Publications

Geologic evidence shows that truly massive floods, caused by rainfall alone, have occurred in California about every 200 years. The most recent was in 1861, and it bankrupted the state. Such floods were most likely caused by atmospheric rivers: narrow bands of water vapor about a mile above the ocean that extend for thousands of miles. Much smaller forms of these rivers regularly hit...

The Platte River is a vital natural resource for the people, plants, and animals of Nebraska. A recent study quantified water use by riparian woodlands along central reaches of the Platte River, Nebraska, finding that water use was mainly regulated below maximum predicted levels. A comparative study was launched through a cooperative partnership between the U.S. Geological Survey, the...

Streamflow measurement techniques of the Mississippi River at St. Louis have changed through time (1866–present). In addition to different methods used for discrete streamflow measurements, the density and range of discrete measurements used to define the rating curve (stage versus streamflow) have also changed. Several authors have utilized published water surface elevation (stage) and...

No abstract available.

Water from the San Joaquin Delta, having chloride concentrations up to 3590 mg/L, has intruded fresh water aquifers underlying Stockton, California. Changes in chloride concentrations at depth within these aquifers were evaluated using sequential electromagnetic (EM) induction logs collected during 2004 through 2007 at seven multiple-well sites as deep as 268 m. Sequential EM logging is...

Spring Creek Springs and Wakulla Springs are large first magnitude springs that derive water from the Upper Floridan Aquifer. The submarine Spring Creek Springs are located in a marine estuary and Wakulla Springs are located 18 km inland. Wakulla Springs has had a consistent increase in flow from the 1930s to the present. This increase is probably due to the rising sea level, which puts...

In most areas, rocks in the subsurface are saturated with water at relatively shallow depths. The top of the saturated zone—the water table—typically occurs anywhere from just below land surface to hundreds of feet below the land surface. Groundwater generally fills all pore spaces below the water table and is part of a continuous dynamic flow system, in which the fluid is moving at...

Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) flux from the Penobscot River and its major tributaries in Maine was determined using continuous discharge measurements, discrete water sampling, and the LOADEST regression software. The average daily flux during 2004–2007 was 71 kg C ha−1 yr−1 (392 Mt C d−1), an amount larger than measured in most northern temperate and boreal rivers. Distinct seasonal...

IUPAC Commission on Istopic Abundances and Atomic Weights' spreadsheet of Standard Atomic Weights.

The purpose of this study was to determine the history of paleosalinity over the past 6000+ years in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (the Delta), which is the innermost part of the San Francisco Estuary. We used a combination of Sr and U concentrations, d87Sr values, and 234U/238U activity ratios (AR) in peat as proxies for tracking paleosalinity. Peat cores were collected in marshes on...

This supplement of Chapter A (Supplement 3) summarizes results of analyses of groundwater-level data and describes corresponding elements of groundwater flow such as vertical hydraulic gradients useful for groundwater-flow model calibration. Field data as well as theoretical concepts indicate that potentiometric surfaces within the study area are shown to resemble to a large degree a...

Increasing pH and decreasing Al in surface waters recovering from acidification have been accompanied by increasing concentrations of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and associated organic acids that partially offset pH increases and complicate assessments of recovery from acidification. To better understand the processes of recovery, monthly chemistry from 42 lakes in the Adirondack...