Publications

Cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (CyanoHABs) are increasingly a global concern because CyanoHABs pose a threat to human and aquatic ecosystem health and cause economic damages. Despite advances in scientific understanding of cyanobacteria and associated compounds, many unanswered questions remain about occurrence, environmental triggers for toxicity, and the ability to predict the...

The Souris River Basin is a 61,000 square kilometer basin in the provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba and the state of North Dakota. Record setting rains in May and June of 2011 led to record flooding with peak annual streamflow values (762 cubic meters per second [m3/s]) more than twice that of any previously recorded peak streamflow and more than five times the estimated 100 year

Assessments of streamflow (discharge) parameters, water quality, physical habitat, and biological communities were completed between May and September 2014 as part of a monitoring program in the Big Wood River watershed of south-central Idaho. The sampling was conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with Blaine County, Trout Unlimited, the Nature Conservancy, and the Wood...

The city of Sioux Falls is the fastest growing community in South Dakota. In response to this continued growth and planning for future development, Sioux Falls requires a sustainable supply of municipal water. Planning and managing sustainable groundwater supplies requires a thorough understanding of local groundwater resources. The Big Sioux aquifer consists of glacial outwash sands and...

Direct and indirect ecological effects of the widely used insecticide bifenthrin on stream ecosystems are largely unknown. To investigate such effects, a manipulative experiment was conducted in stream mesocosms that were colonized by aquatic insect communities and exposed to bifenthrin-contaminated sediment; implications for natural streams were interpreted through comparison of...

This study provides an independent estimate of the areal and volumetric extent of groundwater contaminant plumes which are affected by waste disposal in the 100-K and 100-N Areas (study area) along the Columbia River Corridor of the Hanford Site. The Hanford Natural Resource Trustee Council requested that the U.S. Geological Survey perform this interpolation to assess the accuracy of...

Three different geophysical sensor types were used to characterize the underwater pressure waves and ground velocities generated by the underwater firing of seismic water guns. These studies evaluated the use of water guns as a tool to alter the movement of Asian carp. Asian carp are aquatic invasive species that threaten to move into the Great Lakes Basin from the Mississippi River...

MODPATH is a particle-tracking post-processing program designed to work with MODFLOW, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) finite-difference groundwater flow model. MODPATH version 7 is the fourth major release since its original publication. Previous versions were documented in USGS Open-File Reports 89–381 and 94–464 and in USGS Techniques and Methods 6–A41. MODPATH version 7 works with...

A pipeline carrying acidic mine effluent at Iron Mountain, CA, developed Fe(III)-rich precipitate caused by oxidation of Fe(II)aq. The native microbial community in the pipe included filamentous microbes. The pipe scale consisted of microbial filaments, and schwertmannite (ferric oxyhydroxysulfate, FOHS) mineral spheres and filaments. FOHS filaments contained central lumina with...

Namskaket Marsh and its tidal creek system are potential receptors for a treated wastewater plume originating from a septage treatment facility in the northwest part of Orleans, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod. From 1989 to 2011, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with State and local partners, conducted a series of studies in the Namskaket Marsh area to characterize the potential...

The Northern Arizona Regional Groundwater Flow Model was used to estimate the hydrologic changes, including water-level change and groundwater discharge to streams and springs, that may result from future changes in groundwater withdrawals in and near the Coconino Plateau Water Advisory Council study area, Coconino and Navajo Counties, Arizona. Three future groundwater withdrawal...

Understanding karst aquifers, for purposes of their management and protection, poses unique challenges. Karst aquifers are characterized by groundwater flow through conduits (tertiary porosity), and (or) layers with interconnected pores (secondary porosity) and through intergranular porosity (primary or matrix porosity). Since the late 1960s, advances have been made in the development of...