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The State of Michigan has more than 11,000 inland lakes; approximately 3,500 of these lakes are greater than 25 acres. The USGS, in cooperation with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ), has been monitoring the quality of inland lakes in Michigan through the Lake Water Quality Assessment monitoring program....

The results of recent studies in the Hanalei watershed are impressive, both in content and breadth. Funded, directed, and/or conducted by investigators from many disciplines from local organizations (the Hanalei Watershed Hui), the University of Hawai‘i, the State of Hawai‘i (Department of Health, Department of Land and Natural Resources), and...

A new computer program was developed to simulate vertical compaction in models of regional ground-water flow. The program simulates ground-water storage changes and compaction in discontinuous interbeds or in extensive confining units, accounting for stress-dependent changes in storage properties. The new program is a package for MODFLOW, the U.S. Geological...

The Purisima Formation is an important upper Miocene and Pliocene stratigraphic unit in central California, cropping out from the coast at Point Reyes north of San Francisco to more extensive exposures in the Santa Cruz Mountains to the south. The fine-grained rocks in the lower parts of the Purisima Formation...

The two geography research programs of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Land Remote Sensing and Geographic Analysis and Monitoring, have very strong relevance to the USGS mission and science strategy. In the western United States, the particular niche of these geography programs is in connecting USGS science to people and...

Landslides are a common problem on coastal bluffs throughout the world. Along the coastal bluffs of the Puget Sound in Seattle, Washington, landslides range from small, shallow failures to large, deep-seated landslides. Landslides of all types can pose hazards to human lives and property, but deep-seated landslides are of significant...

Introduction Report of the Annual Mappers Meeting Planetary Science Institute Tucson, Arizona June 28 and 29, 2007 Approximately 22 people attended this year's mappers meeting, and many more submitted abstracts and maps in absentia. The 2007 meeting was convened by Tracy Gregg, Les Bleamaster, Steve Saunders, and Ken Tanaka and was hosted by David Crown...

This report presents the results of a study by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Chester County Water Resources Authority (CCWRA), to update the drought-trigger water levels for the Chester County observation-well network. The Chester County observation-well network was established in 1973 through a cooperative agreement between...

Digital terrain models, which can be produced from multibeam bathymetric data, are ordered arrays of depths for a number of sea-floor positions sampled at regularly spaced intervals. These models provide valuable base maps for marine geological interpretations that help define the variability of the sea floor (one of the primary...

Water samples were collected from 7 community water system wells and 15 private domestic wells throughout the Genesee River Basin in New York State (downstream from the Pennsylvania border) from October 2005 through March 2006 and analyzed to characterize the chemical quality of ground water in the basin. The wells...

The 2007 field trip of the Pacific Cell, Friends of the Pleistocene, visited features of the Quaternary geology and geomorphology of the Lake Manix basin in the Mojave Desert. This report is the guidebook for this trip and includes some discussion of relations observable along the road and at various...

This chapter focuses on the monohalogenated methanes methyl chloride (MeCl) and methyl bromide (MeBr), their natural and anthropogenic sources, and their degradation by microorganisms, specifically by aerobic bacteria that can...

Introduction Big Bend National Park (BBNP), Texas, covers 801,163 acres (3,242 km2) and was established in 1944 through a transfer of land from the State of Texas to the United States. The park is located along a 118-mi (190-km) stretch of the Rio Grande at the United States border with Mexico....

National data for streamflow, ground-water levels, and quality of water for the 2006 water year are accessible to the public on the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) Site Information Management System (SIMS) website http://web10capp.er.usgs.gov/adr06_lookup/search.jsp. This fact sheet describes data and hydrologic conditions throughout northwest Florida during the 2006 water year (fig....

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), one of the principal Federal agencies responsible for the collection and interpretation of water-resources data, works with other Federal, State, local, tribal, and academic entities to ensure that accurate and timely data are available for making decisions regarding public welfare and property during natural disasters...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) provides streamflow and other stream-related information needed to protect people and property from floods, to plan and manage water resources, and to protect water quality in the streams. Streamflow statistics provided by the USGS, such as the 100-year flood and the 7-day 10-year low flow,...

We conducted geochronologic and pollen analyses from sediment cores collected in solution holes within marl prairies of Big Cypress National Preserve to reconstruct vegetation patterns of the last few centuries and evaluate the stability and longevity of marl prairies within the greater Everglades ecosystem. Based on radiocarbon dating and pollen...

Watershed management is critical for the protection and enhancement of streams that provide multiple benefits for Gwinnett County, Georgia, and downstream communities. Successful watershed management requires an understanding of how stream quality is affected by watershed characteristics. The influence of watershed characteristics on stream quality is complex, particularly for the...

Visitors to Shenandoah National Park (SNP) enjoy the animal and plant life and the scenery but may not realize how vulnerable these features are to various threats, such as invasion of exotic plants and insects, improper use of park resources by humans, and air and water pollution. The National Park...

Introduction The U.S. Geological Survey is conducting a long-term study of mid-Pliocene climatic and oceanographic conditions. One of the key elements of the study involves the use of quantitative composition of planktic foraminifer assemblages in conjunction with other proxies to constrain estimates of sea-surface temperature (SST) and to identify major oceanographic...

Water-quality sampling was conducted regularly at stream sites within or near the Powder River structural basin in northeastern Wyoming and southeastern Montana during water years 2001-05 (October 1, 2000, to September 30, 2005) to characterize water quality in an area of coalbed natural gas development. The U.S. Geological Survey, in...

Mine drainage and underground water samples were collected for analysis of inorganic solutes as part of a 1-year, hydrogeologic investigation of the Standard Mine and vicinity. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has listed the Standard Mine in the Elk Creek drainage near Crested Butte, Colorado, as a Superfund Site because...

INTRODUCTION Water budgets provide a means for evaluating availability and sustainability of a water supply. A water budget simply states that the rate of change in water stored in an area, such as a watershed, is balanced by the rate at which water flows into and out of the area. An...

This report presents the results of contaminant monitoring surveys conducted annually by the Missouri Department of Conservation to examine the levels of selected elemental contaminants in hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis) blood and fish. Catfish (Ictalurus furcatus, Ictalurus punctatus, Pylodictis olivaris), redhorse (Moxostoma anisorum, Moxostoma erythrurum), bass (Micropterus salmoides, Micropterus punctulatus, Micropterus...

The Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, working closely with the State of West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is undertaking a polychlorinated biphenyl source assessment study for the Bluestone River watershed. The study area extends from the Bluefield area of Virginia and...