National Bedrock Geology
In the foreground are rocks of an Oligocene caldera complex; bedrock in the on the horizon is a slightly younger caldera complex. A challenge for bedrock mapping is inferring what is in the subsurface between exposures like these.
At 1:5 million scale J.C. Reed’s (2004) Geologic Map of North America is the most detailed seamless map of bedrock geology in the United States. Synthesizing nationwide geology in greater detail is a challenge for the coming decade.
Accessible, up-to-date information about the Nation’s bedrock geology is necessary to support infrastructure development, natural resource management, mineral assessments, water quality, and earth science research. The National Bedrock Geology task will construct a continuous digital geologic map of pre-Quaternary rocks and deposits across the United States at National scale, to fulfill the USGI mandate for national coverage and to transform the capacity for digital analysis of the Nation’s geology.
The national bedrock geologic map data layer will be assembled from synthesis of new and existing geologic map compilations in the target scale range. States and other FEDMAP projects will prepare new compilations as their needs and resources allow and deliver these to the NGS Project when complete. The NGS Project will inventory and prioritize existing maps for conversion to the national format (using an extension of the NCGMP GeMS digital mapping standard), beginning with existing vector data sets, and populate the national map with these data. Concurrently, the NGS project will develop a database suitable for serving the national map to the public.
