Aquatic assessment of the Pike Hill Copper Mine Superfund site, Corinth, Vermont
Nadine M. Piatak, Denise M. Argue, Robert R. Seal II, Richard G. Kiah, John M. Besser, James F. Coles, Jane M. Hammarstrom, Denise M. Levitan, Jeffrey R. Deacon, Christopher G. Ingersoll
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5288
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 Madera and Chowchilla subbasins of the San Joaquin Valley, California
Jennifer L. Shelton, Miranda S. Fram, Kenneth Belitz
2013, Fact Sheet 2012-3099
Groundwater provides more than 40 percent of California’s drinking water. To protect this vital resource, the State of California created the Groundwater Ambient Monitoring and Assessment (GAMA) Program. The Priority Basin Project of the GAMA Program provides a comprehensive assessment of the State’s untreated groundwater quality and increases public access...
Defining a data management strategy for USGS Chesapeake Bay studies
Cassandra Ladino
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1005
The mission of U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) Chesapeake Bay studies is to provide integrated science for improved understanding and management of the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem. Collective USGS efforts in the Chesapeake Bay watershed began in the 1980s, and by the mid-1990s the USGS adopted the watershed as one of its...
New vitrinite reflectance data for the Wind River Basin, Wyoming
Mark J. Pawlewicz, Thomas M. Finn
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1002
The Wind River Basin is a large Laramide (Late Cretaceous through Eocene) structural and sedimentary basin that encompasses about 7,400 square miles in central Wyoming. The basin is bounded by the Washakie Range and Owl Creek and southern Bighorn Mountains on the north, the Casper arch on the east and...
Reconnaissance studies of potential petroleum source rocks in the Middle Jurassic Tuxedni Group near Red Glacier, eastern slope of Iliamna Volcano
Richard G. Stanley, Trystan M. Herriott, David L. LePain, Kenneth P. Helmold, C. Shaun Peterson
2013, Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys Preliminary Interpretive Report 2013-1B
Previous geological and organic geochemical studies have concluded that organic-rich marine shale in the Middle Jurassic Tuxedni Group is the principal source rock of oil and associated gas in Cook Inlet (Magoon and Anders, 1992; Magoon, 1994; Lillis and Stanley, 2011; LePain and others, 2012; LePain and others, submitted). During...
Preliminary hydrogeologic assessment near Tassi and Pakoon Springs, western part of Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument, Arizona
Margot Truini
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5276
Tassi and Pakoon Springs are both in the Grand Wash Trough in the western part of Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument on the Arizona Strip. The monument is jointly managed by the National Park Service (NPS) and the Bureau of Land Management. This study was in response to NPS’s need to...
Hydrogeomorphology influences soil nitrogen and phosphorus mineralization in floodplain wetlands
Gregory B. Noe, Cliff R. Hupp, Nancy B. Rybicki
2013, Ecosystems (16) 75-94
Conceptual models of river–floodplain systems and biogeochemical theory predict that floodplain soil nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) mineralization should increase with hydrologic connectivity to the river and thus increase with distance downstream (longitudinal dimension) and in lower geomorphic units within the floodplain (lateral dimension). We measured rates of in situ...
The Greenville Fault: preliminary estimates of its long-term creep rate and seismic potential
James J. Lienkaemper, Robert G. Barry, Forrest E. Smith, Joseph D. Mello, Forrest S. McFarland
2013, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (103) 2729-2738
Once assumed locked, we show that the northern third of the Greenville fault (GF) creeps at 2 mm/yr, based on 47 yr of trilateration net data. This northern GF creep rate equals its 11-ka slip rate, suggesting a low strain accumulation rate. In 1980, the GF, easternmost strand of the...
Sea-floor character and geology off the entrance to the Connecticut River, northeastern Long Island Sound
Lawrence J. Poppe, Katherine Y. McMullen, Seth D. Ackerman, Megan R. Guberski, Douglas A. Wood
2013, Open-File Report 2012-1103
Datasets of gridded multibeam bathymetry and sidescan-sonar backscatter, together covering approximately 29.1 square kilometers, were used to interpret character and geology of the sea floor off the entrance to the Connecticut River in northeastern Long Island Sound. Although originally collected for charting purposes during National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration hydrographic...
