Airborne Surveys

The purpose of this project is to update the current gridded products created from the North American airborne gamma ray spectrometry data using new statistical techniques to analyze spatial data and to create higher quality national airborne radiometric grids.

In many parts of the southeastern U.S., dark-colored sands can be seen at beaches or beneath soil. These sands contain titanium, zirconium, and rare earth elements, which are considered critical mineral resources. Such sands are present in areas from the coast to a hundred miles or more inland beneath soil within the Atlantic Coastal Plain Province. In some locales they are concentrated enough to...

ROSETTA-Ice is a large, NSF-funded, multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional project with several major goals focused on the full ice shelf system of the Ross Ice Shelf that include the ice, underlying seafloor bathymetry, and ocean interaction. Methods include the first comprehensive LC-130-based airborne geophysical survey of the Ross Ice Shelf to measure ice thickness and accumulation (ice...

This task within the Oil and Gas Waters Project focuses on the development of oil and gas resources results in substantial volumes of produced water. Particularly when produced from deep geologic formations, these waters can exhibit elevated salinity in comparison to shallow groundwater at the same location. Knowing the spatial and temporal occurrence of high salinity produced water in groundwater...

The project main objectives are to: 1) geologically, characterize the setting and origin of the iron-copper-cobalt-gold-rare earth element deposits, and advance the knowledge of rare earth element and Co potential within iron oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) deposits of southeast Missouri, and 2) geophysically delineate and characterize the subsurface Precambrian geology using existing ground and new...

The USGS is using a set of advanced imaging and analysis tools to study the rocks within the eastern Adirondacks of upstate New York. The goal of these studies is to gain a better understanding of the geology and mineral resources in the area.

The Yukon-Tanana upland in eastern interior Alaska is a geologically complex block containing deposits of base-metal, platinum-group-element, and gold-silver-copper mineralization. It also hosts numerous mineral systems that are known or suspected to contain critical minerals.

Regional geophysical data that are available over continental scales such as magnetic, gravity, and magnetotelluric data can provide a foundation towards identifying and understanding the footprints and deep plumbing systems underlying these important ore systems. Our project will use continental-scale geophysical data to map the locations of deep crustal and mantle structures that may act as...

The Mineral Resources Program has advanced methods of imaging spectroscopy (hyperspectral remote sensing) that are now used routinely by the earth science and remote sensing communities for mineral mapping, soil quality mapping, hazard mitigation, and other terrestrial and planetary applications. The USGS is highly qualified to advance this technology based on its world class expertise in mineral...

This multidisciplinary study seeks to image and characterize the mineral resource potential of the Midcontinent Rift System. Combining various geophysical methods with detailed mapping and geochemical analyses will help to define the geographic extent of the Rift and clarify its geologic makeup and configuration.

This project helped to streamline the workflow from geophysical data acquisition to data distribution, and additionally provided user support for integration and interpretation of these complex data sets. There were four main objectives: 1) contracting geophysical surveys, 2) converting data from analog to digital format, 3) archiving, retrieving, and integrating geophysical data, and 4) outreach.

Available geophysical data for Alaska have not been fully exploited. Project objectives were to conduct systematic analysis of existing gravity, aeromagnetic and airborne electromagnetic data to map geologic trends, structural geologic and tectonic patterns, and identify key lithologies for direct integration with geologic framework and mineral potential studies.