USGS Geological Science Research on BLM Public Lands

New Opportunities for Future Collaboration

Energy Resources Program

• A three-year geothermal resource study of the Great Basin region of the Western US. The plan is to conduct the project in collaboration with the Department of Energy, the BLM, universities, and State agencies. The study will investigate the nature and extent of geothermal systems and produce an updated assessment of available geothermal resources. The final products will include an assessment of the geothermal potential of the Great Basin Region and should include both discovered and undiscovered geothermal systems and an allocation of those resources to Federal lands. Additionally, the assessment will incorporate the compilation of online geospatial databases of regional and system-specific geological, geophysical, geochemical, and hydrological information relevant to geothermal resources.
  
  
• A five-year project that collects, analyses, and interprets geologic and energy resource information to build a GIS of energy resources on Federal lands, in compliance with the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 2000, section 604. The Act requires that the Secretary of the Interior, in consultation with the Secretaries of Agriculture and Energy, shall conduct an inventory of all onshore Federal lands. The inventory shall identify USGS estimates of the oil and gas resources and known reserves underlying these lands (the responsibility of USGS and DOE, respectively) and the extent and nature of any restrictions or impediments to the development of such resources (responsibility of BLM and USFS). The inventory shall be provided to the Committee on Resources of the House of Representatives and to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources of the Senate within two years after the date of enactment of this section (November 2002). Once completed, the USGS resource estimates and the surface land use status data shall be regularly updated and made publicly available. The project chief will coordinate with BLM, USFS, and DOE to prioritize study areas, to coordinate GIS data integration methods, and to comply with reporting expectations from Congress.
  

Landslide Hazards Program

• Cooperation with USGS scientists and other Federal agencies on specific research topics directed at identifying, understanding, and reducing the risk of landslide hazards in the United States. USGS will emphasize efforts in the Central Region to develop tools and methodologies that can be used for prediction of post-wildfire debris-flows and runoff events and delineation of these hazards by Federal, State, and local land-management agencies.

Earth Surface Dynamics

• Support studies that produce new understanding of the interrelations among earth surface processes, climatic variations, ecological systems, and land-use change. All of the following involve collaborative work with BLM or involve work on BLM lands:
  
  1. Develop capabilities for integrated regional climate and ecosystem modeling to enable forecasts of land surface and ecological change by combining surface and vegetation response models with scenarios of future climate and atmospheric chemistry. Application includes invasive species.
  2. Develop research that examines the modern dynamics of physical landscapes and ecosystems in the context of geologic evolution and climatic variations. Applications include impacts from fire and invasive species.
  3. Develop new techniques for rapid assessment of sediment budgets in river basins.
  4. Using lake and wetland sediments, derive drought and flood records over the past few thousand years and evaluate these records with respect to predicted future change.
  5. Link the development of dust-storm monitoring and dust-prediction models to soil erosion and predictive mapping of soil habitats for pathogens that undergo atmospheric transport, with bearing on issues of homeland security.