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Potentiometric-surface map of the Wyodak-Anderson coal bed, Powder River structural basin, Wyoming, 1973-84

Water-Resources Investigations Report 85-4305
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https://doi.org/10.3133/wri854305

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Abstract

Previous water level maps of shallow aquifers in the Powder River structural basin in Wyoming were based on water levels from wells completed in different stratigraphic intervals within thick sequences of sedimentary rocks. A potentiometric surface using water levels from a single aquifer had never been mapped throughout the basin. The sandstone aquifers in the Fort Union Formation of Paleocene age and the Wasatch Formation of Eocene age are discontinuous and lenticular, and do not extend even short distances. Coal aquifers are more continuous and the Wyodak-Anderson coal bed, in the Fort Union Formation, has been mapped in much of the Powder River structural basin in Wyoming. Water level altitudes in the Wyodak-Anderson coal bed and other stratigraphically equivalent coal beds were mapped to determine if they represent a continuous potentiometric surface in the Powder River structural basin. The potentiometric surface, except in the vicinity of the Wyodak mine east of Gillette, represents a premining condition as it was based on water level measurements made during 1973-84 that were not significantly affected by mining. The map was prepared in cooperation with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. (Lantz-PTT)

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Publication type Report
Publication Subtype USGS Numbered Series
Title Potentiometric-surface map of the Wyodak-Anderson coal bed, Powder River structural basin, Wyoming, 1973-84
Series title Water-Resources Investigations Report
Series number 85-4305
DOI 10.3133/wri854305
Year Published 1986
Language English
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Description 1 Plate: 41.93 × 35.61 inches
Country United States
State Wyoming
Other Geospatial Powder River structural basin, Wyodak-Anderson coal bed
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