KGS receives USGS grant for data preservation

The Kentucky Geological Survey received $51,002 in grant funding from the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Geological and Geophysical Data Preservation Program, with KGS matching the funding from USGS. Doug Curl is principal investigator of the project. Other KGS staff involved are Drew Andrews, co-PI; Richard Smath, manager of the scanning project; and Sarah Arpin, manager of water well lithologic data entry. Two students in the UK Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Scott Anderson and Alexandria Thomas, will also participate in the project. The project has three objectives, to be completed by June 30, 2020:

• A total of 1,192 auger samples from western Kentucky are being cataloged and labeled for permanent archive and public access at the KGS Earth Analysis Research Library, or EARL. Alexandria Thomas is cataloging, locating, and labeling the auger samples.
• Mineral commodity and oil and gas maps, many of which were donated to KGS by companies, are being scanned to make them available for download from our database. The scanned maps will be inventoried and added to either the KGS publications and maps database and online repository or to the mineral map service repository.
• A backlog of lithologic information from scanned water well records is being entered into the Kentucky Groundwater Repository database by Scott Anderson. These data will be shared via the KGS Water Well and Springs web service.

Doug Curl and Liz Adams received support through this project to attend the 2019 Association of American State Geologists/U.S. Geological Survey National Geological and Geophysical Data Preservation Program Data Preservation Workshop in September, held at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colo. Adams presented a 2-minute lightning talk titled “Triage and Ingenuity: A Core Rescue Story.” Curl and Adams also toured the USGS core facility while they were in Golden.

As part of the grant, standard operating procedures for entering lithologic information from scanned water well records are being developed. These methods will be used to teach students how to enter the information into the database. Entry of lithologic data for water well records into the Kentucky Groundwater Repository database will be continued for future records. Cataloging and labeling auger samples will provide a valuable dataset for near-surface studies in the Jackson Purchase Region.