Digitizing Contours, Faults, Dips and Strikes from USGS Special Series Geologic Maps

Digitizing Contours, Faults, Dips and Strikes from USGS Special Series Geologic Maps

Samson Investment Company is a privately-held independent exploration and production company. Samson’s oil and natural gas activities originate from their headquarters in Tulsa, Oklahoma and include most major oil and gas regions in North America.
The purpose was to provide Samson with vector representations of contours and faults as depicted on two USGS Special Series Petroleum Reserve maps. Samson used this data for analysis of petroleum production and potential well site locations within the Petra software environment.	Digitized Map Information in ArcGIS 3D Surface File Created from ASCII XYZ Table
The data sources included two 36"x40" USGS Special Series maps; Professional Paper 163, Plate 6 and Plate 7. Additional control used by DDS included Public Land Survey (PLS) data and aerial imagery.
DDS obtained the USGS maps by borrowing the maps from the USGS Map Library in Denver, Colorado- which is conveniently located across the street from DDS's main office. DDS created high resolution images by scanning the maps on a large format color scanning device.  The maps were georeferenced into their proper spatial location using a minimum of 8 points as the control. DDS digitized the structure contours into an editable vector format and z-values (elevation values) were assigned to the contour lines. All faults, dips and strikes, and escarpment features were digitized and separate GIS coverage files were created. Two different data sets were created supplied to the customer; an ASCII .xyz file and ESRI .shp files.	Researching and Obtaining Out-of-Print USGS Petroleum Maps and Converting the Information into GIS. Georeferencing Map Information with Limited Control on the Source Documents. Supplying Information in Multiple Formats for a Variety of CAD and Mapping Software.
By converting the paper maps into an intelligent GIS file, Samson was able to easily update their working field maps within the Petra Environment. DDS Website	Helping you make better decisions through information... Digital Data Services, Inc.