beds and zones that will be the most important in the next few
decades.
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To create publicly
available digital data bases of stratigraphic, geochemical, and
geographic information to answer questions for government and
industry decision makers and the general public.
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To provide
interpretive geologic and geochemical information on the major coal
resources of the Nation.
Selected coal resources, including those on
Federal lands, were assessed in five priority regions, as shown in
Figure 2:
The USGS NCRA is the first assessment program
to use digital data bases and to combine all coal parameters into
integrated GIS layers. The ability to compile many types of spatial data
allowed the USGS to:
(1)
Gain a fuller understanding of
coal occurrence.
(2)
make new stratigraphic
correlations.
(3)
Integrate geologic and resource
information across State boundaries.
ArcView Data Publisher projects were published
on CD-ROM for each priority region. The GIS products are being web
enabled for improved access of these data for future coal assessments.
World Energy Products
The USGS undertook a world petroleum
assessment that was conducted over the same 5-yr period as the NCRA
(from 1996 to 2000, U.S. Geological Survey World Energy Assessment Team,
2000). The purpose of the World Energy assessments is to provide
impartial, scientifically-based, societally-relevant petroleum resource
information essential to the economic and strategic security of the U.S.
The assessments are based on extensive geologic studies rather than a
statistical approach. The petroleum resources assessed are in
accumulation categories judged to be viable in a 30-yr forecast span.
The Energy Team web room for World Energy
assessments provides navigation of thousands of products by content
type, theme, and spatial location. This web presence facilitates
seamless access to:
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USGS world energy
reports
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GIS and tabular world
energy data
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Metadata
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World energy
interactive maps
Figure 3 is a map
from the World Energy Assessment home page that is used for navigation
of USGS products by spatial location.
Gulf Coast Geology (GCG) Online and
the Gulf Coast Information Access System
A large percentage of the present and future
energy resources of the U.S. reside in the Gulf of Mexico Basin (Huffman
et al., 2004 [http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2004/3143/]).
Gulf Coast Geology (GCG) Online is a GIS that
facilitates the geologic, geophysical, and geochemical framework studies
essential to the current and future reassessment of energy resources
(coal, gas, and oil) in the Gulf Coast Region. Version 1.0 of the
Miocene (Huffman et al., 2004) deals almost entirely with southern
Louisiana, primarily due to the availability of data, especially the
biostratigraphy. Publicly available data have been used wherever
possible; however, in the case of proprietary data, only derivative
products are made available. In addition to the data specific to
southern Louisiana, a number of regional geologic coverages that will be
applicable to all versions are also included for reference.
Figure 4 is the
default screen for the internet map service of the GCG Online—Miocene of
Southern Louisiana.
In addition to GCG Online, the Gulf Coast
Information Access System at
http://certmapper.cr.usgs.gov/gulf_metadata/
is available for search and discovery of USGS
Gulf Coast products by content type, theme, and spatial location.
USGS assessments involve large amounts of
geologic, geophysical, geochemical, and paleontologic data, in addition
to well and field databases. In mature provinces and especially in
larger ones such as the Gulf Coast, the existing data sets can be large,
which makes data management a critical element in the assessment
process. Furthermore, the many scientists working on a given assessment
project require ready access to all of these data as well as to the most
recently developed data and interpretations resulting from the ongoing
efforts of the scientists themselves. An additional requirement is that
the output be easily usable not only by project personnel but by
customers who may or may not have any GIS expertise or access to
sophisticated equipment. This is a particularly important aim of the
USGS, whose primary mission is to provide the best and most current
information possible to decision makers and the public.
Within the CERT, the GIS technologists work
with the researchers to provide them with GIS functionality without the
burdens of data management and GIS data processing. Some of the benefits
of this model are:
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Everyone on the
project has access to the same data.
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Each research
scientist can add and share their interpretations.
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Centralized project
libraries are developed and archived.
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This provides more
seamless migration from working data to published interactive
products.
This poster presentation provides information
on how we are using Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI)
ArcGIS tools to provide our research scientists with groups of data
layers that they can work with in either ArcMap or via their browsers.
The technical aspects of the USGS GIS operations are advanced and
complex. Major tasks include technical issues related to application
deployment, security, and system architecture. This poster presentation
does not go into the details of all technical aspects, but does provide
sources for such information.
Ahlbrandt, T.S., Pierce, B.S., Nuccio, V,
2003, USGS World Petroleum Assessment 2000: U.S. Geological Survey Fact
Sheet, FS-062-03 (http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-062-03/).
Biewick, L.R.H., Gunther, G.L., and Skinner,
C.C., 2002, USGS National Oil and Gas Assessment Online (NOGA Online)
using ArcIMS: ArcUser Magazine, 8 p., 2 figures. [CDROM] (http://www.esri.com/news/arcuser/1002/noga1of2.html).
Biewick, L.R.H., Gunther, G.L., and Skinner,
C.C., 2002, USGS National Oil and Gas Assessment Online (NOGA Online)
using ArcIMS: 22nd Annual ESRI International User Conference
Proceedings, San Diego, CA, July 8-12, 2002, 23 p., 15 figures.
[CD-ROM] (http://gis.esri.com/library/userconf/proc02/pap0826/p0826.htm).
Biewick, L.R.H., Gunther, G.L.,
Skinner, C.C., Schenk, C.J., and Ferderer, D.A., 2003, USGS National
Assessment of Oil and Gas Online (NOGA Online): U.S. Geological Survey
Fact Sheet 098-03 (http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-098-03/).
Energy Information Administration, 2000,
Market trends—Coal, in Annual energy outlook 2001: Energy
Information Administration Report DOE/EIA–0383(2001), p. 92–96.
(Accessed on the web on 2/21/01 at
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/pdf/trend_5.pdf)
Huffman, A.C., Biewick, L.R.H., Gunther, G.L.,
2004, Gulf Coast Geology Online (GCG Online): U.S. Geological Survey
Fact Sheet 2004-3143 (http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2004/3143/).
Huffman, A.C., Kinney, S.A., Biewick, L.R.H.,
Mitchell, H.R., and Gunther, G.L., 2004, Gulf Coast Geology (GCG) Online
- Miocene of Southern Louisiana: U.S. Geological Survey Data Series
DS-90-A, version 1 (http://pubs.usgs.gov/ds/2004/90/A/).
Pierce, Brenda S., 2001, The U.S. Geological
Survey National Coal Resource Assessment: U.S. Geological Survey Fact
Sheet, FS-020-01 (http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs020-01/).
U.S. Geological Survey World Energy Assessment Team, 2000, U.S.
Geological Survey World Petroleum Assessment 2000--Description and
Results by U.S. Geological Survey World Energy Assessment Team: U.S.
Geological Survey Digital Data Series DDS-60, Version 1.1 [4 CDROMs] (http://pubs.usgs.gov/dds/dds-060/).
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