Unified Interior Regions
Region 7: Upper Colorado Basin
Map of Region 7 Upper Colorado River Basin
Map Showing USGS/DOI Unified Region 7 and parts of adjoining Regions
Key USGS Region 7 Upper Colorado Basin Contacts
Regional Director (Acting)-Peter Griffiths
Associate Regional Director, Operations-Peter Griffiths
USGS Region 7 Upper Colorado Basin Offices and Science Centers
Regions L2 Landing Page Tabs
USGS Science Centers in Region 7-Upper Colorado Basin conduct a large number of cooperative and collaborative projects with other agencies and partners. A sampling of those projects are shown below on this web page.
Chemical Modeling of Acid Waters Questa Baseline and Pre-Mining Ground-Water Quality Investigation, Red River Valley Basin, New Mexico
The US Geological Survey and the New Mexico Environment Department entered into a Joint Powers Agreement as of April 30, 2001 to execute an investigation of baseline and pre-mining ground-water quality in the Red River Basin, New Mexico. The main objective is to infer the pre-mining ground-water quality at the Questa Molycorp mine site. This study was formulated because New Mexico law states...
Comprehensive Water-Quality Study for the Arkansas River Basin, Colorado
Changes in land and water use associated with population growth and agricultural practices within the Arkansas River Basin are likely to affect water-quality on a local and, possibly, a basin-wide scale. To manage the limited water resources in the basin most effectively it is important to understand the processes that affect water quality within the basin and how future changes in land and...
Chemical Modeling of Consequences of Surface-Water Delivery Through Existing City of Albuquerque Infrastructure
The City of Albuquerque has historically obtained all of its municipal-supply water from production wells completed in sediment of the Santa Fe Group aquifer system. Like several communities in the Rio Grande Valley and various parts of the arid Southwest, Albuquerque has evaluated the use of surface water as a means to improve sustainability of its municipal water supply. The City currently...
Aquatic communities and associated water chemistry in the St. Vrain River near the City of Longmont wastewater-treatment plant
The St. Vrain River watershed in northeastern Colorado has experienced rapid urban growth over the last two decades. Population growth has led to increased volumes being treated at wastewater-treatment plants (WWTPs) in the basin. In the last two decades, in-stream restoration efforts and new treatment technologies have been implemented by the City of Longmont, with the goal of improving water...
RCMAP - Lake Fork at Gateview, Colorado
The U.S. Geological Survey was engaged in a program to monitor and assess the long-term geomorphic behavior of selected river and stream reaches that previously had undergone some physical modification. These modifications included natural channel adjustments to floods as well as intentional channel reconfigurations to alter the function or appearance of a river reach.
Land use in the...
Floods Analysis
Accurate estimations of flood discharges at bridge or culvert sites is required to provide cost-effective design of that structure. Streamflow-gaging stations, for which flood data are available, are usually located in major perennial drainage basins that are not representative of sites where common bridge and culvert designs are needed.
In 1942, the USGS, in cooperation with the New...
Rio Grande Travel Times
The City of Albuquerque will begin accepting delivery of imported San Juan-Chama water to supplement present municipal water supplies as part of the City's Drinking Water Project (DWP). The City's San Juan-Chama water will be diverted from the Rio Grande near Alameda Bridge in Albuquerque, transported to a treatment facility, and eventually distributed to customers.
Water in the Rio...
Analysis of the Magnitude and Frequency of Peak Discharge in the Navajo Nation and Surrounding Region, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico
Estimates of the magnitude and frequency of peak discharges on unregulated streams at gaging stations or ungaged stream sites in the Navajo Nation in Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico are necessary for flood hazard mapping.
Numerical simulation of the cumulative effects of land-use change and aggregate mines on ground-water flow and wetlands along the South Platte River, Brighton to Fort Lupton, Colorado
The South Platte River valley between the City of Brighton in Adams County and the town of Fort Lupton in Weld County, Colorado, contains many wetland areas that provide habitat for wildlife in the Front Range Urban Corridor. The extent of aggregate mining along this reach of the South Platte River valley continues to increase as the demand for aggregate grows in response to urban development...
