Geophysical Unit of Menlo Park, Calif.

U.S. Geological Survey
Open-File Report 2006-1160
Version 1.0

In Cooperation with the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA)

Geophysical Data from the Spring and Snake Valleys Area, Nevada and Utah

By Edward A. Mankinen, Carter W. Roberts, Edwin H. McKee, Bruce A. Chuchel, and Barry C. Moring

2006

thumbnail of map
Depth to pre-Cenozoic basement (from figure 10)

The Spring and Snake Valleys area of Nevada and Utah are two of the major ground-water recharge areas in the eastern part of the Great Basin that were investigated in order to characterize the geophysical framework of the region. Although gravity coverage was extensive over parts of the study area, data were sparse for much of Spring Valley. We addressed this lack of data by establishing five hundred and forty-five new gravity stations in the region. All available gravity data for the study area were then evaluated to determine their reliability, prior to calculating an isostatic residual gravity map of the area that can be used for subsequent analyses. A gravity inversion method was used to calculate depths to pre-Cenozoic basement rock and estimates of maximum alluvial/volcanic fill in the major valleys of the study area. The enhanced gravity coverage and the incorporation of lithologic information from several deep oil and gas wells yields a much improved view of subsurface shapes of these basins and will provide insights useful for the development of hydrogeologic models for the region.

Download this report as a 39-page PDF file (of2006-1160.pdf; 5.8 MB)

Download the gravity data as an Excel .xls file. This is Table 1 as a spreadsheet that contains the data on nearly 550 gravity stations (of2006-1160_table1.xls; 96 KB)

For questions about the content of this report, contact Ed Mankinen

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