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Here you will find publications, reports and articles produced by Energy and Mineral scientists. For a comprehensive listing of all USGS publications please click the button below.

Filter Total Items: 1168

Fresh lunar impact craters: Review of variations in size

Thirty-three morphologic characteristics are reviewed for fresh lunar impact craters wide than1 km. Bar graphs express the way each characteristic varies with crater size. The features are grouped as crater structure, ejecta, and downhill flow features. Major structural transition occur at diameters of about 15 and 200 km. Details of the ejecta blanket, which include several kinds of lineations, d
Authors
Keith A. Howard

Lunar basin formation and highland stratigraphy

Multiring impact basins, formed after solidification of the lunar crust, account for most or all premare regional deposits and structures expressed in the lunar landscape and for major topographic and gravity variations. A fresh basin has two or more concentric mountain rings, a lineated ejecta blanket, and secondary impact craters. Crackled material on the floor may be impact melt. The ejecta bla
Authors
Keith A. Howard, D.E. Wilhelms, D. H. Scott

Origin of Franciscan melanges in Northern California

In northern California, chaotic Franciscan melange occurs beneath the overlying ophiolite and Great Valley Sequence. Identical melanges occur to the west, separating well-bedded, coherent Franciscan units that differ markedly in age. Detailed studies in several places indicate that these melanges mark the boundaries of imbricate thrust sheets, and they appear to occur at several discrete structura
Authors
M. Clark Blake, D. L. Jones

Geologic Exploration of Taurus-Littrow: Apollo 17 Landing Site

Apollo 17 landed in a deep graben valley embaying the mountainous highlands southeast of the Serenitatis basin. Impact-generated breccias underlie the massifs adjacent to the valley, and basalt has flooded and leveled the valley floor. The dark mantle inferred from orbital photographs was not recognized as a discrete unit; the unusually thick regolith of the valley floor contains a unique high con
Authors
W.R. Muehlberger, R. M. Batson, E.A. Cernan, V. L. Freeman, M.H. Haitt, H. E. Holt, Keith A. Howard, K.B. Jackson, V.S. Larson, J.J. Reed, J. J. Rennilson, H.H. Schmitt

The Dun Mountain ultramafic belt Permian oceanic crust and upper mantle in New Zealand

Geologic evidence suggests that the Dun Mountain ultramafic belt in New Zealand is the basal part of a Lower Permian ophiolite suite. By analogy with other ophiolite suites, and as a result of marine geophysical studies of the present ocean basins, the ophiolite is believed to represent oceanic crust and upper mantle upon which the Upper Permian Maitai Group was deposited. After this, much of the 
Authors
M. C. Blake, C. A. Landis

Current slope-stability studies in the San Francisco Bay region

An extensive program of slope-stability studies is presently underway in the San Francisco Bay region, California. Work to date has resulted in the publication of estimates of landslide damage, an estimated-landslide-abundance map of the region, new slope maps prepared by photomechanical processes, photointerpretive maps of landslide, colluvial, and other surficial deposits, and maps of relative s
Authors
Tor H. Nilsen, Earl E. Brabb

Petrography and structural relations of granitic basement rocks in the Monterey Bay area, California

In the past, the granitic basement of the Coast Ranges has been thought to be dominantly quartz diorite and low in K-feldspar.  However, a study of outcrops around Monterey Bay, basement well samples, and dredge samples from Monterey Bay shows that the granitic basement averages about 15 to 20 percent K-feldspar.  Therefore, as a sedimentary provenance, the basement around Monterey Bay could have
Authors
Donald C. Ross, Earl E. Brabb