DS926 Digital surfaces and thicknesses of selected hydrogeologic units of the Floridan aquifer system in Florida and parts of Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina

These data were released prior to the October 1, 2016 effective date for the USGS’s policy dictating the review, approval, and release of scientific data as referenced in USGS Survey Manual Chapter 502.8 Fundamental Science Practices: Review and Approval of Scientific Data for Release.

Note that this data release has been modified from its original version. This data release was originally published on the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Water Mission Area NSDI Node (Node) in 2008.  The Node has since been deprecated, the data release was revised in 2023, and the files were moved over to Sciencebase, which is a USGS trusted digital repository. When this migration of files initially took place, each individual data file associated with this data release was given its own landing page.  The 2026 version of this data release revised the 2023 revision. This 2026 version regrouped the data files and is now presenting them on one Sciencebase landing page. The 2026 version of the data release was created to make the spatial data more accessible to the user and to simplify the ScienceBase catalog. See the attached file "Deprecated_DOIs.csv" for a list of the titles and DOIs from the 2023 revision pages that have been deprecated and superseded by this data release's DOI (https://doi.org/10.5066/P13X4YHL). 

Digital surfaces and thicknesses of selected hydrogeologic units of the Floridan aquifer system were developed to define an updated hydrogeologic framework as part of the U.S. Geological Survey Groundwater Resources Program.  All datasets associated with the USGS Data Series 926 are contained in this data release. 

Each spatial data file has an associated metadata file with the same naming structure that is located in the data file's directory. The organizational structure of this data release is as follows:

Figures: Contains source figures for associated spatial datasets.
Shapefiles: Contains point and vector based data arranged by figure number, plate number, and thicknesses. Two additional directories, basemap and other_features, contain shapefiles pertaining to the directory name.
Rasters: Contains raster data in both text files in ASCII raster format and .tif files arranged by figure number, plate number, and thicknesses. The rasters in .tif format were added to the 2026 version of this data release to provide the data in a more accessible format.

See the attached file "Spatial_file_descriptions.csv" for a list of the descriptions of the spatial files included in this data release. This table is a modified version of tables found in the USGS Data Series 926 report and has been included as a courtesy for the user's reference. The table is self-explanatory and has not been described in this metadata file. File names have been modified from the naming structure provided in the USGS Data Series 926 Appendix to match the figure naming structure in Professional Paper 1807, Revised hydrogeologic framework of the Floridan aquifer system in Florida and parts of Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina. The original data release used a different naming structure because Data Series 926 was published before Professional Paper 1807, and figure names were updated during preparation of the final report.

As part of the 2026 effort to consolidate and review this data release, the associated data files were examined for completeness. The list below includes file names that may not fully align with figures presented in the related primary publication. Attempts were made to locate original source data to verify and, if possible, reconcile these discrepancies; however, the observed differences appear consistent with the source data provided. At this time, no further clarification could be obtained. Files: "fig45_top_LF_BELOW_LISAPCU_pts_constrained.shp", "fig51_transmissivity.tif", "plate3_Updip_limit_upper_Floridan.shp", "thickness_lappz_raster_ss.tif"