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The concepts that are the basis for the U.S. Geological Survey's National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) program began forming in the early 1980's. By 1986, a pilot phase was initiated to test and refine assessment concepts and in 1991, the NAWQA program began a multi-year transition to a fully operational program....

Fully three-dimensional representations of the geologic system at Yucca Mountain have been developed using a Geoscientific Information System, which is an expansion of a traditional Geographic Information Systems. These advanced, three dimensional, representations of Yucca Mountain are required to adequately evaluate the complex geologic and hydrologic conditions surrounding the site....

An intensive hydrologic investigation of the North Fork Bens Creek Watershed on Laurel Hill in southwestern Pennsylvania was made during 1984-85. Precipitation was sampled weekly, and stream water was sampled monthly and during selected storms for discharge and chemical composition. The watershed is underlain by sandstone and sandy shale consisting...

Lyman Lake is an irrigation-storage reservoir on the Little Colorado River near St. Johns, Arizona. The main sources of water for the lake are streamflow in the Little Colorado River and ground-water inflow from the underlying Coconino aquifer. Two approaches, a hydrologic analysis and a geochemical analysis, were used to...

In part of a large abandoned mining complex, electromagnetic geophysical surveys were used along with data derived from cores and monitoring wells to infer sources of contamination and subsurface hydrologic connections between acidic refuse deposits and adjacent undisturbed geologic materials. Electrical resistivity increases sharply along the boundary of an elevated...

A vertically integrated two-dimensional lateral flow model of soil moisture has been developed. Derivation of the governing equation is based on a physical interpretation of hillslope processes. The lateral subsurface-flow model permits variability of precipitation and evapotranspiration, and allows arbitrary specification of soil-moisture retention properties. Variable slope, soil thickness, and...

The US Geological Survey collects and disseminates, in written and digital formats, groundwater and surface-water information related to the tidal and nontidal wetlands of the United States. This information includes quantity, quality, and availability of groundwater and surface water; groundwater and surface-water interactions (recharge-discharge); groundwater flow; and the basic surface-water...

Partial extraction procedures can be used to release metals associated with organic matter in natural materials. Reagents commonly employed for this purpose include hydrogen peroxide, Na hypochlorite and Na pyrophosphate. This study tested the selectivity of these reagents by comparing the amount...

\A filtration model commonly used to describe removal of colloids during packed-bed filtration in water treatment applications was modified for describing downgradient transport of bacteria in sandy, aquifer sediments. The modified model was applied to the results of a small-scale (7 m), natural-gradient tracer test and to observations of an...

A primary source of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) in the Black Creek aquifer of South Carolina is carbon dioxide produced by microbially mediated oxidation of sedimentary organic matter. Groundwater chemistry data indicate, however, that the available mass of inorganic electron acceptors (oxygen, Fe(III),...

Samples were collected from major strata in the upper 5 m of an alluvial soil profile in the Amargosa Desert of southern Nevada to compare rubber-balloon and drive-core bulk-density measurement methods. For strate where the fine soil was <82% sand and <15% clay, differences between total and fine-soil bulk-density values...

Historic discharges from the mining and smelting complex at the head-waters of the Clark Fork River have resulted in elevated Ag, Cd, Cu, Pb and Zn concentrations in the <60 μm fraction of both bed and flood-plain sediments of the river. Processes affecting the trends in longitudinal distributions of these...

The computer code MBSSAS uses two-parameter Margules-type excess-free-energy of mixing equations to calculate thermodynamic equilibrium, pure-phase saturation, and stoichiometric saturation states in binary solid-solution aqueous-solution (SSAS) systems. Lippmann phase diagrams, Roozeboom diagrams, and distribution-coefficient diagrams can be constructed from the output data files,...

What constitutes a comprehensive description of drought, a description forming a basis for answering why a drought occurred is outlined. The description entails two aspects that are "naturally" coupled, named physical and economic, and treats the set of hydrologic measures of droughts in terms of their multivariate distribution, rather than...

Visible and near-infrared (VNIR; 0.4–2.4 μm) reflectance spectra were recorded for 35 saline minerals that represent the wide range of mineral and brine chemical compositions found in playa evaporite settings. The spectra show that many of the saline minerals exhibit diagnostic near-infrared absorption bands, chiefly attributable to vibrations of hydrogen-bonded...

Many pumping tests are performed in geologic settings that can be conceptualized as a linear infinite strip of one material embedded in a matrix of differing flow properties. A semi-analytical solution is presented to aid the analysis of drawdown data obtained from pumping tests performed in settings that can be...

The use of a single-bowl continuous-flow centrifuge (CFC, Sharples-Pennwalt Model AS-12) for dewatering suspended sediment from large volumes of river water is evaluated. Sediment-recovery efficiency of 86-91 per cent is comparable to that of other types of CFC units. The recovery efficiency is limited by...

This study examines the relationship between the distribution of small earthquakes (ML≤4.3) and mechanisms of strain accumulation and relaxation in an area with long repeat times between large events, the Southern Great Basin Seismic Network (SGBSN) region. The Great Basin is a unique continental extensional...

Demethylation of monomethylmercury in freshwater and estuarine sediments and in bacterial cultures was investigated with 14CH3HgI. Under anaerobiosis, results with inhibitors indicated partial involvement of both sulfate reducers and methanogens, the former dominating estuarine sediments, while both were active in freshwaters. Aerobes were the most significant demethylators in estuarine sediments, but...

Using the example of the Geff Alternative Site in Wayne County, Illinois, for the disposal of low-level radioactive waste, this paper demonstrates, from a policy and public opinion perspective, the importance of accurately determining site stratigraphy. Complete and accurate characterization of geologic materials and determination of site stratigraphy at potential...

A lumped-parameter, solute mass-balance model is developed to define the role of water outflow from a well-mixed basin. A mass-balance model is analyzed with a geochemical model designed for waters with high ionic strengths. Two typical waters, seawater and a Na-HCO3 ground water, are analyzed to illustrate the control that...

Two network-design technologies are compared by random sub-sampling of actual streamflow data. The technologies, Network Analysis for Regional Information (NARI) and Network Analysis Using Generalized Least Squares (NAUGLS), have a common objective, viz. to maximize regional information within a limited budget and time horizon. The data used for intercomparison are...

Methane oxidation was measured in an unconfined sand and gravel aquifer (Cape Cod, Mass.) by using in situ natural-gradient tracer tests at both a pristine, oxygenated site and an anoxic, sewage-contaminated site. The tracer sites were equipped with multilevel sampling devices to create target grids of sampling points; the injectate...

Vertical gradients of selected chemical constituents, bacterial populations, bacterial activity and electron acceptors were investigated for an unconfined aquifer contaminated with nitrate and organic compounds on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, U.S.A. Fifteen-port multilevel sampling devices (MLS's) were installed within the contaminant plume at the source of the contamination, and at 250...

Manganese oxidation products were precipitated in an aerated open-aqueous system where a continuous influx of mixed Mn2+ and Cd2+ solution was supplied and pH was maintained with an automated pH-stat adding dilute NaOH. X-ray diffraction and electron diffraction identified the solids produced as mixtures of Cd2Mn34+O8, Mn2+2Mn4+3O8, MnO2 (ramsdellite), and CdCO3. Mean oxidation...