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Marland Billings' classic paper published in 1937 in the Geological Society of America Bulletin established a succession of six stratigraphic units in rocks of low metamorphic grade near Littleton, New Hampshire. The two youngest units are fossiliferous in the area, with ages established at the time as “middle” Silurian and...

The three uppermost principal aquifer systems of the Northern Great Plains—the glacial, lower Tertiary, and Upper Cretaceous aquifer systems—are described in this report and provide water for irrigation, mining, public and domestic supply, livestock, and industrial uses. These aquifer systems primarily are present in two nationally important fossil-fuelproducing areas: the...

The glacial, lower Tertiary, and Upper Cretaceous aquifer systems in the Williston and Powder River structural basins within the United States and Canada are the uppermost principal aquifer systems and most accessible sources of groundwater for these energy-producing basins. The glacial aquifer system covers the northeastern part of the Williston...

Ground shaking due to earthquakes in the eastern United States (EUS) is felt at significantly greater distances than in the western United States (WUS) and for some earthquakes it has been shown to display a strong preferential direction. Shaking intensity variation can be due to propagation path effects, source directivity,...

Recent studies have shown that excessive dissolved-solids concentrations in water can have adverse effects on the environment and on agricultural, domestic, municipal, and industrial water users. Such effects motivated the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Water Quality Assessment Program to develop a SPAtially-Referenced Regression on Watershed Attributes (SPARROW) model that has...

In 2010, the total amount of water withdrawn in Florida was estimated to be 14,988 million gallons per day (Mgal/d). Saline water accounted for 8,589 Mgal/d (57 percent) and freshwater accounted for 6,399 Mgal/d (43 percent). Groundwater accounted for 4,166 Mgal/d (65 percent) of freshwater withdrawals, and surface water accounted...

A total of 878 adult Brown Bullhead were collected at 11 sites within the Lake Erie and Lake Ontario drainages from 2011 to 2013. The sites included seven Areas of Concern (AOC; 670 individuals), one delisted AOC (50 individuals) and three non-AOC sites (158 individuals) used as reference sites. These...

This report presents fourteen storage assessment units (SAUs) from the Alaska North Slope and two SAUs from the Kandik Basin of Alaska. The Alaska North Slope is a broad, north-dipping coastal plain that is underlain by a thick succession of sedimentary rocks that accumulated steadily throughout much of the Phanerozoic...

Occupancy surveys collecting data from adjacent (sometimes correlated) spatial replicates have become relatively popular for logistical reasons. Hines et al. (2010) presented one approach to modelling such data for single-season occupancy surveys. Here, we present a multiseason analogue of this...

This report presents information used to characterize the groundwater-flow system on the Kitsap Peninsula, and includes descriptions of the geology and hydrogeologic framework, groundwater recharge and discharge, groundwater levels and flow directions, seasonal groundwater-level fluctuations, interactions between aquifers and the surface‑water system, and a water budget. The Kitsap Peninsula is...

The karst of the central Shenandoah Valley has characteristics of both shallow and deep phreatic formation. This field guide focuses on the region around Harrisonburg, Virginia, where a number of these karst features and their associated geologic context can be examined. Ancient, widespread alluvial deposits cover much of the carbonate...

In 2013, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Energy, drilled and constructed boreholes USGS 140 and USGS 141 for stratigraphic framework analyses and long-term groundwater monitoring of the eastern Snake River Plain aquifer at the Idaho National Laboratory in southeast Idaho. Borehole USGS 140 initially...

Increased demands for cleaner burning energy, coupled with the relatively recent technological advances in accessing unconventional hydrocarbon-rich geologic formations, have led to an intense effort to find and extract natural gas from various underground sources around the country. One of these sources, the Marcellus Shale, located in the Allegheny Plateau,...

Biliary atresia is a rare disease of infancy, with an estimated 1 in 15,000 frequency in the southeast United States, but more common in East Asian countries, with a reported frequency of 1 in 5,000 in Taiwan. Although much is known about the management of biliary atresia, its pathogenesis is...

The Red River of the North (hereafter referred to as “Red River”) Basin is an important hydrologic region where water is a valuable resource for the region’s economy. Continuous water-quality monitors have been operated by the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the North Dakota Department of Health, Minnesota Pollution...

Seasonally frozen ground occurs over approximately one‑third of the contiguous United States, causing increased winter runoff. Frozen ground generally rejects potential groundwater recharge. Nearly all recharge from precipitation in semi-arid regions such as the Columbia Plateau and the Snake River Plain in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, occurs between October and...

The Williston Basin, which includes parts of Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota in the United States and the provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan in Canada, has been a leading domestic oil and gas producing region for more than one-half a century. Currently, there are renewed efforts to develop oil...

Northern Hemisphere circulations differ considerably between individual El Niño-Southern Oscillation events due to internal atmospheric variability and variation in the zonal location of sea surface temperature forcing over the tropical Pacific Ocean. This study examines the similarities between recent Northern Hemisphere droughts associated with La Niña events and anomalously warm...

Distributional patterns across the United States of five avian community breeding-season characteristics—community biomass, richness, constituent species' vulnerability to extirpation, percentage of constituent species' global abundance present in the community (conservation index, CI), and the community's position along the ecological gradient underlying species composition (principal curve ordination score, PC)—were described, their...

The historical distribution of Gunnison Sage-Grouse (Centrocercus minimus) in Colorado is described based on published literature, observations, museum specimens, and the known distribution of sagebrush (Artemisia spp.). Historically, Gunnison Sage-Grouse were widely but patchily distributed in up to 22 counties in south-central and southwestern Colorado. The historical distribution of this...

We studied associations with winter habitat for seven species of birds, one species-group (eastern and western meadowlarks combined), and total sparrows at seven sites in the semidesert and plains grasslands of southeastern Arizona from 1999–2001, sampling with mist-nets and survey-transects. We measured structure and composition of vegetation, assessing vegetative differences...

As groundwater becomes an increasingly important water resource worldwide, it is essential to understand how local geology affects groundwater quality, flowpaths and residence times. This study utilized multiple tracers to improve conceptual and numerical models of groundwater flow in the Middle San Pedro Basin in southeastern Arizona (USA) by determining...

Hudson Shelf Valley is a 20–30 m deep, 5–10 km wide v-shaped submarine valley that extends across the Middle Atlantic Bight continental shelf. The valley provides a conduit for cross-shelf exchange via along-valley currents of 0.5 m s−1 or more. Current profile, pressure, and density observations collected during the winter of...

Water and gas chemistry in coalbed methane reservoirs of the Black Warrior Basin reflects a complex interplay among burial processes, basin hydrodynamics, thermogenesis, and late-stage microbial methanogenesis. These factors are all important considerations for developing production and water management strategies. Produced water ranges from nearly potable sodium-bicarbonate water to...

During middle and late Wisconsin time in the Shingobee River headwaters area, the Laurentide Wadena lobe, Hewitt and Itasca phases, produced terminal and ground moraine along with a variety of associated glacial features. The stratigraphic record is accessible and provides details of depositional mode as well as principal glacial events...