Publications

The chemical composition of natural water is derived from many different sources of solutes, including gases and aerosols from the atmosphere, weathering and erosion of rocks and soil, solution or precipitation reactions occurring below the land surface, and cultural effects resulting from activities of man. Some of the processes of solution or precipitation of minerals can be closely...

No abstract available.

Grand Forks County in northeastern North Dakota is underlain by glacial drift, westward-dipping Paleozoic and Mesozoic sedimentary rocks and Precambrian igneous and metamorphic rocks. Glacial drift that covers the bedrock reaches a maximum thickness of 455 feet. It can be differentiated into 5 drift sheets, each of which in turn can be separated into till units, lake clay and silt units...

Williams County, in northwestern North Dakota, is located near the center of the structural and sedimentary Williston basin. The preglacial sedimentary formations beneath the county are as much as 14,828 feet thick. Their beds dip generally to the south except along the flanks of the north-south striking Nesson anticline in the eastern part of the county. Late Wisconsinan glacial...

This investigation is part of a Statewide program to determine the location and extent of the ground-water reservoirs (aquifers); to evaluate the occurrence and movement of ground water within these aquifers, including the sources of recharge and discharge; and to determine the chemical quality of the ground water. Nelson County covers an area of approximately 1,000 square miles in...

In 1960 the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the South Dakota State Water Resources Commission and the South Dakota State Geological Survey, started a program for the hydrogeologic investigation of glacial drift in selected drainage basins in eastern South Dakota. This program was designed to delineate water-bearing deposits of glacial-outwash sand and gravel, and to determine...

Except perhaps for the arid Southwest, water resources are generally sufficient to meet the needs of cities for the foreseeable future. Cities will continue to expand and additional rural areas will be converted to urban and suburban complexes. Demands for urban water will continue to rise and this will place a heavy strain on existing systems. Cities have always faced water problems...

Hydrophytes growing in natural ponds on the Coteau du Missouri in North Dakota have been studied. Previous studies in the same region showed how transpiration by hydrophytes could be separated from the total water loss from a natural pond, during the period that vegetation was growing in height, on the basis of a correlation between the height of vegetation and a mass‐transfer...

Injecting liquid wastes deep underground is an attractive but not necessarily practical means for disposing of them. For decades, impressive volumes of unwanted oil-field brine have been injected, currently about 10,000 acre-feet yearly. Recently, liquid industrial wastes are being injected in ever-increasing quantity. Dimensions of industrial injection wells range widely but the...

Cass County comprises an area of 1,749 square miles in the southeastern corner of North Dakota. About one-fourth of the county is in the Drift Prairie physiographic province; the rest is in the Red River Valley (Lake Agassiz basin) physiographic division.

Above-normal precipitation in 1954, 1956, and 1957 caused the water surface of Devils Lake to rise to an altitude of 1,419.3 feet, its highest in 40 years. Nearly all the water entering the lake flowed through Big Coulee, and about three-fourths of that inflow was at rates greater than 100 cubic feet per second. At these rates, the inflow contained less than 600 ppm (parts per million)...

This report presents all the information, obtained during the investigation, that lends itself to generalization. It describes conditions on that part of the Coteau du Missouri where there is little integration of drainage systems. The surface of the glacial drift in this region is dotted with shallow depressions known as prairie potholes that hold water for varying lengths of time...