Documentation of slug and shut-in test data for wells H-1, H-2A, H-2B, H-2C, and H-3 at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has collected, documented, and published an extensive amount of hydrogeologic data collected from and near the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) site in southeastern New Mexico. The objective of the proposed work is to document and publish the data that was used to estimate values of transmissivity and storage coefficients for water-bearing zones open to...
Vertical Extent of Ground-Water Contamination with Organic Solvents in Grants, New Mexico
The City of Grants is located in Cibola County within western central New Mexico and is included within the Bluewater Underground Water Basin. Major aquifers within the Grants area include the Alluvium and basalt flows of Quaternary age and the San Andres Limestone and the Glorietta Sandstone of Permian age. Contamination of shallow ground water with volatile organic carbon compounds including...
Groundwater Resources of the East Mountain Area, Bernalillo, Sandoval, Santa Fe, and Torrance Counties, New Mexico, 2005
The East Mountain area refers to an area east of Albuquerque, New Mexico, on the eastern slopes of the Sandia, Manzanita, and northern Manzano Mountains, and encompasses parts of Bernalillo, Sandoval, Santa Fe, and Torrance Counties.
USGS Science Centers in Region 7-Upper Colorado Basin produce hundreds of USGS-series publications, journal papers, and books each year that are subject to rigorous review by USGS specialists. The publications shown below on this page are related to study areas and staff members of USGS Science Centers in Region 7 compiled from the USGS Publications Warehouse.
Variability in results from mineralogical and organic geochemical interlaboratory testing of U. S. Geological Survey shale reference materials
The expansion of unconventional petroleum resource exploration and production in the United States has led to an increase in source rock characterization efforts, particularly related to bulk organic and mineralogical properties. To support the analytical and research needs of industry and academia, as well as internal work, the U.S. Geological...
Birdwell, Justin E.; Wilson, Stephen A. Detrital zircon geochronology along a structural transect across the Kahiltna assemblage in the western Alaska Range: Implications for emplacement of the Alexander-Wrangellia-Peninsular terrane against North America
The Kahiltna assemblage in the western Alaska Range consists of deformed Upper Jurassic and Cretaceous clastic strata that lie between the Alexander-Wrangellia-Peninsular (AWP) terrane to the south, and the Farewell and other peri-cratonic terranes to the north. Differences in detrital zircon populations and sandstone petrography allow geographic...
Box, Stephen E.; Karl, Susan M.; Jones, James V.; Bradley, Dwight C.; Haeussler, Peter; O'Sullivan, Paul B. Plant and insect herbivore community variation across the Paleocene–Eocene boundary in the Hanna Basin, southeastern Wyoming
Ecosystem function and stability are highly affected by internal and external stressors. Utilizing paleobotanical data gives insight into the evolutionary processes an ecosystem undergoes across long periods of time, allowing for a more complete understanding of how plant and insect herbivore communities are affected by ecosystem imbalance. To...
Schmidt, Lauren E; Dunn, Regan E; Mercer, Jason J; Dechesne, Marieke; Currano, Ellen D Quantifying source and sink habitats and pathways in spatially structured populations: A generalized modelling approach
The ability to classify habitats and movement pathways as sources or sinks is an important part of the decision making process for the conservation of spatially structured populations. Diverse approaches have been used to quantify the importance of habitats and pathways in a spatial network, however these approaches have been limited by a lack of...
Diffendorfer, James E.; Sample, Christine; Beiri, Joanna A; Allen, Benjamin L. ; Dementieva, Yulia; Carson, Alyssa; Higgins, Connar; Piatt, Sadie; Qiu, Shirley; Stafford, Summer; Mattsson, Brady J.; Semmens, Darius J.; Thogmartin, Wayne E. Mountain-block recharge: A review of current understanding
Mountain-block recharge (MBR) is the subsurface inflow of groundwater to lowland aquifers from adjacent mountains. MBR can be a major component of recharge but remains difficult to characterize and quantify due to limited hydrogeologic, climatic, and other data in the mountain block and at the mountain front. The number of MBR-related studies has...
Katherine Markovich; Manning, Andrew H.; Laura Condon; Jennifer McIntosh Assessing the feasibility of satellite-based thresholds for hydrologically driven landsliding
Elevated soil moisture and heavy precipitation contribute to landslides worldwide. These environmental variables are now being resolved with satellites at spatiotemporal scales that could offer new perspectives on the development of landslide warning systems. However, the application of these data to hydro-meteorological thresholds (which account...
