Sediment discharge and stream power--A preliminary announcement
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Circular↗
SEARCH · Geology Reports
Results for “Preliminary Report”
Search indexed USGS publications on groundwater, aquifers, geologic maps, mineral resources and earthquakes. Explore source records by subject and place.
Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.
Preliminary map of peak horizontal ground acceleration for the Hanshin-Awaji earthquake of January 17, 1995, Japan - Description of Mapped Data Sets
The Hanshin-Awaji earthquake (also known as the Hyogo-ken Nanbu and the Great Hanshin earthquake) provided an unprecedented set of measurements of strong ground shaking. The measurements constitute the most comprehensive set of strong- motion recordings yet obtained for sites underlain by soft soil deposits of Holocene age within a few kilometers of the crustal rupture zone. The recordings, obtained on or near many important structures, provide an important new empirical data set for evaluating input ground motion levels and site amplification factors for codes and site-specific design procedures world wide. This report describes the data used to prepare a preliminary map summarizing the strong motion data in relation to seismicity and underlying geology (Wentworth, Borcherdt, and Mark., 1995; Figure 1, hereafter referred to as Figure 1/I). The map shows station locations, peak acceleration values, and generalized acceleration contours superimposed on pertinent seismicity and the geologic map of Japan. The map (Figure 1/I) indicates a zone of high acceleration with ground motions throughout the zone greater than 400 gal and locally greater than 800 gal. This zone encompasses the area of most intense damage mapped as JMA intensity level 7, which extends through Kobe City. The zone of most intense damage is parallel, but displaced slightly from the surface projection of the crustal rupture zone implied by aftershock locations. The zone is underlain by soft-soil deposits of Holocene age.
Open-File Report↗
National Land Imaging Requirements (NLIR) Pilot Project summary report: Summary of moderate resolution imaging user requirements
Under the National Land Imaging Requirements (NLIR) Project, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is developing a functional capability to obtain, characterize, manage, maintain and prioritize all Earth observing (EO) land remote sensing user requirements. The goal is a better understanding of community needs that can be supported with land remote sensing resources, and a means to match needs with appropriate solutions in an effective and efficient way. The NLIR Project is composed of two components. The first component is focused on the development of the Earth Observation Requirements Evaluation System (EORES) to capture, store and analyze user requirements, whereas, the second component is the mechanism and processes to elicit and document the user requirements that will populate the EORES. To develop the second component, the requirements elicitation methodology was exercised and refined through a pilot project conducted from June to September 2013. The pilot project focused specifically on applications and user requirements for moderate resolution imagery (5–120 meter resolution) as the test case for requirements development. The purpose of this summary report is to provide a high-level overview of the requirements elicitation process that was exercised through the pilot project and an early analysis of the moderate resolution imaging user requirements acquired to date to support ongoing USGS sustainable land imaging study needs. The pilot project engaged a limited set of Federal Government users from the operational and research communities and therefore the information captured represents only a subset of all land imaging user requirements. However, based on a comparison of results, trends, and analysis, the pilot captured a strong baseline of typical applications areas and user needs for moderate resolution imagery. Because these results are preliminary and represent only a sample of users and application areas, the information from this report should only be used to indicate general user needs for the applications covered. Users of the information are cautioned that use of specific numeric results may be inappropriate without additional research. Any information used or cited from this report should specifically be cited as preliminary findings.
