Mineral resource of the month: iron ore
John Jorgenson
2010, Earth (55) 29-29
The article provides information on iron ore, including its use in steelmaking....
Geologic characteristics and movement of the Meadow Creek landslide, part of the Coal Hill landslide complex, western Kane County, Utah
Francis X. Ashland, Greg N. McDonald
Stephanie M. Carney, David E. Tabet, Cari L. Johnson, editor(s)
2010, Utah Geological Association Publication 39: Geology of South-Central Utah 38-60
The Meadow Creek landslide, part of the Coal Hill landslide complex in western Kane County, Utah, is about 1.7 miles (2.7 km) wide and 1.3 miles (2.1 km) long and contains six smaller historical slides. The upper part of the Meadow Creek landslide is gently sloping and consists of...
New software methods in radar ornithology using WSR-88D weather data and potential application to monitoring effects of climate change on bird migration
Reginald Mead, John Paxton, Richard S. Sojda
David A. Swayne, Wanhong Yang, A.A. Voinov, A. Rizzoli, T. Filatova, editor(s)
2010, Conference Paper, 2010 International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software; Modelling for Environment's Sake, Fifth Biennial Meeting, Ottawa, Canada
Radar ornithology has provided tools for studying the movement of birds, especially related to migration. Researchers have presented qualitative evidence suggesting that birds, or at least migration events, can be identified using large broad scale radars such as the WSR-88D used in the NEXRAD weather surveillance system. This is potentially...
Importance of benthic production to fish populations in Lake Mead prior to the establishment of quagga mussels
John Umek, Sudeep Chandra, Michael Rosen, Marion Wittmann, Joe Sullivan, Erik Orsak
2010, Lake and Reservoir Management (26) 293-305
Limnologists recently have developed an interest in quantifying benthic resource contributions to higher-level consumers. Much of this research focuses on natural lakes with very little research in reservoirs. In this study, we provide a contemporary snapshot of the food web structure of Lake Mead to evaluate the contribution of benthic...
Large-scale coastal change in the Columbia River littoral cell: an overview
Guy Gelfenbaum, George M. Kaminsky
2010, Marine Geology (273) 1-10
This overview introduces large-scale coastal change in the Columbia River littoral cell (CRLC). Covering 165 km of the southwest Washington and northwest Oregon coasts, the littoral cell is made up of wide low-sloping dissipative beaches, broad coastal dunes and barrier plains, three large estuaries, and is bounded by rocky headlands....
Mineral resource of the month: perlite
Water Resources Division, U.S. Geological Survey
2010, Earth (55) 27-27
The article talks about perlite, which is a mineral used as an aggregate for lightweight construction products, filler for paints and horticultural soil blends. Perlite comes from viscous lava, mined and processed to produce lightweight material that competes with pumice, exfoliated vermiculite and expanded clay and shale. It is mined...
Testing mixing models of old and young groundwater in a tropical lowland rain forest with environmental tracers
D. Kip Solomon, David P. Genereux, Niel Plummer, Eurybiades Busenberg
2010, Water Resources Research (46)
We tested three models of mixing between old interbasin groundwater flow (IGF) and young, locally derived groundwater in a lowland rain forest in Costa Rica using a large suite of environmental tracers. We focus on the young fraction of water using the transient tracers CFC‐11, CFC‐12, CFC‐113, SF6, 3H, and bomb 14C....
Ball clay
Robert L. Virta
2010, Mining Engineering (62) 39-40
The article reports on the global market performance of ball clay in 2009 and presents an outlook for its 2010 performance. Several companies mined ball call in the country including Old Hickey Clay Co., Kentucky-Tennessee Clay Co., and H.C. Spinks Clay Co. Information on the decline in ball clay imports...
Earth mineral resource of the month: asbestos
Robert L. Virta
2010, Earth (55) 27-27
The article discusses the characteristics and feature of asbestos. According to the author, asbestos is a generic name for six needle-shaped minerals that possess high tensile strengths, flexibility, and resistance to chemical and thermal degradation. These minerals are actinolite, amosite, anthophyllite, chrysolite, crocilodite and tremolite. Asbestos is used for strengthening...
Inference of lithologic distributions in an alluvial aquifer using airborne transient electromagnetic surveys
Jesse E. Dickinson, D. R. Pool, R.W. Groom, L.J. Davis
2010, Geophysics (75) WA149-WA161
An airborne transient electromagnetic (TEM) survey was completed in the Upper San Pedro Basin in southeastern Arizona to map resistivity distributions within the alluvial aquifer. This investigation evaluated the utility of 1D vertical resistivity models of the TEM data to infer lithologic distributions in an alluvial aquifer. Comparisons of the...
Nitrogen
L.E. Apodaca
2010, Mining Engineering (62) 65-66
Ammonia was produced by 13 companies at 23 plants in 16 states during 2009. Sixty percent of all U.S. ammonia production capacity was centered in Louisiana. Oklahoma and Texas because of those states' large reserves of natural gas, the dominant domestic feedstock. In 2009, U.S. producers operated at about 83...
Isotopic composition and origin of indigenous natural perchlorate and co-occurring nitrate in the southwestern United States
W. Andrew Jackson, J.K. Bohlke, Baohua Gu, Paul B. Hatzinger, Neil C. Sturchio
2010, Environmental Science & Technology (44) 4869-4876
Perchlorate (ClO4−) has been detected widely in groundwater and soils of the southwestern United States. Much of this ClO4− appears to be natural, and it may have accumulated largely through wet and dry atmospheric deposition. This study evaluates the isotopic composition of natural ClO4− indigenous to the southwestern U.S. Stable...
