Simulating the impact of sea-level rise on the surficial aquifer along the Delaware Estuary coastline

OneGeology (http://www.onegeology.org/) is an international effort to make available digital geologic map data from around the world. DGS participates in OneGeology by submitting two web map services, one for 1:100K scale surficial geologic units and one for 1:100K scale surficial geologic contacts. These services are open and interoperable (supporting both WMS and WFS protocols) with data attributes in GeoSciML-Portrayal format.

The North East Water Resources (NEWRnet) consortium of EPSCoR jurisdictions of Delaware (DE), Rhode Island (RI), and Vermont (VT) will create an advanced sensor network in watersheds for gathering high-frequency, spatially-extensive water quality and quantity data and a network of lab and field-based experiments and agent-based models to investigate how to align sensor data and their visualization with utilization by stakeholders. DGS is participating in the watershed sensing network by installing and operating a nitrogen and organic carbon sensor and stream discharge monitoring station in the Murderkill River watershed, and collaborating with the project team to interpret results.

The Delaware Geological Survey has submitted a grant proposal for National Geological and Geophysical Data Preservation Program (NGGDPP) funds for the migration of 2 in-house MS Access databases; the DGS Petrographic Thin Section Database and the DGS Radiocarbon Database, to the web for public access to these “value added” data.

The DGS Petrographic Thin Section Database requires images of each thin section in plain polarized light and one in crossed polarized light to be displayed with each thin section petrographic description. No upfront work is needed for the Radiocarbon Database. Once these images are acquired, both databases will be able to be migrated to a web site environment that will allow searching of the thin sections and radiocarbon data through specific queries with a report format to display the results. A mechanism will also exist to retrieve the data for use in further research by those accessing the web accessible databases.

An automated, on-site laboratory collects and analyzes water samples for a collaborative project between the College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment, DGS, DNREC, and USGS.

The Delaware Geologic Information Resource (DGIR) is an online data display tool and map viewer for a variety of geologic and hydrologic information released by the Delaware Geological Survey. It was designed to deliver the most commonly available and requested geologic and hydrologic information that is appropriate for use in hydrologic studies, required by regulation and ordinance, and to support state resource management decisions.

The United States Geoscience Information Network (USGIN) initiative is the product of a partnership between the Association of American State Geologists (AASG) and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) created to facilitate discovery of, and access to, geoscience information provided by state and federal geological surveys of the United States. DGS has entered into a partnership with the Arizona Geological Survey (AZGS) to participate in USGIN by establishing a metadata clearinghouse node for Delaware.

This project will assess tsunami hazard from the above mentioned and other relevant tsunami sources recently studied in the literature and model the corresponding tsunami inundation in affected US East coast communities. We will combine ocean scale simulations of transoceanic tsunami sources, such as Lisbon 1755 like or Puerto Rico Trench co-seismic events, and CVV collapse, with regional scale simulations of these events, along with the regional scale SMF events, in order to establish the relative degree of hazards for East Coast communities. Detailed inundation studies will be conducted for highest-risk East Coast communities, and results of these studies will be used to construct a first-generation of tsunami inundation maps for the chosen communities.

The Delaware Geological Survey (DGS) currently monitors groundwater levels in a network of wells in Delaware. Long time-series of water levels in major aquifers serve as critical baseline data for resource management and analyses of aquifer response to pumping, climatic variability, drought hazards, seawater intrusion, and interaction with streams and their ecosystems.

The Delaware Geological Survey has a continuing program to map the geology of the entire state at the detailed scale of 1:24,000. The STATEMAP component of the National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program has contributed significantly to our surficial geologic mapping program. This work has resulted in not only new geologic mapping, but also the digital compilation of previous mapping. Products of this program include file formats that can be downloaded and printed from the web as geologic map products and imported into GIS software as georeferenced layers.