Search Results

Groundwater in the vicinity of several industrial facilities in Upper Gwynedd Township and vicinity, Montgomery County, in southeast Pennsylvania has been shown to be contaminated with volatile organic compounds (VOCs), the most common of which is the solvent trichloroethylene (TCE). The 2-square-mile area was placed on the National Priorities List...

Previous investigations indicate that concentrations of chlorinated volatile organic compounds are substantial in groundwater beneath the 9-acre former landfill at Operable Unit 1, Naval Undersea Warfare Center, Division Keyport, Washington. The U.S. Geological Survey has continued to monitor groundwater geochemistry to ensure that conditions remain favorable for contaminant biodegradation as...

Tetrachloroethylene (PCE), a volatile organic compound, was detected in groundwater from deep (more than (>) 300 feet (ft) below land surface) fractures in monitoring wells tapping a crystalline-rock aquifer beneath operable unit 1 (OU1) of the Savage Municipal Well Superfund site (Weston, Inc., 2010). Operable units define remedial areas of...

Groundwater quality in the approximately 620-square-mile (1,600-square-kilometer) San Francisco Bay study unit was investigated as part of the Priority Basin Project of the Groundwater Ambient Monitoring and Assessment (GAMA) Program. The study unit is located in the Southern Coast Ranges of California, in San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda,...

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) is conducting epidemiological studies to evaluate the potential for health effects from exposures to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in finished water supplied to family housing units at U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina (USMCB...

This supplement of Chapter A (Supplement 6) describes the reconstruction (i.e. simulation) of historical concentrations of tetrachloroethylene (PCE), trichloroethylene (TCE), and benzene3 in production wells supplying water to the Hadnot Base (USMCB) Camp Lejeune, North Carolina (Figure S6.1). A fate and transport model (i.e., MT3DMS [Zheng and Wang 1999]) was...

The Pike Hill Copper Mine Superfund site in Corinth, Orange County, Vermont, includes the Eureka, Union, and Smith mines along with areas of downstream aquatic ecosystem impairment. The site was placed on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) National Priorities List in 2004. The mines, which operated from about 1847...

Groundwater quality in the approximately 860-square-mile Madera and Chowchilla Subbasins (Madera-Chowchilla study unit) of the San Joaquin Valley Basin was investigated as part of the Priority Basin Project of the Groundwater Ambient Monitoring and Assessment (GAMA) Program. The study unit is located in California's Central Valley region in parts of...

To investigate the source of volatiles and their relationship to the San Andreas Fault System (SAFS), 18 groundwater samples were collected from wells near the Big Bend section of the SAFS in southern California and analyzed for helium and carbon abundance and isotopes. Concentrations of 4He, corrected for air-bubble entrainment,...

Groundwater quality in the approximately 2,170-square-mile Western San Joaquin Valley (WSJV) study unit was investigated by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) from March to July 2010, as part of the California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) Groundwater Ambient Monitoring and Assessment (GAMA) Program's Priority Basin Project (PBP). The GAMA-PBP...

Water samples were collected from 21 production and domestic wells in the Mohawk River Basin in New York in July 2011 to characterize groundwater quality in the basin. The samples were collected and processed using standard U.S. Geological Survey procedures and were analyzed for 148 physiochemical properties and constituents, including...

The mineral chalcopyrite (CuFeS2) is the world's most abundant source of copper, a metal component in virtually every piece of electrical equipment. It is the main copper mineral in several different ore deposit types, the most important of which are porphyry deposits. Chalcopyrite is unstable at the Earth's surface, so...

Microtextures of juvenile pyroclasts from Kīlauea’s (Hawai‘i) early A.D. 2008 explosive activity record the velocity and depth of convection within the basaltic magma-filled conduit. We use X-ray microtomography (μXRT) to document the spatial distribution of bubbles. We find small bubbles (radii from 5 μm to 70 μm) in a halo...

Ices have been detected and mapped on the Earth and all planets and/or their satellites further from the sun. Water ice is the most common frozen volatile observed and is also unambiguously detected or inferred in every planet and/or their moon(s) except Venus. Carbon dioxide is also extensively found in...

Mercury is a worldwide contaminant derived from natural and anthropogenic sources. River systems play a key role in the transport and fate of Hg because they drain widespread areas affected by aerial Hg deposition, transport Hg away from point sources, and are sites of Hg biogeochemical cycling and bioaccumulation. The...

Groundwater quality in six areas in the California Desert Region (Owens, Antelope, Mojave, Coachella, Colorado River, and Indian Wells) was investigated as part of the Priority Basin Project of the Groundwater Ambient Monitoring and Assessment (GAMA) Program. The GAMA Priority Basin Project is being conducted by the California State Water...

This fact sheet highlights findings from the vulnerability study of a public-supply well in Albuquerque, New Mexico (hereafter referred to as “the study well”). The study well produces about 3,000 gallons of water per minute from the Rio Grande aquifer system. Water samples were collected at the study well, at...

Current global and domestic mineral resources of beryllium (Be) for industrial uses are dominated by ores produced from deposits of the volcanogenic Be type. Beryllium deposits of this type can form where hydrothermal fluids interact with fluorine and lithophile-element (uranium, thorium, rubidium, lithium, beryllium, cesium, tantalum, rare earth elements, and...

Twenty-four halogenated volatile organic compounds (hVOCs) and SF6 were measured in groundwater samples collected from 312 wells across California at concentrations as low as 10–12 grams per kilogram groundwater. The hVOCs detected are predominately anthropogenic (i.e., “ahVOCs”) and as such their distribution delineates where groundwaters are impacted and susceptible to...

Porphyry-copper ore systems, the source of much of the world's copper and molybdenum, form when metal-bearing fluids are expelled from shallow, degassing magmas. On page 1613 of this issue, Weis et al. (1) demonstrate that self-organizing processes focus metal deposition. Specifically, their simulation studies indicate that ores develop as consequences...

The rapid rise in world demand for the rare-earth elements (REEs) has expanded the search for new REE resources. We document two types of light rare-earth element (LREE)-enriched rocks in the Khanneshin carbonatite complex of southern Afghanistan: type 1 concordant seams of khanneshite-(Ce), synchysite-(Ce), and parisite-(Ce) within banded barite-strontianite alvikite,...

Twenty sentinel sampling sites were established and sampled during 2004–06 at Lake Powell, Arizona and Utah, by the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Park Service—Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. The sentinel sampling sites provide sampling locations on Lake Powell, the Nation’s second largest reservoir that can be visited and...

We investigated the distribution of Cl, F, Li, and Be in pumices, obsidians, and crystallized dome rocks at Chaitén volcano in 2008–2009 in order to explore the behavior of these elements during explosive and effusive volcanic activity. Electron and ion microprobe analyses of matrix and inclusion glasses from pumice, obsidian,...

Probabilities of arsenic occurrence in groundwater from bedrock aquifers at concentrations of 1, 5, and 10 micrograms per liter (µg/L) were estimated during 2011 using multivariate logistic regression. These estimates were developed for use by the New Hampshire Environmental Public Health Tracking Program. About 39 percent of New Hampshire bedrock...

The well-documented eruptive history of Mount Mazama, Oregon, provides an excellent opportunity to use pre-eruptive volatile concentrations to study the growth of an explosive silicic magmatic system. Melt inclusions (MI) hosted in pyroxene and plagioclase crystals from eight dacitic–rhyodacitic eruptive deposits (71–7.7 ka) were analyzed to determine variations in volatile-element...