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The incidental catch of seabirds in high-seas drift nets was recorded in 1990-1991 by scientific observers on commercial squid and large-mesh fishery vessels operating in the North Pacific Transitional Zone. Twenty-six Synthliboramphus murrelet deaths were recorded in the months of August through December. All but one were from the Korean...

A sequence of flood deposits left by the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, Arizona, provides evidence of at least 15 floods with peak discharges greater than  over the last 4500 yr. Ten floods during the last 2000-2300 yr...

Rates of alkali exchange between alunite and water have been measured in hydrothermal experiments of 1 hour to 259 days duration at 150 to 400°C. Examination of run products by scanning electron microscope indicates that the reaction takes place by dissolution-reprecipitation. This exchange is modeled with an empirical rate equation...

Evidence of past cryovolcanism is widespread and extremely varied on the icy satellites. Some cryovolcanic landscapes, notably on Triton, are similar to many silicate volcanic terrains, including what appear to be volcanic rifts, calderas and solidified lava lakes, flow fields, breached cinder cones or stratovolcanoes, viscous lava domes, and sinuous...

Addition of hydrogen or formate significantly enhanced the rate of consumption of nitrate in slurried core samples obtained from an active zone of denitrification in a nitrate-contaminated sand and gravel aquifer (Cape Cod, Mass.). Hydrogen uptake by the core material was immediate and rapid, with an...

Eight earthquakes of magnitude greater than or equal to seven have occurred in southern California in the past 200 years. If one assumes that such events are the product of a Poisson process, the probability of one or more earthquakes of magnitude seven or larger in southern...

The U.S. Geological Survey's MODFLOW finite-difference ground-water flow model has been coupled with three surface-water packages - the MODBRANCH, River, and Stream packages - to simulate surface water and its interaction with ground water. Prior to the development of the coupling packages, the only interaction between these modeling packages was...

The geochemical evolution of low-molecular-weight organic acids in groundwater downgradient from a crude-oil spill near Bemidji, Minnesota, was studied over a five year period (1986–1990). The organic acids are metabolic intermediates of the degradation of components of the crude oil and are structurally...

The oceans have been and will continue to be disposal sites for a wide variety of waste products. Often these wastes are not dumped at the designated sites or transport occurs during or after dumping, and, subsequent attempts to monitor the effects the waste products have on the environment are...

Aftershocks of large earthquakes tend to occur close to the main rupture zone, and can be used to constrain its dimensions. But following the 1992 Landers earthquake (magnitude M(w) = 7.3) in southern California, many aftershocks were reported in areas remote from the mainshock. Intriguingly, this remote seismicity occurred in...

Earthquake hazards are commonly treated independently by Earth scientists, yet when a large earthquake occurs, property losses are seldom totaled separately for each earthquake hazard. Four years after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake rolled through northern California, a quantitative answer to the following question is not yet available: How much...

A rare earth element (REE) study was made by isotope-dilution mass spectrometry of plagioclase separates from a variety of cumulates stratigraphically spanning the Banded series of the Stillwater Complex, Montana. Evaluation of parent liquid REE patterns, calculated on the basis of published plagioclase-liquid partition coefficients, shows that the range...

The waning phase of the 1989-1990 eruption of Redoubt Volcano in the Cook Inlet region of south-central Alaska comprised a quasi-regular pattern of repetitious dome growth and destruction that lasted from February 15 to late April 1990. The dome failures produced ash plumes hazardous to airline traffic. In response to...

A new automated pretreatment system for the preparation of materials submitted for accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) analysis is less time-consuming and results in a higher sample yield. The new procedure was tested using two groups of plant fossils: one group was pretreated using the traditional method, and the second, using...

Two-line ferrihydrite is an important adsorbent of many toxics in natural and anthropogenic systems; however, the specific structural sites responsible for the high adsorption capacity are not well understood. A combination of chemical and spectroscopic techniques have been employed in this study to gain further insight into the structural nature...

Trace-element abundances were measured in situ by ion microprobe in five samples of hornblende and melt ranging from basaltic andesite to high-silica rhyolite. Except for one sample, for which quench overgrowth or disequilibrium is suspected, the abundance ratios show systematic inter-element and inter-sample variations, and probably approach true partition coefficients....

Large-scale surveys to estimate animal abundance can be useful for monitoring population status and trends, for measuring responses to management or environmental alterations, and for testing ecological hypotheses about abundance. However, large-scale surveys may be expensive and logistically complex. To ensure resources are not wasted on unattainable targets, the goals...

This glossary provides standard definitions for many of the terms used in avian conservation biology. We compiled these definitions to assist communication among researchers, managers, and others involved in the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Program, also known as Partners in Flight. We used existing glossaries and recent literature to prepare...

The Ozark region of the U.S. midcontinent is host to a number of Mississippi Valley-type districts, including the world-class Viburnum Trend, Old Lead Belt, and Tri-State districts and the smaller Southeast Missouri barite, Northern Arkansas, and Central Missouri districts. There is increasing evidence that the Ozark Mississippi Valley-type districts formed...

New capabilities for hydrologic property measurements in triaxial systems include: (1) volume-controlled and simultaneous measurements of hydraulic conductivity and one-dimensional consolidation (or specific storage) of a saturated test specimen; and (2) volume-controlled measurements of hydraulic conductivity, matric potential, and the variation of these properties with the moisture content of an...

Unionid bivalves and attached epizoic zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha) were collected at one index station in 1989, 1990, and 1991 and at 17 stations in 1991 in offshore waters of western Lake Erie of the Laurentian Great Lakes. Sampling at the index station revealed that the proportion of live unionids...

Triaxial compression experiments were performed on samples of natural granular fault gouge from the Lopez Fault in Southern California. This material consists primarily of quartz and has a self-similar grain size distribution thought to result from natural cataclasis. The experiments were performed at a constant mean effective stress of 150...

The Porco Ag-Zn-Pb-Sn deposit, a major Ag producer in the 16th century and currently the major Zn producer in Bolivia, consists of a swarm of fissure-filling veins in the newly recognized Porco caldera. The caldera measures 5 km north-south by 3 km east-west and formed in response to the eruption...

Streamflow-velocity adjustment coefficients at several common vertical positions varied significantly from station to station and from measurement to measurement at some stations. The ice-cover roughness was the primary factor affecting the profiles at most stations. Several discharge-measurement procedures were developed using one-half of the data collected, and the accuracy of...

The results from two different types of gas measurement, telemetered in situ monitoring of reducing gases on the dome and airborne measurements of sulfur dioxide emission rates in the plume by correlation spectrometry, suggest that the combination of these two methods is particularly effective in detecting periods of enhanced degassing...