Open-File Report↗
A Methodology to Assess the National and Regional Impacts of U.S. Wind Energy Development on Birds and Bats
This scientific investigations report describes an effort by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) that used research, monitoring data, and modeling to develop a methodology to assess both the current and future population-level consequences of wind energy development on species of birds and bats that are present in the United States during any part of their life cycle. The methodology is currently applicable to birds and bats, focuses primarily on the effects of collisions with turbines, and can be applied to any species that breeds in, migrates through, or otherwise uses any part of the United States. The methodology assesses species at the national and regional scales and identifies those species potentially in need of more detailed study, as well as those species that are likely at low risk from wind energy development. This approach is fundamentally different from existing methods focusing on impacts at individual facilities. This report supersedes USGS Scientific Investigations Report 2015–5066 by the same authors, which described a preliminary version of the methodology. Following reviews of the preliminary methodology by a panel of external experts, public comments, and additional internal review, the methodology was revised and finalized. The three components of the refined methodology described in this new report rely on publicly available fatality information, population estimates, species range maps, turbine location data, biological characteristics of species, and population models. First, three metrics are combined to determine direct and indirect relative effects from wind energy facilities to generate a list of species scores. Second, a generic population model estimates the expected change in population trend caused by the additive mortality from collisions with wind turbines. Third, the methodology combines an estimate of observed fatalities and an estimate of potential biological removal to assess the possibility of a decrease in population size. The latter two components are quantitative. In a test case, the methodology was used to analyze data for six bird species and three bat species. Components of the methodology are based on simplifying assumptions and require information that, for many species, may be sparse or unreliable or may require further study. These assumptions should be carefully considered when using outputs from the methodology. Increases in the quality of data for fatalities from collisions with wind turbines, species distributions, abundance, and demography will likely improve results for uses of the methodology. The methodology’s design identifies and prioritizes a subset of the bird and bat species that may experience population-level impacts from collisions with wind turbines, both currently and from future wind energy development in the United States. Results of an assessment using this methodology could focus future research to improve our understanding of those impacts and to guide avoidance and minimization strategies. In addition, this methodology can be used to identify species for more intensive demographic modeling or to highlight those species that may not require any additional research because effects of wind energy development on their populations are projected to be small. The effects of wind energy facilities on nine unidentified species used in the test case described in this report have not been assessed. Their data were simply used to show the application of the methodology to real-world data and the types of outputs it would produce.
Scientific Investigations Report↗
A preliminary deposit model for lithium-cesium-tantalum (LCT) pegmatites
This report is part of an effort by the U.S. Geological Survey to update existing mineral deposit models and to develop new ones. We emphasize practical aspects of pegmatite geology that might directly or indirectly help in exploration for lithium-cesium-tantalum (LCT) pegmatites, or for assessing regions for pegmatite-related mineral resource potential. These deposits are an important link in the world’s supply chain of rare and strategic elements, accounting for about one-third of world lithium production, most of the tantalum, and all of the cesium.
Open-File Report↗
The National Geochemical Survey: Database and documentation
The USGS, in collaboration with other federal and state government agencies, industry, and academia, is conducting the National Geochemical Survey (NGS) to produce a body of geochemical data for the United States based primarily on stream sediments, analyzed using a consistent set of methods. These data will compose a complete, national-scale geochemical coverage of the US, and will enable construction of geochemical maps, refine estimates of baseline concentrations of chemical elements in the sampled media, and provide context for a wide variety of studies in the geological and environmental sciences. The goal of the NGS is to analyze at least one stream-sediment sample in every 289 km2 area by a single set of analytical methods across the entire nation, with other solid sample media substituted where necessary. The NGS incorporates geochemical data from a variety of sources, including existing analyses in USGS databases, reanalyses of samples in USGS archives, and analyses of newly collected samples. At the present time, the NGS includes data covering ~71% of the land area of the US, including samples in all 50 states. This version of the online report provides complete access to NGS data, describes the history of the project, the methodology used, and presents preliminary geochemical maps for all analyzed elements. Future editions of this and other related reports will include the results of analysis of variance studies, as well as interpretive products related to the NGS data.