Hydrothermal alteration maps of the central and southern Basin and Range province of the United States compiled from Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) data
John L. Mars
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1139
Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) data and Interactive Data Language (IDL) logical operator algorithms were used to map hydrothermally altered rocks in the central and southern parts of the Basin and Range province of the United States. The hydrothermally altered rocks mapped in this study include (1)...
Hydraulic and Geomorphic Assessment of the Merced River and Historic Bridges in Eastern Yosemite Valley, Yosemite National Park, California: Sacramento, California
J. Toby Minear, Scott Wright
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1016
The Merced River in the popular and picturesque eastern-most part of Yosemite Valley in Yosemite National Park, California, USA, has been extensively altered since the park was first conceived in 1864. Historical human trampling of streambanks has been suggested as the cause of substantial increases in stream width, and the...
Bedrock geologic map of the Nashua South quadrangle, Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, and Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Gregory J. Walsh, Richard H. Jahns, John N. Aleinikoff
2013, Scientific Investigations Map 3200
The bedrock geology of the 7.5-minute Nashua South quadrangle consists primarily of deformed Silurian metasedimentary rocks of the Berwick Formation. The metasedimentary rocks are intruded by a Late Silurian to Early Devonian diorite-gabbro suite, Devonian rocks of the Ayer Granodiorite, Devonian granitic rocks of the New Hampshire Plutonic Suite including...
Landsat surface reflectance quality assurance extraction (version 1.7)
J. W. Jones, M.J. Starbuck, Calli B. Jenkerson
2013, Techniques and Methods 11-C7
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Land Remote Sensing Program is developing an operational capability to produce Climate Data Records (CDRs) and Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) from the Landsat Archive to support a wide variety of science and resource management activities from regional to global scale. The USGS Earth Resources Observation...
Final report and archive of the swath bathymetry and ancillary data collected in the Puerto Rico Trench region in 2002 and 2003
Uri S. ten Brink, William W. Danforth, Christopher F. Polloni
2013, Open-File Report 2006-1210
In 2002 and 2003, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), conducted three exploration cruises that mapped for the first time the morphology of the entire tectonic plate boundary stretching from the Dominican Republic in the west to the Lesser Antilles in...
Effects of best-management practices in Bower Creek in the East River priority watershed, Wisconsin, 1991-2009
Steven R. Corsi, Judy A. Horwatich, Troy D. Rutter, Roger T. Bannerman
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5217
Hydrologic and water-quality data were collected at Bower Creek during the periods before best-management practices (BMPs), and after BMPs were installed for evaluation of water-quality improvements. The monitoring was done between 1990 and 2009 with the pre-BMP period ending in July 1994 and the post-BMP period beginning in October 2006....
Distribution and environmental persistence of the causative agent of white-nose syndrome, Geomyces destructans, in bat hibernacula of the eastern United States
Jeffrey M. Lorch, Laura K. Muller, Robin E. Russell, Michael O’Connor, Daniel L. Lindner, David S. Blehert
2013, Applied and Environmental Microbiology (79) 1293-1301
White-nose syndrome (WNS) is an emerging disease of hibernating bats caused by the recently described fungus Geomyces destructans. First isolated in 2008, the origins of this fungus in North America and its ability to persist in the environment remain undefined. To investigate the correlation between manifestation of WNS and distribution...
Vegetation projections for Wind Cave National Park with three future climate scenarios: Final report in completion of Task Agreement J8W07100052
David A. King, Dominique M. Bachelet, Amy J. Symstad
2013, National Park Service Natural Resource Technical Report NPS/WICA/NRTRT--2013/681
Introduction The effects of climate change on the natural resources protected by Parks will likely be substantial, but geographically variable, due to local variation in climate trajectories and differences among ecosystems in their vulnerability to climate change. The projections of general circulation models (GCMs) indicate the possible magnitude and direction of...
