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Electrical resistivity tomography in the Air Force Research Laboratory NE Groundwater Area, Edwards Air Force Base, California 2020

Metadata Updated: October 29, 2025

Edwards Air Force Base (EAFB) is located about eight kilometers (km) northeast of the city of Lancaster, California. In 1990 EAFB was placed on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National priorities list due to the presence of contaminated soil and groundwater. The base was divided into Operable Units (OU) based on location and similar contaminant types (Lahontan Staff Report, 2010). The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) was established in the 1950’s, and contains facilities for research, development, testing, and evaluation of rocket propulsion systems (Lahontan Staff Report, 2010; AECOM, 2014), and has been in operation under various names since. Past activities at rocket test stands, evaporation ponds, burn pits, catch basins and leaking waste collection tanks has contaminated the groundwater in the AFRL area (AECOM, 2014). The AFRL occupies roughly 125 square miles (mi^2) on Leuhman Ridge and surrounding areas and is part of OU 4 and 9, roughly 5 kilometers (km) south of the community of Boron. Electrical resistivity Tomography (ERT) is a direct current geophysical method that is used to estimate the subsurface distribution of the electrical resistivity (measured in ohm-meters; ohm-m) of a material, and is based on the assumption that measured electric potentials (voltages) near current carrying electrodes are influenced by the electrical resistivities of the underlying material (Zohdy and others, 1974; Loke, 2000). ERT is a popular technique for subsurface investigations because it is based on simple physical principles and for its efficient data acquisition (Dahlin and Zhou, 2004). A combination of the Dipole-Dipole and Strong Gradient arrays was used for this survey and combined to create an optimized dataset (Stummer and others, 2004). The Dipole-Dipole array type yields a high precision dataset, particularly of vertical structures, but can exhibit lower signal to noise ratios (Dahlin and Zhou, 2004; Binley and Kemna, 2005), while the Strong Gradient array provides more complete spatial coverage, and high signal to noise ratio with increased acquisition efficiency (Dahlin and Zhou, 2004; Dahlin and Zhou, 2006, Advanced Geosciences Inc., 2009). The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and Air Force Civil Engineering Center (AFCEC) have entered into a cooperative agreement to refine conceptual models of the geology in the NE AFRL. As part of these efforts, two electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) surveys were done in the vicinity of the Leuhman and Spring Faults identified by Dibblee (1960) to better determine the position of these faults. ERT profile AFRL7 was done in the vicinity of the Leuhman Fault, and profile AFRL8 was done in the vicinity of the Spring Fault.

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 12, 2025
Metadata Updated Date October 29, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 12, 2025
Metadata Updated Date October 29, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-5f5d163582ce3550e3bfe9da
Data Last Modified 2022-04-07T00:00:00Z
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 2216f754-d919-4721-b97d-7d4b7a51090a
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -117.66480, 34.95310, -117.65190, 34.96370
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 5d315c3da2febc27542c130f9331f23ff2009c99a838a1c3b2073eaa4c988581
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -117.66480, 34.95310, -117.66480, 34.96370, -117.65190, 34.96370, -117.65190, 34.95310, -117.66480, 34.95310}

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