Open-File Report↗
U.S. response to a report of infectious salmon anemia virus in Western North America
Federal, state, and tribal fishery managers, as well as the general public and their elected representatives in the United States, were concerned when infectious salmon anemia virus (ISAV) was suspected for the first time in free-ranging Pacific Salmon collected from the coastal areas of British Columbia, Canada. This article documents how national and regional fishery managers and fish health specialists of the U.S. worked together and planned and implemented actions in response to the reported finding of ISAV in British Columbia. To date, the reports by Simon Fraser University remain unconfirmed and preliminary results from collaborative U.S. surveillance indicate that there is no evidence of ISAV in U.S. populations of free-ranging or marine-farmed salmonids on the west coast of North America.
Fisheries↗
Hydrologic characterization of Bushy Park Reservoir, South Carolina, 2013–15
The Bushy Park Reservoir is a relatively shallow impoundment in a semi-tropical climate and is the principal water supply for the 400,000 people of the city of Charleston, South Carolina, and the surrounding areas including the Bushy Park Industrial Complex. Although there is an adequate supply of freshwater in the reservoir, taste-and-odor water-quality issues are a concern. The U.S. Geological Survey conducted an investigation in cooperation with the Charleston Water System to study the hydrology and hydrodynamics of the Bushy Park Reservoir to identify factors affecting water-quality conditions. Specifically, five areas for monitoring and (or) analysis were addressed: (1) hydrologic monitoring of the reservoir to establish a water budget, (2) flow monitoring in the tunnels to compute flow from Bushy Park Reservoir and at critical distribution junctions, (3) water-quality sampling, profiling, and continuous monitoring to identify the causes of taste-and-odor occurrence, (4) technical evaluation of appropriate hydrodynamic and water-quality simulation models for the reservoir, and (5) preliminary evaluation of alternative reservoir operations scenarios. This report describes the hydrodynamic and hydrologic data collected from 2013 to 2015 to support the application and calibration of a three-dimensional hydrodynamic model and the water-quality monitoring and analysis to gain insight into the principal causes of the Bushy Park Reservoir taste-and-odor episodes. The existing U.S. Geological Survey real-time network on the West Branch of the Cooper River was augmented with a tidal flow gage on Durham Canal Back River, and Foster Creek. The Charleston Water System intake structure was instrumented to collect water-level, water temperature (top and bottom probes), specific conductance (top and bottom probes), wind speed and direction, and photosynthetically active radiation data. In addition to the gages attached to fixed structures, four bottom-mounted velocity profilers were deployed at six locations over different periods. The deployment period for the velocity profiler ranged from 2 weeks to 4 months. During the investigation, tidal cycle (13-hour) streamflow measurements were made at 30-minute intervals at five locations. The Williams Station is a coal-fired powerplant that withdraws water from Bushy Park Reservoir for cooling purposes. The magnitude of the withdrawal (approximately 550 million gallons per day) is the major factor controlling the circulation in the reservoir. The net flow in Durham Canal to the reservoir is comparable to the withdrawal rates of the powerplant. When the Williams Station is not withdrawing water, the net flow in Durham Canal quickly goes to zero or reverses with a net flow away from the reservoir and to the Cooper River. Plan views of the velocity vectors for the tidal cycle streamflow measurements and rose diagram of the velocity profilers created with the Williams Station withdrawing and not withdrawing water show substantial effects of the distribution of magnitude and direction of the water velocities.
South Carolina↗
Age, growth, mortality, and reproduction of Roughtongue bass, Pronotogrammus martinicensis 9Serranidae), in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico
The inaccessibility of outer continental shelf reefs has made it difficult to investigate the biology of Pronotogrammus martinicensis, a small sea bass known to be numerous and widely distributed in such habitat. This study takes advantage of a series of cruises in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico that collected 1,485 individuals. Fish were collected over or in the vicinity of reef habitats with hook and line, otter trawl, and rotenone. We present a preliminary validation of an otolith ageing method and report that P. martinicensis reached a maximum size of 143 mm standard length (SL), grew to about 50% of this size within their first year, and lived to a maximum age of 15 yr. Size at age data (n = 490) fitted to the von Bertalanffy growth model yielded the predictive equation: SLt = 106.3(1 2 e [20.641{t20.646}]), where t = age in years. Gonad histology (n = 333) was examined to confirm that P. martinicensis is a protogynous, monandric hermaphrodite. We found no evidence of simultaneous hermaphroditism, which had been tentatively proposed in a previous study. Most P. martinicensis matured as females in their second year (age 1), primary oocytes developed asynchronously into secondary oocytes, and females were batch spawners. Males were postmaturational. Seminiferous tissue formed as early as age 1, but, although the rate of sex change is unknown, most fish did not function as a male until age 3 or age 4. These data provide age-based benchmarks of a common reef fish species living on the outer continental shelf of the tropical western North Atlantic Ocean.
