Tennessee Geological Survey

Regulations - International / Ground-Water Clean-up Standards

The Tennessee Geological Survey activities includes geologic hazards research, public service, education programs, basic and applied research on geology and mineral resources, and publication of geologic information. The survey maintains a well cuttings and core sample library and researches subsurface stratigraphy and structural geology to provide basic geologic information. It also publishes the resulting maps, charts, and cross sections, and makes them available through a maps and publications sales office.

Geologic mapping is an important function of the survey. The mapping section performs basic geologic mapping, and mineral resources identification, evaluation, and mapping. Mineral resources information is published in a mineral resources summary that accompanies each published geologic quadrangle map. Also included is information about geologic hazards such as caves, landslides, and sinkholes. There are 804 7.5-minute quadrangles covering Tennessee. These map units are at a scale of 1" = 2,000' and cover an area of about 60 square miles. Since 1960 the survey has mapped and published or released in open-file format as PDF files or print-on-demand products 517 quadrangles, placing Tennessee among the top states in the nation in terms of percentage of quadrangles mapped (over 64 percent) at this scale. These efforts have been enhanced since 1994 through cooperative efforts with the U.S. Geological Survey through the National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program as summarized in the STATEMAP Fact Sheet.

The survey also devotes considerable effort to coal-related research. Geologic mapping in the coal field region, collection of reserve data, collection of samples for analysis, publication of reports, and processing data for entry into the National Coal Resources Data System computerized data base make up most of the coal-related program. A large amount of unpublished coal data is also available to the public.