Reports

In 1994, the largest salt mine in North America, which had been in operation for more than 100 years, catastrophically flooded when the mine ceiling collapsed. In addition to causing the loss of the mine and the mineral resources it provided, this event formed sinkholes, caused widespread subsidence to land, caused structures to crack and subside, and changed stream flow and erosion...

The methylmercury criterion adopted as a water-quality standard in the State of Idaho is a concentration in fish tissue rather than a concentration in water. A plan for monitoring mercury in fish tissue and water was developed to evaluate whether fish in the Boise River, Idaho, upstream and downstream of wastewater-treatment plant discharges, meet the methylmercury water-quality...

Titanium (Ti) is a strong silver-gray metal that is highly resistant to corrosion and is chemically inert. It is as strong as steel but 45 percent lighter, and it is twice as strong as aluminum but only 60 percent heavier. Titanium dioxide (TiO2) has a very high refractive index, which means that it has high light-scattering ability. As a result, TiO2 imparts whiteness, opacity, and...

Results from 548,507 indoor radon tests from a database compiled by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Radiation Protection, Radon Division, are evaluated in this report in an effort to determine areas where concentrations of radon are highest. Indoor radon concentrations were aggregated according to geologic unit and hydrogeologic setting for spatial...

South Florida's Greater Everglades area is particularly vulnerable to sea level rise, due to its rich endowment of animal and plant species and its heavily populated urban areas along the coast. Rising sea levels are expected to have substantial impacts on inland flooding, the depth and extent of surge from coastal storms, the degradation of water supplies by saltwater intrusion, and the...

A multiyear research effort at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water Quality Laboratory (NWQL) evaluated several commercially available nitrate reductase (NaR) enzymes as replacements for toxic cadmium in longstanding automated colorimetric air-segmented continuous-flow analyzer (CFA) methods for determining nitrate plus nitrite (NOx) in water. This research culminated in USGS...

The Albuquerque Basin, located in central New Mexico, is about 100 miles long and 25–40 miles wide. The basin is defined as the extent of consolidated and unconsolidated deposits of Tertiary and Quaternary age that encompasses the structural Rio Grande Rift within the basin. Drinking-water supplies throughout the basin were obtained solely from groundwater resources until December 2008...

SSM currently reviews a license application for a spent nuclear fuel repository that is proposed to be located at Forsmark, Sweden. The repository is to be situated at 500 m depth in the rock and copper canisters are deposited in holes excavated from the tunnel system. To protect the canisters they are surrounded by a bentonite clay buffer, which is to swell when getting in contact with...

Identifying the rates and trends associated with the position of the shoreline through time presents vital information on potential impacts these changes may have on coastal populations and infrastructure, and supports informed coastal management decisions. This report publishes the historical shoreline data used to assess the scale and timing of erosion and accretion along the...

The condition of the sagebrush ecosystem has been declining in the Western United States, and greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus), a sagebrush-obligate species, has experienced concurrent decreases in distribution and population numbers. This has prompted substantial research and management over the past two decades to improve the understanding of sage-grouse and its habitats...

A groundwater-flow model was developed to evaluate potential future effects of growth and of water-management strategies on water resources in the Chimacum Creek Basin. The model covers an area of about 64 square miles (mi2) on the Olympic Peninsula in northeastern Jefferson County, Washington. The Chimacum Creek Basin drains an area of about 53 mi2 and consists of Chimacum Creek and its...

The prospect of natural gas development from the Marcellus and Utica Shales has raised concerns about freshwater aquifers being vulnerable to contamination. Well owners are asking questions about subsurface methane, such as, “Does my well water have methane and is it safe to drink the water?” and “Is my well system at risk of an explosion hazard associated with a combustible gas like...