A universal approximation to grain size from images of non-cohesive sediment
D. Buscombe, D. M. Rubin, J.A. Warrick
2010, Journal of Geophysical Research F: Earth Surface (115)
The two-dimensional spectral decomposition of an image of sediment provides a direct statistical estimate, grid-by-number style, of the mean of all intermediate axes of all single particles within the image. We develop and test this new method which, unlike existing techniques, requires neither image processing algorithms for detection and measurement...
Industrial sand and gravel
T.P. Dolley
2010, Mining Engineering (62) 56-56
Domestic production of industrial sand and gravel in 2009 was about 27 Mt (30 million st), declining by 10 percent compared with 2008. Certain end uses of industrial sand and gravel, such as foundry and glassmaking sand, may have declined by a factor greater than 10 percent in 2009. U.S....
Aviation response to a widely dispersed volcanic ash and gas cloud from the August 2008 eruption of Kasatochi, Alaska, USA
Marianne Guffanti, David J. Schneider, Kristi L. Wallace, Tony Hall, Dov R. Bensimon, Leonard J. Salinas
2010, Journal of Geophysical Research D: Atmospheres (115)
The extensive volcanic cloud from Kasatochi's 2008 eruption caused widespread disruptions to aviation operations along Pacific oceanic, Canadian, and U.S. air routes. Based on aviation hazard warnings issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Geological Survey, the Federal Aviation Administration, and Meteorological Service of Canada, air carriers largely...
New plant records from the Hawaiian Archipelago
Forest Starr, Kim Starr, Lloyd L. Loope
Neal L. Evenhuis, Lucius G. Eldredge, editor(s)
2010, Bishop Museum Occasional Papers: Records of the Hawaii Biological Survey for 2008 (107) 61-68
The following contributions include 19 new plant records for the islands of Kure Atoll (1), Midway Atoll (7), Lāna‘i (9), Kaho‘olawe (1), and Maui (1). The records are comprised of one new state record and 18 new island records. All but one of the records are non-natives. Images of most...
Gemstones
D.W. Olson
2010, Mining Engineering (62) 50-51
Information on the gemstones industry in 2009 is presented. Specifically, details on U.S. production of natural gemstones and laboratory-created, simulant, and treated gemstones; consumption and uses of gemstones; gemstone prices; imports and exports of gemstones; and the outlook for the sector are provided....
Habitat selection and spawning success of walleye in a tributary to Owasco Lake, New York
Marc A. Chalupnicki, James H. Johnson, James E. McKenna Jr., Dawn E. Dittman
2010, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (30) 170-178
Walleyes Sander vitreus are stocked into Owasco Lake, New York, to provide a sport fishery, but the population must be sustained by annual hatchery supplementation despite the presence of appropriate habitat. Therefore, we evaluated walleye spawning success in Dutch Hollow Brook, a tributary of Owasco Lake, to determine whether early...
Mineral resource of the month: cesium
Marc A. Angulo
2010, Earth (55) 29-29
The article offers information on cesium, a golden alkali metal derived from the Latin word caesium which means bluish gray. It mentions that cesium is the first element discovered with the use of spectroscopy. It adds that the leading producer and supplier of cesium is Canada and there are 50,000...
Fire clay
R.L. Virta
2010, Mining Engineering (62) 47-48
Statistics on fire clay consumption, production, prices, and trade in 2009 are presented. Information on the outlook for the fire clay sector is provided....
Diatomite
R.D. Crangle Jr.
2010, Mining Engineering (62) 45-46
Information on the diatomite industry in 2009 is presented. Specifically, details on diatomite production and prices, properties, its future supply, and natural and synthetic substitutes are provided....
Groundwater sustainability strategies
Tom Gleeson, Jonathan VanderSteen, Marios A. Sophocleous, Makoto Taniguchi, William M. Alley, Diana M. Allen, Yangxiao Zhou
2010, Nature Geoscience (3) 378-379
Groundwater extraction has facilitated significant social development and economic growth, enhanced food security and alleviated drought in many farming regions. But groundwater development has also depressed water tables, degraded ecosystems and led to the deterioration of groundwater quality, as well as to conflict among water users. The effects are not...
An overview of sensor calibration inter-comparison and applications
Xiaoxiong Xiong, Changyong Cao, Gyanesh Chander
2010, Frontiers of Earth Science in China (4) 237-252
Long-term climate data records (CDR) are often constructed using observations made by multiple Earth observing sensors over a broad range of spectra and a large scale in both time and space. These sensors can be of the same or different types operated on the same or different platforms. They can...
Carbonate control of H2 and CH4 production in serpentinization systems at elevated P-Ts
L. Camille Jones, Robert Rosenbauer, Jonas I. Goldsmith, Christopher Oze
2010, Geophysical Research Letters (37)
Serpentinization of forsteritic olivine results in the inorganic synthesis of molecular hydrogen (H2) in ultramafic hydrothermal systems (e.g., mid-ocean ridge and forearc environments). Inorganic carbon in those hydrothermal systems may react with H2 to produce methane (CH4) and other hydrocarbons or react with dissolved metal ions to form carbonate minerals....
Functional linear models to test for differences in prairie wetland hydraulic gradients
Mark C. Greenwood, Richard S. Sojda, Todd M. Preston
David A. Swayne, Wanhong Yang, A.A. Voinov, A. Rizzoli, T. Filatova, editor(s)
2010, Conference Paper, 2010 International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software; Modelling for Environment's Sake, Fifth Biennial Meeting, Ottawa, Canada
Functional data analysis provides a framework for analyzing multiple time series measured frequently in time, treating each series as a continuous function of time. Functional linear models are used to test for effects on hydraulic gradient functional responses collected from three types of land use in Northeastern Montana at fourteen...
