News

LECTURE: -- "THE COLORADO RIVER IN THE GRAND CANYON" WILL BE THE SUBJECT OF THE NEXT U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY’S FREE PUBLIC LECTURE.

The U.S. Geological Survey’s National Earthquake Information Center continues to monitor and report seismic activity in the United States and around the world despite a breakdown in satellite communication and the resulting loss of data feeds from the National Seismic Network.

Hydrologists and chemists from the U.S. Geological Survey will be on Mallard Island, near Pittsburg today, Jan. 8, collecting water and sediment samples from Bay-Delta waters to determine the amount of pesticides that are being washed into the Bay by this year’s floods on Bay-Delta rivers.

Total freshwater inflow into the Chesapeake Bay during 1996 was the highest ever recorded, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The floods have crested and are beginning to recede in most places in the Pacific Northwest. Nevertheless dozens of U.S. Geological Survey personnel, who were busy over the holidays measuring the high streamflows and keeping river stage monitors operating, are still busy in the field and in their offices. Field crews have been hampered by mudslides, road closures, and extremely dangerous condition

Web-archive copies of all 1996 National news releases.

Does Christmastime conjure thoughts of warmth, comfort, and sociable gatherings? If so, you’re not among America’s thousands of bird counters braving the cold and wet during the Holiday season.

The good news is that sea water and wave action aren’t being too rough on some sections of the beach cliffs of the San Mateo County, Calif., coast; the bad news is that slumping caused by fresh water erosion is destroying some of the beach cliffs at rates of up to two meters per year, according to scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif.

Dams provide many benefits -- reducing flood hazards, providing reliable water supplies, producing hydroelectric power, and providing places for flatwater boating -- but with those benefits come environmental consequences -- eroding river banks, changes in waterfowl habitat, concerns for safe recreational use, and the loss of river sand bars, according to a new report by the U.S. Geological Survey

Experts from around the world have agreed on a standard for locating information, whether held in libraries, data centers, or published on the Internet. This lays the foundation for a virtual library of environmental data and information that will be easily accessible on global networks.

Radioactive waste, the legacy of the "Cold War," is a problem for all nations, and nowhere is the problem more of a reality than in the Russian Far East.