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To assess the effect that increased water use is having on the long-term availability of groundwater within the Ozark Plateaus aquifer system, a groundwater-flow model was developed using MODFLOW 2000 for a model area covering 7,340 square miles for parts of Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma. Vertically the model is...

Mercury (Hg) was examined in top-predator fish, bed sediment, and water from streams that spanned regional and national gradients of Hg source strength and other factors thought to influence methylmercury (MeHg) bioaccumulation. Sampled settings include stream basins that were agricultural, urbanized, undeveloped (forested, grassland, shrubland, and wetland land cover), and...

The goal of this project was to use off-the-shelf music recording equipment to build and test a prototype seismic system to listen for people trapped in underground chambers (mines, caves, collapsed buildings). Previous workers found that an array of geophones is effective in locating trapped miners; displaying the data graphically,...

This report is based on published tonnage and grade data on 58 Nb- and rare-earth-element (REE)-bearing carbonatite deposits that are mostly well explored and are partially mined or contain resources of these elements. The deposits represent only a part of the known 527 carbonatites around the world, but they are...

The Retsof salt mine in upstate New York was flooded from 1994 to 1996 after two roof collapses created rubble chimneys in overlying bedrock that intersected a confined aquifer in glacial sediments. The mine now contains about 60 billion liters of saturated halite brine that is slowly being displaced as...

Conservation efforts for greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus), hereafter sage-grouse, are underway across the range of this species. Over 70 local working groups have been established and are implementing on-the-ground sage-grouse oriented conservation projects. Early on in this process, the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG) recognized the need to...

Because of water quantity and quality concerns within the Ozark aquifer, the State of Kansas in 2004 issued a moratorium on most new appropriations from the aquifer until results were made available from a cooperative study between the U.S. Geological Survey and the Kansas Water Office. The purposes of the...

The Cretaceous/Tertiary (K/T) boundary corresponds to one of the very few unique events in the geological record discovered to date, representing a single traceable timeline across the world. This timeline, coincident with the geochemical and mineralogical singularities caused by the impact of a large extraterrestrial body, is also coincident with the end-Cretaceous extinction event in North America. This precise timeline gives...

Carbonate aquifers are an important source of water in the United States; however, these aquifers can be particularly susceptible to contamination from the land surface. The U.S. Geological Survey National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program collected samples from wells and springs in 12 carbonate aquifers across the country during 1993–2005; water-quality...

Mineral Creek, an acid mine drainage stream in south-western Colorado, was the subject of a water-quality study that employed a paired synoptic approach. Under the paired synoptic approach, two synoptic sampling campaigns were conducted on the same study reach. The initial synoptic campaign, conducted August 22, 2005, documented stream-water quality...

Each chapter of the 2009 edition of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Mineral Commodity Summaries (MCS) includes information on events, trends, and issues for each mineral commodity as well as discussions and tabular presentations on domestic industry structure, Government programs, tariffs, 5-year salient statistics, and world production and resources. The...

We characterize the textural and geochemical features of ocean crustal zircon recovered from plagiogranite, evolved gabbro, and metamorphosed ultramafic host-rocks collected along present-day slow and ultraslow spreading mid-ocean ridges (MORs). The geochemistry of 267 zircon grains was measured by sensitive high-resolution ion microprobe-reverse geometry at the USGS-Stanford Ion Microprobe facility....

This report presents estimated daily and cumulative loads of suspended sediment and selected trace elements transported during water year 2008 at three streamflow-gaging stations that bracket the Milltown Reservoir project area in the upper Clark Fork basin of western Montana. Milltown Reservoir is a National Priorities List Superfund site where...

This report addresses physical channel issues related to instream gravel mining on the Umpqua River and its two primary tributaries, the North and South Umpqua Rivers. This analysis constitutes a “Phase I” investigation, as designated by an interagency team cochaired by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Portland District, and...

The Arbuckle-Simpson aquifer in south-central Oklahoma provides water for public supply, farms, mining, wildlife conservation, recreation, and the scenic beauty of springs, streams, and waterfalls. A new understanding of the aquifer flow system was developed as part of the Arbuckle-Simpson Hydrology Study, done in 2003 through 2008 as a collaborative...

Volcanic rocks that form the southern segment of the Cascades magmatic arc are an important manifestation of Cenozoic subduction and associated magmatism in western North America. Until recently, these rocks had been little studied and no systematic compilation of existing composition data had been assembled. This report is a compilation...

Gas, oil, and water production data were compiled from 38 wells with production commencing during the 1980s from the Wasatch Formation in the Greater Natural Buttes field, Uinta Basin, Utah. This study is one of a series of reports examining fluid production from tight gas reservoirs, which are characterized by...

Grade and tonnage models are useful in quantitative mineral-resource assessments. The models and database presented in this report are an update of earlier publications about volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) deposits. These VMS deposits include what were formerly classified as kuroko, Cyprus, and Besshi deposits. The update was necessary because of...

The role of irrigation and artificial drainage in the hydrologic cycle and the transport of solutes in a small agricultural catchment in central Washington's Yakima Valley were explored using hydrologic, chemical, isotopic, age-dating, and mineralogical data from several environmental compartments, including stream water, ground water, overland flow, and streambed pore...

The Rinconada Fault and its related faults constitute a major structural element of the Salinas River valley, which is known regionally, and referred to herein, as the 'Salinas Valley'. The Rinconada Fault extends 230 km from King City in the north to the Big Pine Fault in the south. At...

We determined Ar/Ar eruption ages of eight extrusions from the Pleistocene Coso volcanic field, a long-lived series of small volume rhyolitic domes in eastern California. Combined with ion-microprobe dating of crystal ages of zircon and allanite from these lavas and from granophyre geothermal well cuttings, we were able to track...

Energy and mineral development, particularly coalbed natural gas development, is proceeding at a rapid pace in the Powder River Structural Basin (PRB) in northeastern Wyoming. Concerns about the potential effects of development led to formation of an interagency working group of primarily Federal and State agencies to address these issues...

A diverse suite of spatially and temporally juxtaposed igneous rocks ranging from alkaline lamprophyres to granites intruded south-central Colorado during late Oligocene and early Miocene time. In addition to the stocks of the East and West Spanish Peaks, there are three types of dikes exposed in the region, based on...

The Tuba City Landfill (TCL) started as an unregulated waste disposal site in the 1940s and was administratively closed in 1997. Since the TCL closure, radionuclides have been detected in the shallow ground water. In 2006, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) contracted with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to...

A nation's endowment of nonfuel mineral resources, relative to the world's endowment, is a fundamental consideration in decisions related to a nation's economic and environmental well being and security. Knowledge of the worldwide abundance, distribution, and general geologic setting of mineral commodities provides a framework within which a nation can...