Reports

Ground motion prediction equations (GMPEs) for elastic response spectra, including the Next Generation Attenuation (NGA) models, are typically developed at a 5% viscous damping ratio. In reality, however, structural and non-structural systems can have damping ratios other than 5%, depending on various factors such as structural types, construction materials, level of ground motion...

This chapter is the tenth in a series of 11 book-length chapters, collectively referred to as “this volume,” in the series U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1386, Satellite Image Atlas of Glaciers of the World. In the other 10 chapters, each of which concerns a specific glacierized region of Earth, the authors used remotely sensed images, primarily from the Landsat 1, 2, and 3...

Interest in development of offshore renewable energy facilities has led to a need for high-quality, statistically robust information on marine wildlife distributions. A practical approach is described to estimate the amount of sampling effort required to have sufficient statistical power to identify species-specific “hotspots” and “coldspots” of marine bird abundance and occurrence in an...

The Great Lakes Science Center has conducted daytime nearshore bottom trawl surveys of Lake Superior (15-80 m bathymetric depth zone) each spring since 1978 and an offshore survey (>80 m) since 2011 to provide long-term trends of relative abundance and biomass of the fish community. In 2012, 72 nearshore and 34 offshore stations were sampled with a 12-m Yankee bottom trawl. The 2012...

Groundwater quality in six areas in the California Desert Region (Owens, Antelope, Mojave, Coachella, Colorado River, and Indian Wells) was investigated as part of the Priority Basin Project of the Groundwater Ambient Monitoring and Assessment (GAMA) Program. The GAMA Priority Basin Project is being conducted by the California State Water Resources Control Board in collaboration with the...

A statewide StreamStats application for North Carolina was developed in cooperation with the North Carolina Department of Transportation following completion of a pilot application for the upper French Broad River basin in western North Carolina (Wagner and others, 2009). StreamStats for North Carolina, available at http://water.usgs.gov/osw/streamstats/north_carolina.html, is a Web...

Suspended-sediment concentration data were collected by the U.S. Geological Survey in San Francisco Bay during water year 2009 (October 1, 2008–September 30, 2009). Optical sensors and water samples were used to monitor suspended-sediment concentration at two sites in Suisun Bay, one site in San Pablo Bay, two sites in Central San Francisco Bay, and one site in South San Francisco Bay...

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the New Hampshire Geological Survey, measured the fluid temperature of groundwater in deep bedrock wells in the State of New Hampshire in order to characterize geothermal gradients in bedrock. All wells selected for the study had low water yields, which correspond to low groundwater flow from fractures. This reduced the potential for flow...

Redoubt Volcano, an ice-covered stratovolcano on the west side of Cook Inlet, erupted in March 2009 after several months of escalating unrest. The 2009 eruption of Redoubt Volcano shares many similarities with eruptions documented most recently at Redoubt in 1966–68 and 1989–90. In each case, the eruptive phase lasted several months, consisted of multiple ashproducing explosions...

As part of the National Water-Quality Assessment Program of the U.S. Geological Survey, this study examines the occurrence of nine trace elements in bed sediment of varying mineralogy and land use and assesses the possible effects of these trace elements on aquatic-macroinvertebrate community structure. Samples of bed sediment and macroinvertebrates were collected from 154 streams at...

The State of Illinois' annual withdrawl from Lake Michigan is limited by a U.S. Supreme Court decree. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is responsible for monitoring flows in the Chicago area waterway system (CAWS) as part of the Lake Michigan Diversion Accounting (LMDA) overseen by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Chicago District. Every five years, the USGS streamgage practices in the...

Ecosystem impacts from visitor activities or natural environmental change are important concerns in all units of the National Park system. Possible impacts to aquatic ecosystems at Lake Mead National Recreation Area (LMNRA) are of particular concern because of the designation of Lakes Mead and Mohave as critical habitat for the federally listed endangered razorback sucker (Xyrauchen...