Gulf of Mexico↗
Geologic and geophysical maps of the Stockton 30’ × 60’ quadrangle, California
This pamphlet and accompanying geologic and geophysical maps are the products of cooperative efforts by the California Geological Survey (CGS) and United States Geological Survey (USGS) to compile a comprehensive, digital representation of the bedrock geology, Quaternary surficial deposits, and potential-field anomalies within the boundaries of the Stockton 30’ × 60’ quadrangle. The Stockton 30’ × 60’ quadrangle covers approximately 4,890 km 2 of Contra Costa, Alameda, San Joaquin, and Stanislaus Counties, California. From the rugged hillsides of the northern Diablo Range in the west to the San Joaquin Valley in the east, the map extends roughly 88 km across growing suburban communities of the eastern San Francisco Bay Area and Livermore Valley, grass-covered ranchlands along eastern slopes of the Diablo Range, and into the low farmlands of the San Joaquin Valley and Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta (Figure 1). The elevation ranges from near sea level in the Delta to 1,173 meters on Mt. Diablo, the most prominent peak of the San Francisco Bay region.
California↗
The Parkfield-Cholame, California, earthquakes of June-August, 1966; instrumental seismic studies
U.S. Geological Survey instrumental seismic studies in the Parkfield-Cholame area consist of three related parts that were undertaken as pilot studies in a program designed to develop improved tools and concepts for investigating the properties and behavior of the San Andreas fault. These studies include: 1. The long=term monitoring of the seismic background on the San Andreas fault in Cholame Valley by means of a short-period Benioff seismograph station at Gold Hill. 2. The investigation of the geometry of the zone of aftershocks of the June 27 earthquakes by means of a small portable cluster of short-period, primarily vertical-component seismographs. 3. The seismic-refraction calibration of the region enclosing the aftershock source by means of three short reversed refraction profiles and a "calibration shot" near the epicenter of the main June 27 earthquake. This brief report outlines the work that has been completed and presents some preliminary results obtained from analysis of records from Gold Hill and the portable cluster.
California↗
Preliminary geologic map of the Santa Barbara coastal plain area, Santa Barbara County, California
This report presents a new geologic digital map of the Santa Barbara coastal plain area at a compilation scale of 1:24,000 (one inch on the map = 2,000 feet on the ground) and with a horizontal positional accuracy of at least 20 m. This preliminary map depicts the distribution of bedrock units and surficial deposits and associated deformation underlying and adjacent to the coastal plain within the contiguous Santa Barbara and Goleta 7.5' quadrangles. A planned second version will extend the mapping westward into the adjoining Dos Pueblos Canyon quadrangle and eastward into the Carpinteria quadrangle. The mapping presented here results from the collaborative efforts of geologists with the U.S. Geological Survey Southern California Areal Mapping Project (SCAMP) (Minor, Kellogg, Stanley, Stone, and Powell) and the tectonic geomorphology research group at the University of California at Santa Barbara (Gurrola and Selting). C.L. Powell, II, performed all new fossil identifications and interpretations reported herein. T.R. Brandt designed and edited the GIS database,performed GIS database integration and created the digital cartography for the map layout. The Santa Barbara coastal plain is located in the western Transverse Ranges physiographic province along a west-trending segment of the southern California coastline about 100 km (62 mi) northwest of Los Angeles. The coastal plain region, which extends from the Santa Ynez Mountains on the north to the Santa Barbara Channel on the south, is underlain by numerous active and potentially active folds and partly buried thrust faults of the Santa Barbara fold and fault belt. Strong earthquakes that occurred in the region in 1925 (6.8 magnitude) and 1978 (5.1 magnitude) are evidence that such structures pose a significant earthquake hazard to the approximately 200,000 people living within the major coastal population centers of Santa Barbara and Goleta. Also, young landslide deposits along the steep lower flank of the Santa Ynez Mountains indicate the potential for