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.[1] 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$21,000,000 (equivalent to $98,100,000 in 2023) and involving an estimated 660 person-years.[2]
Its published reports are collected into several series.[3]
- ^ Smath 2014, p. 501.
- ^ Smath 2014, p. 502.
- ^ Robinson 1927, p. 86.