Oil and Gas Well locations, Upper Colorado River Basin, 2007
type: Dataset
description: Federal onshore lands contain an estimated 20 percent of the oil and 25 percent of the undiscovered natural gas resources in the United States (U.S. Bureau of Land Management, 2006) and the BLM has identified the Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB) as an area with high potential for continued energy development (U.S. Bureau of Land Management, 2002). The UCRB drains portions of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming and is part of the largest river basin in the southwestern United States. A significant volume of known and potential oil and gas reserves lies in the sedimentary basins of the UCRB (Huffman, 1995; U.S. Geological Survey 2002a; U.S. Geological Survey 2002b; U.S. Geological Survey 2002c) and an average of 4,527 wells per year was started on Federal land in the five UCRB states in fiscal years (FY, October 1 to September 30) 2006 and 2007 (U.S. Bureau of Land Management 2008). An average of 2,462 wells per year were drilled between FY 2000 and 2005. 1,284 wells were drilled per year on average in the preceding 10 year period from FY 1990 to 1999. Increased drilling activity has raised concerns that land disturbance from drilling activity may have an affect on surface water quality in the basin. Existing and planned land disturbance data are not regularly or consistently compiled at the state or regional level. Regional-scale compilation, synthesis, and analysis of data defining energy development- related land disturbance and water quality in the UCRB may help to improve understanding of the potential cumulative effects of current and projected energy development on land cover changes in the basin. The location of known oil and gas wells was compiled from state oil and gas databases and merged into a single oil and gas well dataset for the UCRB. The reported status of each well was used to classify the well into two categories: disturbed or not disturbed. Disturbed wells are likely associated with land disturbance. The classified wells were used to…
issued: 2025-11-20T12:10:03.996886
modified: 20201117
spatial: Location
contact point: Organization
  fn: U.S. Geological Survey Utah Water Science Center
keyword: amerigeo
keyword: amerigeoss
keyword: arizona
keyword: ckan
keyword: colorado
keyword: geo
keyword: geoscientificinformation
keyword: geoss
keyword: inlandwaters
keyword: national
keyword: natural-gas
keyword: new-mexico
keyword: north-america
keyword: petroleum
keyword: united-states
keyword: upper-colorado-river-basin
keyword: utah
keyword: wyoming
theme: {geospatial}

Original Metadata
type: Distribution
description: The metadata original format
format: XML
issued: 2022-07-07T15:58:36.471308
modified: 2025-11-20T12:10:03.985332
access URL: https://data.usgs.gov/datacatalog/metadata/USGS.239eeaec-ca0b-49d0-a119-5aa0744136ff.xml
media type: text/xml

Digital Data
type: Distribution
description: Landing page for access to the data
format: XML
issued: 2022-07-07T15:58:36.471319
modified: 2025-11-20T12:10:03.985741
access URL: https://water.usgs.gov/lookup/getspatial
media type: application/http

US Migrating
type: Agent