The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in cooperation with the California State Water Resources Control Board compiled and analyzed data for mapping groundwater salinity and characterizing aquifer systems in and near selected oil and gas fields in California. Data for the Lost Hills, North Belridge, and South Belridge oil fields include production and injection volumes, oil show data, formation pressure data, digitized borehole geophysical data, geochemical analyses of produced water samples, geological formation depths, and geophysical data associated with estimating groundwater total dissolved solids (TDS) of formation water. All data reported here are used in an accompanying interpretive manuscript. These data have been compiled from many sources and span several decades. Some of these data have been in archived scanned pages in raster format on the California Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) website, but now have been compiled into computer readable numerical data sets. Other data were created by this project. All the data compiled and analyzed are part of the California State Water Resources Control Board’s Program of Regional Monitoring of Water Quality in Areas of Oil and Gas Production and the USGS California Oil, Gas, and Groundwater (COGG) program.
Gillespie, J.M., Davis, T.A., Ball, L.B., Herrera, P.J., Wolpe, Z., Medrano, V., Bobbitt, M., and Stephens, M.J., 2019, Geological, geochemical, and geophysical data from the Lost Hills and Belridge oil fields (ver. 2.0, September 2019): U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P90QH6CI.
This map displays the wells where the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has identified increasing salinity in native groundwater near oil production water disposal areas associated with the Lost Hills and Belridge oil fields in Kern County, California. The salinity increases were likely caused by the mixing of native groundwater with oilfield water from surface disposal areas ("ponds") and underground injection wells and were identified in the process of mapping regional, natural salinity gradients; these wells stand out as anomalies from that gradient.
This salinity mapping method can be a useful tool for screening injection-affected systems in other parts of California where geophysical logs have been recorded during well construction, wells are spatially dense, and wells were drilled at different times.
The USGS studies are being conducted as part of a State Water Resources Control Board-led program that monitors groundwater quality in oil production areas.
Citation:
Gillespie, J.M., Davis, T.A., Stephens, M.J., Ball, L.B., and Landon, M.K., 2019, Groundwater salinity and the effects of produced water disposal in the Lost Hills-Belridge oilfields, Kern County, California: AAPG Environmental Geosciences,
http://10.1306/eg.02271918009.