Clarence King led the survey along the 40th Parallel, covering parts of Northern Colorado, Southern Wyoming, Northern Utah, Southeastern Idaho, and Northern Nevada. The survey also included a small eastern portion of Northern California. King's expedition pioneered scientific methods later adopted by the other surveys. King became the first leader of the US Geological Survey (USGS).
George M. Wheeler supervised the series of expeditions that comprise the 100th Meridian Survey. The Chief of Engineers of the Army Corps of Engineers laid out the general plan for the surveys. The survey covered a huge portion of the Southwestern portion of the modern United States, including parts of Colorado, New Mexico, Northern Arizona, South and Central Utah, Southern Nevada and Eastern California. The survey also included a small portion of south-central Oregon. Surveys were conducted from 1872 to 1879.
Ferdinand Hayden led surveys of northwestern Wyoming, in the area now known as Yellowstone National Park in the early 1870s. In 1873, he continued surveys in Colorado. A final report of five volumes was published as Report of the United States Geological Survey of the Territories; however, numerous annual reports and bulletin publications document the survey's findings as well. The surveys lasted from 1871-1878. Thomas Moran, a noted Western landscape artist, was a guest on the 1871 expedition.
John Wesley Powell led a series of explorations from 1869 to 1879. His groups explored the geology, watersheds, and native peoples of large areas of land along the Green and Colorado Rivers, taking them from Wyoming, through Utah, Arizona, and into Nevada. Powell's 1869 expedition was notable for being the first Americans to navigate the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. Powell published three major reports from his expeditions. Powell's work helped form two new federal agencies: the US Geological Survey (USGS) and the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE, formerly the Bureau of Ethnology). He served as the second director of USGS (following Clarence King) and the first director of BAE; he served in the posts concurrently for 13 years.
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The Daring adventures of Kit Carson and Fremont ... by Early Western Travels, 1748-1846 (32 vols.) by The Expeditions of Zebulon Montgomery Pike by Exploration and survey of the valley of the Great salt lake of Utah by 
Exploration and survey of the valley of the Great Salt Lake of Utah by Exploratory Travels through the Western Territories of North America by 
Explorers of the American West: Mapping the World Through Primary Documents by Exploring with Frémont : the private diaries of Charles Preuss, cartographer for John C. Frémont on his first, second, and fourth expeditions to the Far West by Memoirs of My Life by The Missouri expedition, 1818-1820; the journal of Surgeon John Gale, with related documents. by 
My father, Daniel Boone : the Draper interviews with Nathan Boone by Narrative of an expedition through the upper Mississippi to Itasca Lake, the actual source of this river; by Report of the explorations in 1873 of the Colorado of the West and its tributaries by Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains by The Road to Virginia City: The Diary of James Knox Polk Miller by The Southwestern Expedition of Zebulon M. Pike by
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