page 16. Total Paleozoic isopach map of northern Arizona ..... 17. Paleotectonic map of southern Cordillera, latest Precambrian to mid-Carboniferous (Mississippian-Pennsylvanian boundary) time, 625-325 myBP .......... 18. Paleotectonic map of southern Cordillera, mid-Carboniferous (Mississippian-Pennsylvanian boundary) to mid-Triassic (end of Middle Triassic) time, 325-225 myBP .

This work was performed to assist the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Omaha and Kansas City Districts, in quantifying sediment bed load and suspended load at several sites on the Missouri River for the purpose of defining sediment-discharge rating curves and for possible parameterization of bed-load transport equations. Seven sites were selected, and all sites were surveyed three times, separated by at least 4 weeks (or 20% flow difference) between surveys. Multi-beam, acoustic Doppler current profiler, suspended sediment, and bed material samples were collected for each site visit. As requested by the Districts, all units are in English units. In addition to quantifying all the intended data types listed above, bed-load transport values were computed for all sites and all trips using the Integrated Section Surface Difference Over Time version 2 (ISSDOTv2) method and compared with the Meyer-Peter Mueller and Einstein bed-load transport functions.The study provides a complete sediment picture (bed load, suspended bedmaterial load, and wash load) over a 630-mile reach of a large sand bed river, with seven sites representing increasingly larger flows along the river length. The data set will be very useful for additional studies. DISCLAIMER:The contents of this report are not to be used for advertising, publication, or promotional purposes. Citation of trade names does not constitute an official endorsement or approval of the use of such commercial products. All product names and trademarks cited are the property of their respective owners. The findings of this report are not to be construed as an official Department of the Army position unless so designated by other authorized documents.

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hydrates, and tight-gas sands, will be included for the first time in these estimates/reports. Undoubtedly, these inclusions will prove to be an added complexity and challenge to achieving consistent and creditable results. Resource assessment methodology, with or without expert systems, is not precise and probably never will be. Although the methodology is continually evolving and being refined, the work incorporates much subjective judgment and "educated guessing" about the prerequisite geologic factors needed for hydrocarbon accumulation. Undiscovered resources are continually being converted into reserves, and the steady improvements in technology are other factors influencing the validity of resource assessment estimates. Diversity of estimates over time has depended upon the methodology used (Miller, 1986b). Expert systems, however, can provide consistency by forcing the assessors to think about the empirical associations (i.e., addressing and writing the rules required in expert systems) in geology that are prerequisite to hydrocarbon accumulations in sedimentary basins. The theoretical principles of nature and geology are not the fundamental rules of a rule-based system. The inferred relationships and qualities, or "rules of thumb", among source rocks, reservoirs, traps, and timing of generation, migration, and trap formation, for example, are the bases for writing rules. Rules and empirical associations can be codified in expert systems to screen out all cases that are beyond the limits of any plausible existence, or that violate any of the necessary prerequisites for hydrocarbon accumulations. This is not to say that innovative rules cannot be incorporated; they can be added or subtracted at the will of the investigator.

West-east hypothetical cross-section through southern Rio Grande Rift showing elevated isotherms in the crust and upper mantle .