continued slope failures and mass movements that may threaten urbanized parts of the coastal plain. Deformed sedimentary rocks in the subsurface of the coastal plain and the adjacent Santa Barbara Channel contain deposits of oil and gas, some of which are currently being extracted. Shallow, localized sedimentary aquifers underlying the coastal plain provide limited amounts of water for the urban areas, but the quality of some of this groundwater is compromised by coastal salt-water contamination. The present map compilation provides a set of uniform geologic digital coverages that can be used for analysis and prediction of these and other geologic hazards and resources in the coastal plain region. In the map area the oldest stratigraphic units consist of resistant Eocene to Oligocene marine and terrestrial sedimentary rocks that form a mostly southward-dipping and laterally continuous sequence along the south flank of the Santa Ynez Mountains. Less resistant, but more variably deformed, Miocene, Pliocene, and Pleistocene marine sedimentary rocks and deposits are exposed in the lower Santa Ynez foothills and in the coastal hills and sea cliffs farther south. Pleistocene and Holocene surficial alluvial, colluvial, estuarine, and marine-terrace deposits directly underlie much of the low-lying coastal plain area, and similar-aged alluvial and landslide deposits locally mantle the lower flanks of the Santa Ynez Mountains. Structurally, the Santa Barbara coastal plain area is dominated by the Santa Barbara fold and fault belt, an east-west-trending zone of Quaternary, partly active folds and blind and exposed reverse and thrust faults. The dominant trend of individual structures within the belt is west-northwest -- slightly oblique to the overall trend of the fold and fault belt. A conspicuous exception, however, is the More Ranch fault system, which strikes east-northeast across the fold and f
Open-File Report↗
U. S. Geological Survey tracer study, Amargosa Desert, Nye County, Nevada, Part I: Exploratory drilling, tracer well construction and testing, and preliminary findings
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Open-File Report↗
Studies by the U.S. Geological Survey in Alaska, Volume 15
Summary Professional Paper 1814— Studies by the U.S. Geological Survey in Alaska, Volume 15 —continues a long-running series of collected volumes of U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientific reports on Alaska. This series presents new and sometimes preliminary findings that are of interest to Earth and biological scientists in academia, government, and industry; to land and resource managers; and to the general public. The series covers a broad spectrum of scientific topics, from various parts of Alaska, serving to emphasize the diversity of USGS efforts to meet the Nation’s needs for Earth-science information in the State. The USGS provides reliable scientific information to describe and understand the Earth; minimize loss of life and property from natural disasters; manage water, biological, energy, and mineral resources; and enhance and protect our quality of life.
Professional Paper↗
Thermal data from heat-flow test wells near Long Valley, California
As part of the Geological Survey's study of the Long Valley area, an attempt was made to define the regional thermal setting of the caldera. The first phase of this study involved the drilling of four holes in granitic rocks outside of the caldera and two holes within it (Figure 1). LV was drilled as a hydrologic test well. In Figure 1, the light areas are areas of crystalline rocks and the stippled area, volcanic and sedimentary rocks. (For an explanation of the symbols, see Plate 1 of Bateman and others (1963).) Preliminary temperature measurements and thermal conductivity determinations have been completed and are presented in this report. Also presented herein are data obtained in November 1973 from the shallow holes drilled by Lewis (1974) and some thermal conductivity values from these short holes. These preliminary data are being released now because of intense public interest. The study is continuing, and an interpretive report will be written later this year. The temperature measurements are presented in both graphs and tables. Thermal conductivity data are tabulated as a function of depth for each hole. For locations of the shallow test wells, reference should be made to the quadrangle maps shown in Figures 3 through 13 of Lewis (1974).