Thomas, Matthew A.; Collins, Brian D.; Mirus, Benjamin B.
Assessment of undiscovered continuous oil and gas resources in the Upper Ordovician Point Pleasant Formation and Utica Shale of the Appalachian Basin Province, 2019
Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable continuous mean resources of 1.8 billion barrels of oil and 117.2 trillion cubic feet of gas in the Upper Ordovician Point Pleasant Formation and Utica Shale of the Appalachian Basin Province.
Enomoto, Catherine B.; Trippi, Michael H.; Higley, Debra K.; Drake, Ronald M.; Gaswirth, Stephanie B.; Mercier, Tracey J.; Brownfield, Michael E.; Leathers-Miller, Heidi M.; Le, Phuong A.; Marra, Kristen R.; Tennyson, Marilyn E.; Woodall, Cheryl A.; Schenk, Christopher J.
Assessment of undiscovered gas resources in the Middle Devonian Marcellus Shale of the Appalachian Basin Province, 2019
Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable continuous mean resources of 96.5 trillion cubic feet of gas in the Middle Devonian Marcellus Shale of the Appalachian Basin Province.
Higley, Debra K.; Enomoto, Catherine E; Leathers-Miller, Heidi M.; Ellis, Geoffrey S.; Mercier, Tracey J.; Schenk, Christopher J.; Trippi, Michael H.; Le, Phuong A.; Brownfield, Michael E.; Woodall, Cheryl A.; Marra, Kristen R.; Tennyson, Marilyn E. Controls on petroleum resources for the Devonian Marcellus Shale in the Appalachian Basin Province, Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York
Greater than 33 trillion cubic feet of gas, 68 million barrels of natural gas liquids (NGL), and 192 million barrels of water have been produced from the Middle Devonian Marcellus Shale of the Hamilton Group in the Appalachian Basin. These volumes are from more than 11,700 non-commingled wells. Areas of greatest production and future potential for...
Higley, D.K.; Enomoto, Catherine B.; Leathers-Miller, Heidi M. Burial history reconstruction of the Appalachian Basin in Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York, using 1D petroleum system models
Nine 1D burial history models were built across the Appalachian Basin to reconstruct the burial, erosional, and thermal maturation histories of contained petroleum source rocks. Models were calibrated to measured downhole temperature and to vitrinite reflectance (% Ro) data from Devonian through Pennsylvanian petroleum source rocks. The highest...
Higley, Debra K.; Enomoto, Catherine B. Permeability anisotropy and relative permeability in sediments from the National Gas Hydrate Program Expedition 02, offshore India
Gas and water permeability through hydrate-bearing sediments essentially governs the economic feasibility of gas production from gas hydrate deposits. Characterizing a reservoir’s permeability can be difficult because even collocated permeability measurements can vary by 4-5 orders of magnitude, due partly to differences between how various...
Dai, Sheng; Kim, J.; Xu, Yue; Waite, William F.; Jang, Junbong; Yoneda, J.; Collett, Timothy S.; Kumar, Pushpendra Physical property characteristics of gas hydrate-bearing reservoir and associated seal sediments collected during NGHP-02 in the Krishna-Godavari Basin, in the offshore of India
India’s National Gas Hydrate Program Expedition 02 (NGHP-02), was conducted to better understand geologic controls on gas hydrate occurrence and morphology, targeting potentially coarse-grained sediments near the base of the continental slope offshore eastern India. This study combines seismic, logging-while-drilling data, and a petroleum systems...
Jang, Junbong; Waite, William F.; Stern, Laura A.; Collett, Timothy S.; Kumar, PushpendraPhotos and videos described and linked on this webpage come from a wide variety of USGS science activities and presentations performed by USGS Science Center staff members in the Region 7-Upper Colorado Basin.
Wind turbines in Wyoming.
Wind turbines working in Wyoming.
Looking upstream from bridge, Tongue river, Monarch
Looking upstream from bridge, Tongue river, Monarch
Onaqui SageStep field site, field camp
Field site truck and trailer at the Onaqui SageStep field site, field camp
Drylands of Southern Utah
USGS Image Drylands of Southern Utah - April 28, 2014
Ice jam, Powder River near Arvada (06317000)
Ice jam, Powder River near Arvada (06317000)
Green River at Ouray, Utah
ADCP measurement from kayack on Green River at Ouray, Utah.
