NEW GEOLOGIC MAPS AND THE SEARCH FOR AND MANAGEMENT OF GEOLOGIC RESOURCES IN OHIO

Three recent Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Geological Survey (ODGS) maps will give geologists working in Ohio practical tools to facilitate their search for and management of Ohio's natural resources. The Shaded bedrock-topography map of Ohio is a digital compilation of 788 ODGS 7.5-minute bedrock-topography maps. An interactive version of the map, its data set, and GIS files are available on CD-ROM. The map shows the distribution of valleys and bedrock uplands beneath the glacial drift covering Ohio, which can influence engineering methods, land-use planning, and the search for and management of mineral-resources and ground water. The Shaded drift-thickness map of Ohio is a digital map produced by subtracting bedrock-topography contours from surface topography contours. The map shows the thickness of glacial drift of Ohio. An interactive version of the map and GIS files are available on CD-ROM. By using these two maps in concert with the surficial geology maps in production at the ODGS, the geologic and geotechnical community will have a truly remarkable tool with which to better manage and search for Ohio's natural resources. The ODGS's surficial-geology maps characterize the distribution and thickness of Ohio's glacial, post-glacial, and related deposits from the surface down to the uppermost bedrock unit. This vertical sequence depicts, via graphical annotation, the layers present from the surface down to bedrock. Data for these maps comes from county soil maps, water-well logs, oil and gas wells, geotechnical borings, fieldwork, and existing ODGS maps. These maps bring together bedrock-topography, bedrock-geology, drift-thickness, and surficial-geology information in a format that shows not only the lateral variability of materials at the surface, but also the lateral and vertical variability of materials in the subsurface. A CD-ROM with an interactive map, its support data, and GIS files is being produced for each 1:100,000-scale surficial geology map.