Identification of metrics to monitor salt marsh integrity on National Wildlife Refuges in relation to conservation and management objectives
Hilary A. Neckles, Glenn R. Guntenspergen, W. George Shriver, Nicholas P. Danz, Whitney A. Wiest, Jessica L. Nagel, Jennifer H. Olker
2013, Report
Executive Summary Most salt marshes in the US have been degraded by human activities, and threats from physical alterations, surrounding land-use, species invasions, and global climate change persist. Salt marshes are unique and highly productive ecosystems with high intrinsic value to wildlife, and many National Wildlife Refuges (NWRs) have been established...
Geologic model for the assessment of undiscovered hydrocarbons in Lower to Upper Cretaceous carbonate rocks of the Fredericksburg and Washita groups, U.S. Gulf Coast Region
Sharon M. Swanson, Catherine B. Enomoto, Kristin O. Dennen, Brett J. Valentine, Celeste D. Lohr
2013, Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies Transactions (63) 423-437
As part of the assessment of undiscovered oil and gas resources in Jurassic and Cretaceous strata of the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2010, the U.S. Geological Survey assessed carbonate rocks of the Fredericksburg and Washita groups and their equivalent units underlying onshore lands and State waters. One conventional assessment unit...
Clustering of GPS velocities in the Mojave Block, southeastern California
James C. Savage, Robert W. Simpson
2013, Journal of Geophysical Research B: Solid Earth (118) 1747-1759
We find subdivisions within the Mojave Block using cluster analysis to identify groupings in the velocities observed at GPS stations there. The clusters are represented on a fault map by symbols located at the positions of the GPS stations, each symbol representing the cluster to which the velocity of that...
234U/238U and δ87Sr in peat as tracers of paleosalinity in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta of California, USA
Judith Z. Drexler, James B. Paces, Charles N. Alpers, Lisamarie Windham-Myers, Leonid A. Neymark, Thomas D. Bullen, Howard E. Taylor
2013, Applied Geochemistry (40) 164-179
The purpose of this study was to determine the history of paleosalinity over the past 6000+ years in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (the Delta), which is the innermost part of the San Francisco Estuary. We used a combination of Sr and U concentrations, d87Sr values, and 234U/238U activity ratios (AR)...
Pacific Island landbird monitoring annual report, Haleakalā National Park, 2012
Seth W. Judge, Richard J. Camp, Patrick J. Hart
2013, National Park Service Natural Resource Technical Report NPS/PACN/NRTR—2013/740
Haleakalā National Park (HALE) was surveyed for landbirds and habitat characteristics from March 20 through July 26, 2012. This information provides data in the time-series of landbird monitoring for long-term trends in forest bird distribution, density, and abundance. The Kīpahulu District of eastern Haleakalā Volcano was surveyed using point-transect distance...
Monitoring vegetation response to episodic disturbance events by using multitemporal vegetation indices
Gregory D. Steyer, Brady R. Couvillion, John A. Barras
2013, Journal of Coastal Research 118-130
Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) derived from MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite imagery and land/water assessments from Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) imagery were used to quantify the extent and severity of damage and subsequent recovery after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita of 2005 within the vegetation communities of Louisiana's coastal wetlands....
Effects of mercury deposition and coniferous forests on the mercury contamination of fish in the south central United States
Ray W. Drenner, Matthew M. Chumchal, Christina M. Jones, Christopher M.B. Lehmann, David A. Gay, David I. Donato
2013, Environmental Science & Technology (47) 1274-1279
Mercury (Hg) is a toxic metal that is found in aquatic food webs and is hazardous to human and wildlife health. We examined the relationship between Hg deposition, land coverage by coniferous and deciduous forests, and average Hg concentrations in largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides)-equivalent fish (LMBE) in 14 ecoregions located...
Geologic map of the Topock 7.5’ quadrangle, Arizona and California
Keith A. Howard, Barbara E. John, Jane E. Nielson, Julia M. G. Miller, Joseph L. Wooden
2013, Scientific Investigations Map 3236
The Topock quadrangle exposes a structurally complex part of the Colorado River extensional corridor and also exposes deposits that record landscape evolution during the history of the Colorado River. Paleoproterozoic gneisses and Mesoproterozoic granitoids and intrusive sheets are exposed through tilted cross-sectional thicknesses of many kilometers. Intruding them are a...
