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The Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site in southeastern Pennsylvania, which features an Fe smelter that was operational in the 18th and 19th centuries, is dominated by three slag piles. Pile 1 slag, from the Hopewell Furnace, and pile 2 slag, likely from the nearby Cornwall Furnace, were both produced...

This study updates a stratigraphic cross section published as plate 2 in Kirschbaum and Hettinger (2004) Digital Data Series 69-G (http://pubs.usgs.gov/dds/dds-069/dds-069-g/). The datum is a marine/tidal ravinement surface within the Cozzette Sandstone Member of the Iles Formation and the Thompson Canyon Sandstone and Sulphur Canyon Sandstone Beds of...

Rapid growth and development within Carson Valley in Douglas County, Nevada, and Alpine County, California, has caused concern over the continued availability of groundwater, and whether the increased municipal demand could either impact the availability of water or result in decreased flow in the Carson River. Annual pumpage of groundwater...

The freshwater zone of the San Antonio segment of the Edwards aquifer is used by residents of San Antonio and numerous other rapidly growing communities in south-central Texas as their primary water supply source. This freshwater zone is bounded to the south and southeast by a saline-water zone with an...

Much is known about invertebrate community traits in basins across Europe, but no comprehensive description of traits exists for the continental US. Little is known about the trait composition of invertebrates in reference or least-disturbed basins of the US, how trait composition varies among ecoregions, or how consistently traits respond...

During 2009 and 2010, the U.S. Geological Survey’s Idaho National Laboratory Project Office, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Energy, collected quarterly, depth-discrete measurements of fluid pressure and temperature in nine boreholes located in the eastern Snake River Plain aquifer. Each borehole was instrumented with a multilevel monitoring system...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has created a comprehensive geopressure-gradient model of the regional pressure system spanning the onshore and offshore portions of the Gulf of Mexico, USA. The model was used to generate ten maps: five contour maps (Maps 1A - 5A) characterize the depth to the surface defined...

Characterization of the regional pressure system in the Gulf of Mexico basin is critical for assessing the occurrence of undiscovered petroleum resources, evaluating areas with potential pressure-related production, identifying potential pressure-related geohazard issues, evaluating hydrocarbon reservoir-seal integrity, and determining the feasibility of geological sequestration and long-term containment of fluids....

Genetic analysis of spawning lake whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) from six sites in the main basin of Lake Huron was conducted to determine population structure. Samples from fisheryindependent assessment surveys in the northwest main basin were analyzed to determine the relative contributions of lake whitefish genetic populations. Genetic population structure was...

We examined characteristics of routinely cataloged seismicity from 1970 to the present in and around the Yakima fold‐and‐thrust belt (YFTB) in eastern Washington to determine if the characteristics of contemporary seismicity provide clues about regional‐scale active tectonics or about more localized, near‐surface processes. We employed new structural and hydrologic models...

Non-breeding sooty shearwaters are the most abundant seabird in the California Current Large Marine Ecosystem (CCLME) during boreal spring and summer months. This, combined with relatively great energy demands, reliance on patchy, shoaling prey (krill, squid, and forage fishes), and unconstrained mobility free from central-place-foraging demands—make shearwaters useful indicators of ecosystem variability. During 2008...

The Keanakākoʻi Tephra at Kīlauea Volcano has previously been interpreted by some as the product of a caldera-forming eruption in 1790 CE. Our study, however, finds stratigraphic and 14C evidence that the tephra instead results from numerous eruptions throughout a 300-year period between about 1500 and 1800. The stratigraphic evidence...

Kalaupapa Peninsula, along the northern coast of East Moloka‘i volcano, is a remarkably well-preserved example of rejuvenated-stage volcanism from a Hawaiian volcano. Mapping of lava flows, vents and other volcanic constructs reveals a diversity of landforms on this small monogenetic basaltic shield. The late-stage lava distributary system of this shield...

Gold- and iron sulfide-bearing deposits of the southeastern United States have distinctive mineralogical and geochemical features that provide a basis for constructing models of ore genesis for exploration and assessment of gold resources. The largest (historic) deposits, in approximate million ounces of gold (Moz Au), include those in the Haile...

The yield of bedrock wells in the fractured-bedrock aquifers of the Nashoba terrane and surrounding area, central and eastern Massachusetts, was investigated with analyses of existing data. Reported well yield was compiled for 7,287 wells from Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and U.S. Geological Survey databases. Yield of these wells...

Estimating future loadings of nitrogen to the Chesapeake Bay requires knowledge about the groundwater flow system and the traveltime of water and chemicals between recharge at the water table and the discharge to streams and directly to the bay. The Delmarva Peninsula has a relatively large proportion of its land...

Summary U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Professional Paper 1794 is a four-volume series on the status and trends of the Nation’s land use and land cover, providing an assessment of the rates and causes of land-use and land-cover change in the United States between 1973 and 2000. Volumes A, B, C, and...

Fire is a major factor in the Everglades ecosystem. For thousands of years, lightning-strike fires from summer thunderstorms have helped create and maintain a dynamic landscape suited both to withstand fire and recover quickly in the wake of frequent fires. Today, managers in the Everglades National Park are implementing controlled...

Brimstone Basin, a remote area of intense hydrothermal alteration a few km east of the Yellowstone Caldera, is rarely studied and has long been considered to be a cold remnant of an ancient hydrothermal system. A field campaign in 2008 confirmed that gas emissions from the few small vents were...

Preface U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Professional Paper 1794–A is the first in a four-volume series on the status and trends of the Nation’s land use and land cover, providing an assessment of the rates and causes of land-use and land-cover change in the Western United States between 1973 and 2000. Volumes...

Gas pistoning is a type of eruptive behavior described first at Kīlauea volcano and characterized by the (commonly) cyclic rise and fall of the lava surface within a volcanic vent or lava lake. Though recognized for decades, its cause continues to be debated, and determining why and when it occurs...

Pockmark fields occur throughout northern North American temperate estuaries despite the absence of extensive thermogenic hydrocarbon deposits typically associated with pockmarks. In such settings, the origins of the gas and triggering mechanism(s) responsible for pockmark formation are not obvious. Nor is it known why pockmarks proliferate in this region but...

Much of the oil and gas in the Illinois, Michigan, and Appalachian basins of eastern North America is thought to be derived from Devonian shale that is within these basins (for example, Milici and others, 2003; Swezey, 2002, 2008, 2009; Swezey and others, 2005, 2007). As the Devonian strata were...

Dry deposition of speciated mercury, i.e., gaseous oxidized mercury (GOM), particulate-bound mercury (PBM), and gaseous elemental mercury (GEM), was estimated for the year 2008–2009 at 19 monitoring locations in eastern and central North America. Dry deposition estimates were obtained by combining monitored two- to four-hourly speciated ambient concentrations with modeled...

The U. S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Energy, is mapping the distribution of basalt flows and sedimentary interbeds at the Idaho National Laboratory in three dimensions to provide data for refining numerical models of groundwater flow and contaminant transport in the eastern Snake River Plain...