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Texas Water Science Center
Publications
Scientific reports, journal articles, or general interest publications by USGS scientists in the Texas Water Science Center are listed below. Publications span from 1898 to the present.
Assessment of undiscovered continuous oil and gas resources in the Wolfcamp Shale and Bone Spring Formation of the Delaware Basin, Permian Basin Province, New Mexico and Texas, 2018
Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey assessed undiscovered, technically recoverable continuous mean resources of 46.3 billion barrels of oil and 281 trillion cubic feet of gas in the Wolfcamp shale and Bone Spring Formation of the Delaware Basin in the Permian Basin Province, southeast New Mexico and west Texas.
Gaswirth, Stephanie B.; French, Katherine L.; Pitman, Janet K.; Marra, Kristen R.; Mercier, Tracey J.; Leathers-Miller, Heidi M.; Schenk, Christopher J.; Tennyson, Marilyn E.; Woodall, Cheryl A.; Brownfield, Michael E.; Finn, Thomas M.; Le, Phuong A.
Groundwater quality in the Mississippi embayment–Texas coastal uplands aquifer system, south-central United States
Groundwater provides nearly 50 percent of the Nation’s drinking water. To help protect this vital resource, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Project assesses groundwater quality in aquifers that are important sources of drinking water (Burow and Belitz, 2014). The Mississippi embayment–Texas coastal...
Kingsbury, James A.
Land-cover changes associated with oil and natural-gas production and concentrations of selected constituents in surface-water and streambed-sediment samples collected upstream from and within an area of oil and natural-gas production, south Texas, 2008–17
The extensive development of oil and natural-gas resources in south Texas during the past 10 years has led to questions regarding possible environmental effects of processes associated with oil and natural-gas production, in particular the process of hydraulic fracturing, on water and other natural resources. Part of the lower San Antonio River...
Crow, Cassi L.; Opsahl, Stephen P.; Pedraza, Diana E.; Pease, Emily C.; Kushnereit, Ross K.
Geologic framework and hydrostratigraphy of the Edwards and Trinity aquifers within Hays County, Texas
The Edwards and Trinity aquifers are classified as major aquifers by the Texas Water Development Board and are major sources of water in south-central Texas, where Hays County is located. Detailed maps and descriptions of the geologic framework and hydrostratigraphic units (HSUs) of these karstic aquifers in Hays County are needed for water...
Clark, Allan K.; Pedraza, Diana E.; Morris, Robert R.
Annual and approximately quarterly series peak streamflow derived from interpretations of indirect measurements for a crest-stage gage network in Texas through water year 2015
In 2006, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), incooperation with the Texas Department of Transportation,began collecting annual and approximately quarterly seriespeak-streamflow data at streamflow-gaging stations in smalltomedium-sized watersheds in central and western Texasas part of a crest-stage gage (CSG) network, along withselected flood-...
Asquith, William H.; Harwell, Glenn R.; Winters, Karl E.
New insights into surface-water/groundwater exchanges in the Guadalupe River, Texas, from floating geophysical methods
In south-central Texas, the amount of streamflow in the Guadalupe River is a primary concern for local and downstream communities because of municipal, agricultural, wildlife, and recreational uses. Understanding the flow paths and rates of exchange between the surface water in the river and the groundwater in the underlying Carrizo-Wilcox aquifer...
Ikard, Scott J.; Banta, J. Ryan; Stanton, Gregory P.
Status of groundwater-level altitudes and long-term groundwater-level changes in the Chicot, Evangeline, and Jasper aquifers, Houston-Galveston region, Texas, 2018
Since the early 1900s, most of the groundwater withdrawals in the Houston-Galveston region, Texas, have been from the three primary aquifers that compose the Gulf Coast aquifer system—the Chicot, Evangeline, and Jasper aquifers. Withdrawals from these aquifers are used for municipal supply, industrial, and irrigation purposes. This report,...
Shah, Sachin D.; Ramage, Jason K.; Braun, Christopher L.
Characterization of peak streamflows and flood inundation of selected areas in southeastern Texas and southwestern Louisiana from the August and September 2017 flood resulting from Hurricane Harvey
Hurricane Harvey made landfall near Rockport, Texas, on August 25, 2017, as a Category 4 hurricane with wind gusts exceeding 150 miles per hour. As Harvey moved inland, the forward motion of the storm slowed down and produced tremendous rainfall amounts over southeastern Texas, with 8-day rainfall amounts exceeding 60 inches in some locations,...
Watson, Kara M.; Harwell, Glenn R.; Wallace, David S.; Welborn, Toby L.; Stengel, Victoria G.; McDowell, Jeremy S.
Water-quality observations of the San Antonio segment of the Edwards aquifer, Texas, with an emphasis on processes influencing nutrient and pesticide geochemistry and factors affecting aquifer vulnerability, 2010–16
As questions regarding the influence of increasing urbanization on water quality in the Edwards aquifer are raised, a better understanding of the sources, fate, and transport of compounds of concern in the aquifer—in particular, nutrients and pesticides—is needed to improve water management decision-making capabilities. The U.S. Geological Survey...
Opsahl, Stephen P.; Musgrove, MaryLynn; Mahler, Barbara J.; Lambert, Rebecca B.
New insights on scale-dependent surface-groundwater exchange from a floating self-potential Dipole
In south-central Texas the lower Guadalupe River has incised into the outcrop of the Carrizo-Wilcox aquifer. The river and the aquifer are hydraulically connected across the outcrop, although the connectivity is obscured at the surface by alluvium and surface-water and groundwater exchange dynamics are currently poorly understood. To investigate...
Ikard, Scott; Teeple, Andrew P.; Payne, Jason ; Stanton, Gregory P.; Banta, J. Ryan
Assessment of undiscovered conventional oil and gas resources in the downdip Paleogene formations, U.S. Gulf Coast, 2017
Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated mean undiscovered, technically recoverable conventional resources of 100 million barrels of oil and 16.5 trillion cubic feet of gas in the downdip Paleogene formations in onshore lands and State waters of the U.S. Gulf Coast region.
Buursink, Marc L.; Doolan, Colin A.; Enomoto, Catherine B.; Craddock, William H.; Coleman, James L.; Brownfield, Michael E.; Gaswirth, Stephanie B.; Klett, Timothy R.; Le, Phuong A.; Leathers-Miller, Heidi M.; Marra, Kristen R.; Mercier, Tracey J.; Pearson, Ofori N.; Pitman, Janet K.; Schenk, Christopher J.; Tennyson, Marilyn E.; Whidden, Katherine J.; Woodall, Cheryl A.
Characterizing the subsurface geology in and around the U.S. Army Camp Stanley Storage Activity, south-central Texas
Several U.S. Geological Survey projects, supported by the National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program, have used multi-disciplinary approaches over a 14-year period to reveal the surface and subsurface geologic frameworks of the Edwards and Trinity aquifers of central Texas and the Arbuckle-Simpson aquifer of south-central Oklahoma. Some of the...
Blome, Charles D.; Clark, Allan K.