Geospatial datasets developed for a hydrogeologic conceptual model of brine discharge to the Dolores River, Paradox Valley, Colorado

Geospatial datasets were developed to estimate the altitude of the top of bedrock, altitude of the top of the Paradox salt, altitude of the water table in the alluvial aquifer, and the thickness and extent of saturated alluvium in the Paradox Valley in western Colorado. This study was completed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in cooperation with the Bureau of Reclamation for modeling of brine discharge to the Dolores River (Heywood and others, 2024; Paschke and others, 2024). One point dataset and 11 surfaces (shapefiles or rasters) are published in this data release. The point dataset (Paradox_well_data.zip) contains water-level and geologic data for groundwater, observation, test, and production wells in the Paradox Valley compiled from several sources in 2010. Five of the surfaces (breccia_extent.zip, brsurface.zip, topbrcontour.zip, topsaltcontour.zip, and valley_alluvium.zip) were derived from published geologic maps and well logs and provide a hydrogeologic framework for the valley. The remaining six surfaces (alluvium_sat_bndy.zip, alluvium_sat_ci5m.zip, alt_wl_krig.zip, paa_sat.zip, wlalt_dwr_m.zip, and wlalt_ed_smooth.zip) were derived from the well dataset and mainly describe the thickness and extent of saturated alluvium in the valley floor. Details of how these geospatial datasets were created are provided in the 'process step' section of the metadata file associated with this data release. In addition to the geospatial datasets, this data release also includes a drilling report and results of several aquifer tests. The text file 'JensenBrineWell#2log.txt' contains the drilling report for Brine Well #2 from an unpublished report titled "Prospectus for Paradox Salt Company, Appendix F" by Jensen and Sorensen, Inc., 1959. The text file 'Specific_capacity_tests_pvu.txt' contains the results of 36 specific-capacity aquifer tests conducted by the Bureau of Reclamation between 1977 and 1984.