LOUISIANA SAND RESOURCE DATABASE (LASARD) - A CONCEPT FOR GEOSCIENTIFIC DATA MANAGEMENT FOR OFFSHORE SAND SOURCES IN COASTAL LOUISIANA

Louisiana Department of Natural Resources (LDNR) has embarked upon a multiyear cooperative program with the Mineral Management Service (MMS) to assess and evaluate offshore sand sources along the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) and to manage geological, geophysical, and geotechnical data pertaining to offshore sand searches. The objective of this cooperative agreement is to centralize relevant data from various sources for better project coordination and to facilitate future planning.

LouisianA SAnd Resource Database (LASARD) program has been established as a pilot project. The main purpose is to develop a database of coastal/offshore geoscientific data. This spatial database will consist of geoscientific, environmental, and related data and will be accessible through the internet to the public. This program will provide a repository of data and information pertinent to the sand resources located off Louisiana and their potential for coastal and wetland restoration projects. The database will be of significant value to coastal planners, scientists, engineers, and others interested in the coastal restoration in the northern Gulf of Mexico.

Under the LASARD canopy core logs in analog paper format were converted to a digital GIS data layer and stored in a GIS project. The header information for each log was entered into an excel spreadsheet. The lithologic data for soil type, depths, and other variables were captured in separate Excel templates for each record. Strip Logs were created using RockWorks. Other available graphics were also scanned. The data for each boring log were exported to PDF files. A GIS layer for the boring log points was created from the Excel spreadsheet containing header records. A geographic position for each point was established from latitude-longitude/Lambert coordinates. Log header information was captured in attribute fields for each point. The GIS boring log feature points were then hot-linked to the PDF files to enable interactive viewing of the graphics for each log.

In near future an abundance of project-related geoscientific data will be generated for input into LASARD. The LDNR is actively involved in evaluating sand resources in the OCS. Better quantitative and qualitative evaluations of offshore sand resources like Ship Shoal, Tiger Shoal, Trinity Shoal, and Sabine Bank are near-term goals of LDNR.