Publications

Water-resource managers in Onondaga County, New York, are faced with the challenge of improving the water quality of Onondaga Lake, which has the distinction of being one of the most contaminated lakes in the United States. To assist in this endeavor, during 2003-07 the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Onondaga Lake Partnership, developed a precipitation-runoff...

Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art. (Frédéric Chopin, a musician and composer, quoted in If Not God, Then What? by Fost 2007) Despite the dubious developments discussed in part 1 of this Editor’s Message (Voss 2011), groundwater modeling really does represent the...

Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it. …Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it. (Epigrams in Programming by Alan Perlis, a computer scientist; Perlis 1982). A doctoral student creating a groundwater model of a regional aquifer put individual circular regions around data points where he had hydraulic head measurements, so...

Leachate from municipal landfills can create groundwater contaminant plumes that may last for decades to centuries. The fate of reactive contaminants in leachate-affected aquifers depends on the sustainability of biogeochemical processes affecting contaminant transport. Temporal variations in the configuration of redox zones downgradient from the Norman Landfill were studied for more...

Botanist Alfred Paul Dachnowski (1875–1949) was a major contributor to efforts at mapping organic soils in the United States during the early 20th century. He began his career at The Ohio State University, and spent most of his professional life at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, DC. His work spanned a diversity of topics, including bog ecology and the ecosystem...

No abstract available.

The maps and graph in this summary describe streamflow conditions for water-year 2010 (October 1, 2009 to September 30, 2010) in the context of the 81-year period 1930-2010, unless otherwise noted. The illustrations are based on observed data from the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) National Streamflow Information Program. The period 1930-2010 was used because prior to 1930, the number...

Calcite crystallization rates are characterized using a constant solution composition at 25°C, pH=8.5, and calcite supersaturation (Ω) of 4.5 in the absence and presence of fulvic acids isolated from Big Soda Lake, Nevada (BSLFA), and a fulvic acid from the Suwannee River, Georgia (SRFA). Rates are also measured in the presence and absence of low-molar mass, aliphatic-alicyclic...

In 2007, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe requested that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Geological Survey conduct an independent evaluation of potential offsite migration of radionuclides and selected trace elements associated with the ore storage and milling process at an active uranium mill site near White Mesa, Utah. Specific objectives of this study were (1) to determine...

Geophysical logs were collected and analyzed along with bedrock core samples and bedrock outcrops to define the bedrock stratigraphy and flow zones penetrated by 93 monitor and water-supply wells in Cayuga County, New York. The work was completed from 2001 through 2011 as part of an investigation of volatile-organic compound contamination in the carbonate-bedrock aquifer system between...

The horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratio (HVSR) seismic method involves analyzing measurements of ambient seismic noise in three dimensions to determine the fundamental site resonance frequency. Resonance is excited by the interaction of surface waves (Rayleigh and Love) and body waves (vertically incident shear) with the high-contrast aconstic impedance boundary at the bedrock-sediment...

The City of Tulsa, Oklahoma, uses water from Lake Eucha and Spavinaw Lake in the Eucha-Spavinaw basin of northwestern Arkansas and northeastern Oklahoma for public water supply. Increases in algal biomass, which cause taste and odor problems in drinking water produced from the lakes, may be attributable to increases in nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations in the lakes and in streams...