National Geochemical Atlas
Contents: Overview | ArcView Project | Data Layers | Data Access | Documentation and Links
Overview
From USGS--"The National Uranium Resource Evaluation (NURE) program of the Department of Energy (DOE) collected a vast amount of chemical data on sediment, soil, and water samples from the United States in the late 1970's and early 1980's. This element of the NURE program was known as the Hydrogeochemical and Stream Sediment Reconnaissance (HSSR). The NURE HSSR data have long been available to the public in a variety of formats, ranging from the original paper reports produced by the DOE (see Averett, 1984), to comprehensive digital releases on CD-ROM by the U.S. Geological Survey in the last few years (Hoffman and Buttleman, 1994; 1996), to digital releases on the Internet of reformatted and cleaned data (Smith, 1998). While these publications remain the best sources of the complete, primary data, and are accompanied by documentation of the sampling protocols, sample characteristics, and analytical methods, they are difficult to use for geochemical research, especially when the study area covers a wide area of the United States. This publication is intended to allow the rapid visualization of the geochemical landscape of the United States using the NURE HSSR data.
"Here, the user is relieved of the responsibility of selecting and processing the raw data; this was done in the preparation of the CD. A powerful geographic-information system (GIS) tool, the ArcView program of Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI), is provided to allow one to probe and manipulate the processed NURE data. Within the ArcView environment, multiple presentations of the NURE are provided, ranging from color-coded point maps, to bitmap-images on a national scale, to interpreted maps based on geologic and hydrologic units."
NOTE: The NURE data is in the process (as of 12/01) of being reformatted to create consistent database structures and fix data problems. More information about the reformatting work is available at: http://geology.cr.usgs.gov/pub/open-file-reports/ofr-97-0492/whynew.htm. The reformatted data (tabular only) is available for download from the National Geochemical Database web site at: http://geology.cr.usgs.gov/pub/open-file-reports/ofr-97-0492/.
ArcView Project
The Geochemical Atlas is designed to be used via the ArcView project provided, though the underlying data is available in shapefile, DBF and TIFF format. The project allows geochemical data to be viewed in multiple ways:
- as point maps of original data
- as element grid maps derived by gridding the point data
- as a visual comparison of gridded-elemental maps with a geologic map (King-Beikman)
- as a visual comparison of gridded-elemental maps with hydrologic units
Built-in tools, scripts and legend files allow the user to view the geochemical data in various different ways, and to view multiple maps at the same time.
Data Layers
Geochemistry data for use in conjunction with the shapefiles are available as individual DBF files by element or as TIFF images with world files. Supplementary data layers are available as shapefiles.
Geochemical Atlas TIFF Images (Albers Equal Area Conic projection with world file) and Quadrangle-by-Quadrangle DBF Files available for:
- Arsenic (As)
- Cerium (Ce)
- Copper (Cu)
- Iron (Fe)
- Hafnium (Hf)
- Sodium (Na)
- Lead (Pb)
- Thorium (Th)
- Titanium (Ti)
- Uranium (U)
- Zinc (Zn)
Shapefiles (Geographic Coordinates):
- States (0.8 mb)
- 1:250,000 Quadrangles [file: file_idx] (0.09 mb)
- Lakes from Reach File 1 [file: us_lakes] (7.5 mb)
- Streams from Reach File 1 (60.0 mb)
- Bailey's Ecoregions [file: bailey] (0.64 mb)
- Shaded Relief from 15 arc-second DEM [file: u15a468m.tiff] (60.2 mb)
- Coasts (0.76 mb)
- Faults (4.0 mb)
- Glaciers (0.08 mb)
- Hydrologic Units [file: huc] (18.7 mb)
- King-Beikman Geology Map [file: kb] (27.5 mb)
- Sample Types [file: typbound] (0.07 mb)
Documentation: A collective metadata record for the Geochemical Atlas is available at: http://geo-nsdi.er.usgs.gov/metadata/open-file/98-622/metadata.html
Extensive data and ArcView project documentation is available in PDF and Word formats on the CD-ROM.
Data Access
CD-ROM (Images, Shapefiles, DBFs): The geochemical atlas is available on CD-ROM in the DH Hill Library Reference Area, Location: I 19.76.98-622 (Govt. CD-ROM Cabinet)
Download (Images): Geochemical Atlas TIFF Images (Albers Equal Area Conic projection with world file) are downloadable from http://mrdata.usgs.gov/sddpftp.html
NURE Data: The tabular NURE data are downloadable by 1:250,000 quad from the National Geochemical Database Web site at http://geology.cr.usgs.gov/pub/open-file-reports/ofr-97-0492/
Other CD-ROMs:
- National Geochemical Database, DDS-18-B, 1996 (Call number: I 19.121.18-B)
- National Geochemical Database, DDS-18-A, 1994 (Call number: I 19.121.18-A)
- National Geochemical Database, PLUTO DDS-47 (Call number: I 19.121.47)
Documentation and Links
National Geochemical Atlas Metadata
National Geochemical Database
NURE Reformatting Information
Go to the GIS Data List Page
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