Minnesota Geology Data
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Item Karst Features of Minnesota(Minnesota Geological Survey, 2002) Alexander, E. Calvin, Jr.; Tipping, R.G.Southeastern Minnesota is part of the Upper Mississippi Valley Karst (Hedges and Alexander, 1985) that includes southwestern Wisconsin and northeastern Iowa. Karst lands in Minnesota are developed in Paleozoic carbonate and sandstone bedrock. A significant sandstone karst has developed in Pine County (Shade and others, 2001). Most surficial karst features such as sinkholes are found only in those areas with less than fifty feet of sedimentary cover over bedrock surface (Gao and others, 2002). Since the early 1980s, the Minnesota Geological Survey and Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Minnesota have been mapping karst features and publishing various versions of their results in the form of 1:100,000 scale County Geologic Atlases. In the mid 1990s, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources was assigned responsibility for the hydrogeology portions of the County Atlases and is now responsible for the karst mapping. Dalgleish and Alexander (1984), Alexander and Maki (1988), Witthuhn and Alexander (1995), Green and others (1997), Shade and others (2001), and Tipping and others (2001) published sinkhole distribution maps for Winona, Olmsted, Fillmore Counties, Leroy Township, Pine and Wabasha Counties respectively. Published Atlases of Washington, Dakota, and the counties of the Twin Cites Metro area contain limited information on sinkhole occurrences. A karst feature database of Southeastern Minnesota has been developed that allows sinkhole and other karst feature distributions to be displayed and analyzed across existing county boundaries in a GIS environment. The central DBMS is a relational GIS-based system interacting with three modules: spatial operation, spatial analysis, and hydrogeological modules. Data tables are stored in a Microsoft ACCESS 2000 DBMS and linked to corresponding ArcView shape files. The current Karst Feature Database of Southeastern Minnesota was put on a Citrix Window 2000 server accessible to researchers and planners through networked interfaces. The karst inventory points were point features such as sinkholes, springs, and stream sinks extracted from the karst feature database of Southeastern Minnesota. Both inventory points and karst feature database are updated on regular basis. This research was supported with funding from the Minnesota Department of Health.Item 2003 Rock Properties Database: Density, Magnetic Susceptibility, and Natural Remanent Magnetization of Rocks in Minnesota(Minnesota Geological Survey, 2010-08-06) Chandler, V.W; Lively, R.S; mgs@umn.edu; Minnesota Geological SurveyGeologic interpretation of gravity and magnetic anomaly data in a given area is greatly enhanced if density, magnetic susceptibility and natural remanent magnetization (NRM) data are available for representative rock-types. Along with outcrop and drill-hole information, rock property data help relate geophysical anomaly signatures to probable rock types, and provide constraints on the use of anomaly data as a tool for mapping and for modeling geology at depth. Most of the density and magnetization data contained in this database were acquired over the last two decades by the Minnesota Geological Survey (MGS) as part of an on-going program to collect rock properties. A group of Paleozoic samples were collected from Iowa and included in the database because they provide a representative suite of data for rocks present, but not widely exposed in Minnesota. Additional data were derived from studies by the U. S. Geological Survey (Bath, 1962; Beck, 1970; Beck and Lindsley, 1969; Books, 1972; Jahren, 1965), The University of Minnesota (Bleifuss, 1952, Mooney and Bleifuss, 1952), The University of Western Ontario (Palmer, 1970), and the Geological Survey of Canada (Dubois, 1962).Item GRAVITY AND AEROMAGNETIC DATA GRIDS OF MINNESOTA(Minnesota Geological Survey, 2004) Chandler, V.W.; Lively, R.S.; Wahl, T.E.These data represent over 40 years of gravity surveying in the state of Minnesota. This release is the first significant revision of the Minnesota gravity database since the compilation by Chandler and Schaap (1991), that the reader is referred to for information on the older data. Since that compilation, approximately 2000 stations have been added from data used to support a variety of projects for the Minnesota Geological Survey (MGS). Additionally, archival data not available for the earlier compilation are now included.