California↗
Seabird tissue archival and monitoring project: Egg collections and analytical results 1999-2002
In 1998, the U.S. Geological Survey Biological Resources Division (USGS-BRD), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge (AMNWR), and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) began the Seabird Tissue Archival and Monitoring Project (STAMP) to collect and cryogenically bank tissues from seabirds in Alaska for future retrospective analysis of anthropogenic contaminants. The approach of STAMP was similar to that of the Alaska Marine Mammal Tissue Archival Project (AMMTAP). AMMTAP was started in 1987 by NIST and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as part of the Outer Continental Shelf Environmental Assessment Program sponsored by the Minerals Management Service. Presently sponsored by the USGS-BRD, AMMTAP continues its work as part of a larger national program, the Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program. AMMTAP developed carefully designed sampling and specimen banking protocols. Since 1987, AMMTAP has collected tissues from marine mammals taken in Alaska Native subsistence hunts and has cryogenically banked these tissues at the NIST National Biomonitoring Specimen Bank (NBSB). Through its own analytical work and working in partnership with other researchers both within and outside Alaska, AMMTAP has helped to develop a substantial database on contaminants in Alaska marine mammals. In contrast, data and information is limited on contaminants in Alaska seabirds, which are similar to marine mammals in that they feed near the top of the food chain and have the potential for accumulating anthropogenic contaminants. During its early planning stages, STAMP managers identified the seabird egg as the first tissue of choice for study by the project. There is a relatively long history of using bird eggs for environmental monitoring and for investigating the health status of bird populations. Since 1998, protocols for collecting and processing eggs, and cryogenically banking egg samples have been developed by STAMP (see York et al. 2001). Eggs are being collected on an annual basis for several species at nesting colonies throughout Alaska. Aliquots of these egg samples are being analyzed on a regular basis for persistent organic pollutants and mercury. Results of this work have been published in scientific journals (Christopher et al. 2002) and in conference proceedings (Kucklick et al. 2002; Vander Pol et al. 2002a, 2002b). The intent of this report is to provide an up-to-date description of STAMP. The report contains the most recent egg collection inventory, analytical data, preliminary interpretations based on these data, and a discussion of possible future directions of the project.
Report↗
Preliminary estimates of benthic fluxes of dissolved metals in Coeur d'Alene Lake, Idaho
This report presents porewater and selected water column data collected from Coeur d'Alene Lake in September of 1992. Despite probable oxidation of the porewater samples during collection and handling, these data are used to calculate molecular diffusive fluxes of dissolved metals (that is, Zn, Pb, Cu, and Mn) across the sediment-water interface. While these data and calculations provide preliminary information on benthic metal fluxes in Coeur d'Alene Lake, further work is needed to verify their direction and magnitude. The benthic flux calculations indicate that the sediment is generally a source of dissolved Zn, Cu, Mn, and, possibly, Pb to the overlying water column. These benthic fluxes are compared with two other major sources of metals to Coeur d'Alene Lake-the Coeur d'Alene and St. Joe Rivers. Comparisons indicate that benthic fluxes of Zn, Pb, and Cu are generally less than half of the fluxes of these metals into the lake from the Coeur d'Alene River. However, in a few cases, the calculated benthic metal fluxes exceed the Coeur d'Alene River fluxes. Benthic fluxes of Zn and, possibly, Pb may be greater than the corresponding metal fluxes from the St. Joe River. These results have implications for changes in the relative importance of metal sources to the lake as remediation activities in the Coeur d'Alene River basin proceed.
Idaho↗