Surface Casing Estimator Site, FY2024

The DICE site (formerly the Surface Casing Estimator Site, or SCES), hosted at the Bureau of Economic Geology (Bureau), is an interactive website that provides depth and elevation estimates for select subsurface water-quality zones chosen by Groundwater Advisory Unit staff at the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC). These depths enable users to estimate surface-casing needs for possible future drilling activity prior to obtaining a surface-casing determination letter from the RRC. Work during fiscal year 2024 (September 2023 through August 2024) for the DICE site included: (1) renaming the SCES to DICE at RRC’s recommendation; (2) scanning geophysical logs from the Q-log library for 21 counties; (3) constructing digital data sets composed of geologic information that relates to estimating surface-casing requirements and groundwater depths for four study areas that included two counties in north-central Texas, two counties in the northwest part of central Texas, two counties on the upper Texas Coastal Plain, and two counties on the middle Texas Coastal Plain; (4) adding the newly interpreted county hydrostratigraphic surfaces to the DICE site; (4) adding selected geophysical logs to the DICE site; and (5) continuing a major upgrade to the DICE site to include additional data sets requested by RRC and to allow privileged RRC access to additional data layers that are not accessible to the general public. For the study areas, the DICE site provides depth and elevation estimates for the base of usable quality water (BUQW) and the base of underground sources of drinking water (BUSDW), where appropriate. Critical water-bearing stratigraphic units, aquifer names, a selection of reference geophysical logs, and well locations are also displayed. All depths and elevations are estimated on the basis of picks provided by the RRC and on select supplemental geophysical well-log determinations made by Bureau staff.