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Digital data sets that describe aquifer characteristics of the High Plains aquifer in western Oklahoma

Metadata Updated: October 30, 2025

This data set consists of digital polygons of constant hydraulic conductivity values for the High Plains aquifer in Oklahoma. This area encompasses the panhandle counties of Cimarron, Texas, and Beaver, and the western counties of Harper, Ellis, Woodward, Dewey, and Roger Mills. The High Plains aquifer underlies approximately 7,000 square miles of Oklahoma and is used extensively for irrigation. The High Plains aquifer is a water-table aquifer and consists predominately of the Tertiary-age Ogallala Formation and overlying Quaternary-age alluvial and terrace deposits. In some areas the aquifer is absent and the underlying Triassic, Jurassic, or Cretaceous-age rocks are exposed at the surface. These rocks are hydraulically connected with the aquifer in some areas. The High Plains aquifer is composed of interbedded sand, siltstone, clay, gravel, thin limestones, and caliche. The proportion of various lithological materials changes rapidly from place to place, but poorly sorted sand and gravel predominate. The rocks are poorly to moderately well cemented by calcium carbonate. The High Plains aquifer was divided into three zones with each zone having an assigned hydraulic conductivity that was used as input to a ground-water flow model on the High Plains aquifer. These values are 8.3 feet per day for the west zone, 16.2 feet per day for the central zone, and 19.3 feet per day for the east zone. The polygon boundaries and constant hydraulic conductivity values were constructed by extracting lines from digital surficial geology data sets based on a scale of 1:125,000 for the panhandle counties and 1:250,000 for the western counties. Some of the lines were digitized from maps in a published water-level elevation map for 1980. Ground-water flow models are numerical representations that simplify and aggregate natural systems. Models are not unique; different combinations of aquifer characteristics may produce similar results. Therefore, values of hydraulic conductivity used in the model and presented in this data set are not precise, but are within a reasonable range when compared to independently collected data.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date September 14, 2025
Metadata Updated Date October 30, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 14, 2025
Metadata Updated Date October 30, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-08fb4a5c-e233-4c99-8822-c358b784cb64
Data Last Modified 2020-11-17T00:00:00Z
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id e3f7c514-af97-4bbb-ae29-72467ed2432a
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -102.8856, 35.2500, -99.2367, 37.1297
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash abc13e5b40a5b8a045c70379fbde0e79f1240956a80073092a6c859776895702
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -102.8856, 35.2500, -102.8856, 37.1297, -99.2367, 37.1297, -99.2367, 35.2500, -102.8856, 35.2500}

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