Geologic Databases Associated with a Federal/State Cooperative Program:The Alabama and Virginia Models John Rowland, Carl Hobbs, and Robert Mink ABSTRACT

The U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS) and several coastal States are engaged in cooperative studies of the coastal nearshore geologic environment. Since the early 1990’s, the objectives have been to evaluate sand deposits as sources of material for public works projects. The geo-science data has recently become accessible through the MMS Sand Program at (http://www.mms.gov/intermar/marineac.htm) and the collaborative State agency and academic institutions. The MMS web-site features a metageodatabase (MGD) of basic project information with hyper-links to the investigator(s) and associated State agency or university. The efforts of the Geological Survey of Alabama (GSA) and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) with the MMS sand program are models of collaborative coastal nearshore continental shelf geo-science programs. At VIMS, geologists and their associates at George Mason University are studying the shelf and coast off southeastern Virginia. Projects include characterization of sediments, shoreline monitoring of nearby nourishment projects, shore-attached ridges, and creation of data inventories. Background and status of the operations is at the VIMS web-site (http://www.vims.edu/physical/). The GSA cooperative work since 1991 focused assessments of offshore sand deposits as sources of material for coastal restoration. In 2000, the GSA and MMS developed a CD: “Sand Resources and Shoreline Profile Geospatial Data and Interactive Map”. The CD contains text and figures describing coastal and nearshore sediment data, local stratigraphy, and shoreline and nearshore morphology of the shelf offshore of eastern Alabama, and map-viewer software. This year, GSA has made the data accessible from the Internet using ArcIMS at (http://www.gsa.state.al.us/). The data and information from other MMS/State cooperative projects such as the State of North Carolina and State of Texas are also available on CD and from the State web-site.