Rio Grande near Radium Springs, New Mexico
South-oriented view of the Rio Grande near Radium Springs, New Mexico, February 4, 2014 (photograph by Andrew J. Robertson).
SIR 2016–5010
Jemez Mountains with aspen trees, NM.
Jemez Mountains with aspen trees, NM.
Debris blocking a gage, tributary to Whitewater Canyon
Debris blocking a gage, tributary to Whitewater Canyon, Gila National Forest, Glenwood, NM, NMWSC
Apex of large debris flow, tributary to Whitewater Canyon
Apex of large debris flow, tributary to Whitewater Canyon, Gila National Forest, Glenwood, NM
This page includes links to Social Media accounts (top of page), Science Centers (middle of page), and Regional Office staff members (bottom of page) of the USGS Region 7--Upper Colorado Basin.
Contacts
Locations
Region 7 - Upper Colorado Basin
rgonzales-schreiner@usgs.gov
Phone: 703-648-7200
NSF Ice Core Facility
Phone: 303-202-4830
New Mexico Water Science Center
Phone: (505) 830-7900
Fax: (505) 830-7998
Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center
Phone: 303-236-5345
Utah Water Science Center
angeroth@usgs.gov
Phone: (801) 908-5000
Fax: (801) 908-5001
Colorado Water Science Center - Main Office
gs-w-codist_webmaster@usgs.gov
Phone: 303-236-6900
Fax: 303-236-4912
Wyoming-Montana Water Science Center - Cheyenne Office
Phone: (307) 778-2931
Fax: (307) 778-2764
National Geospatial Technical Operations Center - Denver, CO
Geology, Geophysics, and Geochemistry Science Center
Phone: 303-236-1800
Fax: 303-236-3200
Geologic Hazards Science Center
Phone: 303-273-8500
North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center
Fort Collins Science Center
Phone: 970-226-9100
Fax: 970-226-9230
Colorado Water Science Center - Southeast Colorado Office: Pueblo, CO
gs-w-codist_webmaster@usgs.gov
Phone: 719-562-2840
Fax: 719-544-2463
Colorado Water Science Center - Western Colorado Office: Grand Junction
gs-w-codist_webmaster@usgs.gov
Phone: 970-628-7150
Fax: 970-245-1026
National Earthquake Information Center
Phone: 303-273-8500
Yellowstone Volcano Observatory (YVO)
yvowebteam@usgs.gov
Phone: 360-993-8906
Spectroscopy Lab
Molecular Ecology Lab (MEL)
Phone: 970-226-9100
Fax: 970-226-9230
Denver Microbeam Laboratory
Albuquerque Seismological Laboratory
Moab Field Office
wilkowsk@usgs.gov
Phone: 435-259-4430
Fax: 435-259-5420
Salt Lake Field Office
sjgerner@usgs.gov
Phone: 801-908-5000
Fax: 801-908-5001
Wyoming-Montana Water Science Center - Casper Office
Phone: 307-261-5485
Fax: 307-261-5487
Wyoming-Montana Water Science Center - Riverton Office
Phone: 307-856-3771
Fax: 307-857-3165
Roswell Field Office
Phone: 575-627-0324
Fax: 575-646-7949
Southwest Biological Science Center - Moab, UT, Research Station
Phone: 435-259-3121
USGS Everglades Research Offices
Phone: 305-242-7834
Colorado Water Science Center - Durango Field Office
gs-w-codist_webmaster@usgs.gov
Phone: 970-247-4222
Fax: 970-247-4296
Jackson, Wyoming Field Research Station
Phone: 307-733-2314
Las Cruces Field Office
Phone: (575) 646-8129
Fax: (575) 646-7949
Cedar City Field Office
baslaugh@usgs.gov
Phone: 435-586-4543
Fax: 435-586-4557
USGS Denver Library
den_lib@usgs.gov
Phone: 303-236-1000
Fax: 303-236-1013
The Core Research Center
CRC@USGS.GOV
Phone: 303-202-4851
Fax: 303-202-4856