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Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) and Horizontal-to-Vertical Spectral Ratio (HVSR) Data Collected Within and Near Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota, from 2014 to 2019

Published by U.S. Geological Survey | Department of the Interior | Metadata Last Checked: January 27, 2026 | Last Modified: 2023-01-24T00:00:00Z
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Air Force Civil Engineering Center, investigated the use of surface geophysical surveys to delineate the top of the Cretaceous Pierre Shale along survey transects in selected areas within and near Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota. In 2014, four electrical resistivity tomography surveys were performed at the Fuels Area C site on Ellsworth Air Force Base. In 2019, the U.S. Geological Survey performed passive seismic and 2D electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) surveys along 26 co-located survey transects within and near Ellsworth Air Force Base. Passive seismic data were analyzed using the horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratio (HVSR) method in Grilla version 9.6.3 software (https://moho.world/en/) to determine the fundamental resonance frequency peak at each site. Passive seismic data were also collected at existing well sites to develop a local regression equation that was used to calculate the depth to Pierre Shale along survey transects. ERT data were processed using EarthImager2D version 2.4.0 software from Advanced Geosciences, Inc. (https://www.agiusa.com/agi-earthimager-2d) to remove noisy measurements and produce subsurface resistivity profiles that were interpreted to estimate the depth to the Cretaceous Pierre Shale. HVSR results were plotted with ERT profile results to delineate a continuous bedrock surface for each survey transect. The continuous bedrock surface results were converted to elevations using light detection and ranging (liDAR) elevation data and were extracted to electrodes locations that were part of ERT surveys for each survey transect. The unprocessed and processed data for each geophysical surveys and bedrock delineation are provided as either comma-separated values (.csv) files or zipped files (.zip) and are annotated accordingly in the metadata. Zipped files (.zip) require extraction software, such as 7-zip, to unzip.

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