Kentucky Geological Survey

The Kentucky Geological Survey (KGS) is a department of the University of Kentucky that provides information on the geology of Kentucky, but has variously over the course of its history been a state level office, or a sub-division of a state combined geology and forestry department, at times its official State Geologist being prohibited by law from being associated with the University of Kentucky.

It is one of the United States's oldest geological organizations, pre-dating the United States Geological Survey by 25 years. It has worked with the USGS in several joint mapping programs, and because of one such program from 1949 to 1956 Kentucky became the first state of the United States to be fully topographically mapped at a scale of 1:24,000, which was then extended in a project run from 1960 to 1978 to have the whole of Kentucky geologically mapped at 1:24,000 scale, at a cost of US$21000000 and involving an estimated 660 person-years.

Its published reports are collected into several series.

Purpose
The KGS conducts basic and applied geological and mineralogical research on the geology of Kentucky, and compiles, archives, and publishes data. The First to Sixth Surveys reported primarily on useful minerals of the state, its economic geology, including coal, oil, gas, building stone, and road building materials.

A lot of its research has focussed on fossil fuel resources, with a major project undertaken between 1974 and 1983 to assess how much of those resources were left to mine; limestone deposits; stratigraphic reports of coal beds; the drainage of the basin of the Kentucky River; and subsurface structures.

As the state's official repository for records of oil and gas drilling, it has some 225,000 wells on record, with well and core samples.

Preliminaries
Before the first Geological Survey of Kentucky was carried out, an initial reconnaissance was performed by Professor William Williams Mather in 1838, hired by Governor James Clark, after State Senator Wingate and State Representative J. T. Morehead had introduced resolutions in the Kentucky General Assembly on 1837-12-12 calling for a survey to be performed.

First Survey: Owen
The full, First Series, geological survey was established by law on 1854-03-04 and only partly completed by David Dale Owen before he died. It comprised four volumes, 2012 pages, of topographic maps, and rock and soil analyses. There were also several plates with fossils.

Second Survey: Shaler and Procter
The Second survey was headed by a formal State Geologist, Governor Preston H. Leslie appointing N. S. Shaler from Harvard University for the task in 1873. It took 7 years to complete, with a team of geologists working under Shaler, and yielded a Second Series Part One of reports that came to six volumes, 2886 pages, with an ancillary set of memoirs. It had a budget of US$10000, and one of Shaler's team was chemist Robert Peter who analysed soil composition throughout the state.

Shaler was, however, forced to resign as State Geologist when the legislature decided that the office-holder had to be a resident of Kentucky, and he was replaced by John Robert Procter, his office assistant, who was not a geologist by training and who also had to double up as the Director of the State Immigration Bureau. This resulted in the Second Series Part Two that came to eight volumes, 3020 pages, and a further 400 pages of "county surveys" in pamphlets.

A lot of this, at least 1336 pages worth, was a simple copy of the Shaler work. Procter simply had neither the time nor the expertise for the job, and the Survey petered out when he left for Washington in 1893.

Third Survey: Norwood
A 1904 law established a Third survey, and directly appointed the head of the Geological Museum, professor Charles J. Norwood, as its Director. Norwood and the geologists working for him produced 2761 pages in nineteen volumes, two county reports, and four progress reports.

Fourth Survey: Hoeing
A 1912-03-07 law established a Fourth survey, which reestablished an office of State Geologist once more, abolishing the joint office of Director of the Survey and Curator of the Geological Museum that Norwood had held. The law also required that the State Geologist not have any concurrent academic position, such as Norwood had had at the University of Kentucky, requiring it to be a full-time position.

The State Geologist was a gubernatorial appointment again, and that year James B. McCreary appointed Joseph B. Hoeing to the office, who had worked for all three of Shaler, Procter, and Norwood as cartographer and assistant geologist and who had also been State Forester. The Fourth Series of reports was 4280 pages in five volumes and four miscellaneous reports, with an accompanying series of maps at the county, region, and state levels.

Fifth Survey: Barton
Hoeing resigned when in 1918 the legislature abolished the State Geologist office and the Geological Survey, replacing it with a Deputy level office under the Commissioner of Geology and Forestry, abolishing the State Forester office at the same time. Forester John Earle Barton was appointed to this new Deputy Commissioner post on 1918-07-01.

Although there had been economic forces behind prior surveys, the Fifth Series of reports was especially strongly motivated by Kentucky's 1917 oil boom, and professor Willard R. Jillson of the University of Kentucky became an assistant geologist under Barton in 1918 to provide oil and gas surveys in particular. At Barton's recommendation, A. O. Stanley appointed Jillson as Barton's replacement on 1919-02-01. The Fifth Series was 1567 pages comprising four bulletins, and several mineral resource report pamphlets.

Sixth Survey: Jillson
As the doubled-up responsibilities of Procter had done before, the combination of Forestry and Geology under a single Commissioner led to time and budget conflicts between the two, and in response in 1920 the legislature set up a separate State Geologist post again, abolishing the joint Geology and Forestry department, to which Edwin P. Morrow appointed Jillson on 1920-04-01.

The Sixth survey produced a Sixth Series of reports, in twenty-five volumes, with roughly fifty minor additional articles, alongside thirty detailed county maps of coal and natural gas fields, as well as state-wide geological maps, maps of other mineral resources in Wester Kentucky. Jillson himself was a prolific writer on the subject of geology, and he had a policy of hiring geologists for fieldwork during the summer, rather than for permanent year-round work that might conflict with other commitments.

To fund all of this work, the state of Kentucky allocated US$50000 in 1926, which was matched dollar-for-dollar by the United States Geological Survey. By 1927 it was estimated that the State Geologist had published 8500 pages in 147 titles.

Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Surveys: McFarlan, Jones, and McFarlan again
As a result of conflicting politics, in 1932 the Kentucky Geological Survey was transferred to the University of Kentucky and renamed its Bureau of Mineral and Topographic Survey, and Jillson's appointment was terminated, replacing him with Arthur C. McFarlan as State Geologist. This lasted barely 2 years, with McFarlan replaced by Daniel J. Jones in 1934 and the Survey was reorganized again as a subdivision of the Kentucky Department of Mines and Minerals.

It was transferred to the University of Kentucky a second time in 1948, becoming a research bureau within the university's Department of Geology, still with Jones as State Geologist but now with McFarlan again as the Director of the Bureau.

Tenth and Eleventh Surveys: Haney and Hagan
Jones retired in 1958, and the Bureau was divorced from the Department of Geology that year just beforehand, with Wallace W. Hagan becoming both State Geologist and Director. Hagan in turn retired in 1978 to be followed by Donald C. Haney.