Publications
Browse more than 160,000 publications authored by our scientists over the past 100+ year history of the USGS. Publications available are: USGS-authored journal articles, series reports, book chapters, other government publications, and more.
Mission Area Publications
Mission Area Publications
We are focused on some of the most significant issues society faces, and our science is making a substantial contribution to the well-being of the Nation and the world. Learn more about the major topics our research covers and the programs focused on those topics.
Filter Total Items: 6084
Early Pliocene marine transgression into the lower Colorado River valley, southwestern USA, by re-flooding of a former tidal strait
Marine straits and seaways are known to host a wide range of sedimentary processes and products, but the role of marine connections in the development of large river systems remains little studied. This study explores a hypothesis that shallow-marine waters flooded the lower Colorado River valley at c. 5 Ma along a fault-controlled former tidal strait, soon after the river was first...
Authors
Rebecca Dorsey, Juan Carlos Braga, Kevin Gardner, Kristin McDougall-Reid, Brennan O’Connell
Northern Cascadia Margin gas hydrates — Regional geophysical surveying, IODP drilling leg 311, and cabled observatory monitoring
This article reviews extensive geophysical survey data, ocean drilling results and long-term seafloor monitoring that constrain the distribution and concentration of gas hydrates within the accretionary prism of the northern Cascadia subduction margin, located offshore Vancouver Island in Canada. Seismic surveys and geologic studies conducted since the 1980s have mapped the bottom...
Authors
Michael Riedel, Timothy S. Collett, Martin Scherwath, John W. Pohlman, Roy Hyndman, George Spence
Alaska North Slope terrestrial gas hydrate systems: Insights from scientific drilling
A wealth of information has been accumulated regarding the occurrence of gas hydrates in nature, leading to significant advancements in our understanding of the geologic controls on their occurrence in both the terrestrial and marine settings of the Arctic. Gas hydrate accumulations discovered in the Alaska North Slope have been the focus of several important geoscience and production...
Authors
Timothy S. Collett, Ray M. Boswell, Margarita V. Zyrianova
A review of the exploration, discovery, and characterization of highly concentrated gas hydrate accumulations in coarse-grained reservoir systems along the Eastern Continental Margin of India
The analysis of 3-D seismic data has become one of the most powerful ways to identify sand-rich gas hydrate reservoir systems and to directly identify highly concentrated gas hydrate prospects. Scientific drilling programs have shown that the occurrence of highly concentrated gas hydrate accumulations in coarse-grained, sand-rich, reservoir systems has a significant impact on the...
Authors
Timothy S. Collett, Krishan Chopra, Ashutosh Bhardwaj, Ray Boswell, William F. Waite, A. K. Misra, Pushpendra Kumar
U.S. Atlantic margin gas hydrates
The minimum distribution of gas hydrates on the U.S. Atlantic margin is from offshore South Carolina northward to the longitude of Shallop Canyon on the southern New England margin. Few wells have logged or sampled the gas hydrate zone on this margin, meaning that the presence of gas hydrates is inferred primarily based on seismic data that reveal bottom simulating reflections, mostly at...
Authors
Carolyn D. Ruppel, William Shedd, Nathaniel C. Miller, Jared W. Kluesner, Matthew Frye, Deborah Hutchinson
Gas hydrates on Alaskan marine margins
Gas hydrate distributions on the marine margins of the U.S. state of Alaska are more poorly known than those on other U.S. margins, where bottom simulating reflections have been systematically mapped on marine seismic data to support modern, quantitative assessments of gas-in-place in gas hydrates. The extent of bottom simulating reflections in the U.S. Beaufort Sea has been known since...
Authors
Carolyn D. Ruppel, Patrick E. Hart
Estimates of metals contained in abyssal manganese nodules and ferromanganese crusts in the global ocean based on regional variations and genetic types of nodules
Deep-ocean ferromanganese crusts and manganese nodules are important marine repositories for global metals. Interest in these minerals as potential resources has led to detailed sampling in many regions of the global ocean, allowing for updated estimates of their global extent. Here, we present global estimates of total tonnage as well as contained metal concentrations and tonnages for...
Authors
Kira Mizell, James R. Hein, Manda Viola Au, Amy Gartman
Landslides triggered by the 2002 M 7.9 Denali Fault earthquake, Alaska, USA
The 2002 M 7.9 Denali earthquake in Alaska, USA, was the largest inland earthquake in North America in nearly 150 years. The earthquake involved oblique thrusting but mostly strike-slip motion, and faults ruptured the ground surface over 330 km. Fault rupture occurred in a rugged, mountainous, subarctic environment with extensive permafrost and variable glaciation, geology, and...
Authors
William Schulz
Machine learning for understanding inland water quantity, quality, and ecology
This chapter provides an overview of machine learning models and their applications to the science of inland waters. Such models serve a wide range of purposes for science and management: predicting water quality, quantity, or ecological dynamics across space, time, or hypothetical scenarios; vetting and distilling raw data for further modeling or analysis; generating and exploring...
Authors
Alison P. Appling, Samantha K. Oliver, Jordan Read, Jeffrey Michael Sadler, Jacob Aaron Zwart
Technique to estimate generalized skew coefficients of annual peak streamflow for natural watershed conditions in Texas, Oklahoma, and eastern New Mexico
Reliable information about the frequency of annual peak streamflow is needed for floodplain management, objective assessment of flood risk, and cost-effective design of dams, levees, other flood-control structures, and roads, bridges, and culverts. Generalized skew coefficients are among the data needed for log-Pearson type III peak-streamflow frequency analyses of annual peak...
Authors
William H. Asquith, Monica Veale Yesildirek, Raven N. Landers, Theodore G Cleveland, Zheng N. Fang, Jiaqi Zhang
The use of boundary-spanning organizations to bridge the knowledge-action gap in North America
The goals of boundary-spanning organizations include communicating among researchers, stakeholders, and resource managers to improve decision-making. These efforts span public agencies, environmental non-governmental organizations, and private stakeholders and occur throughout Canada, the USA, and Mexico. We describe how the core philosophy of boundary-spanning organizations may help...
Authors
Mark W. Schwartz, Erica Fleishman, Matthew A. Williamson, John N. Williams, Toni Lyn Morelli
What are the toxicological effects of mercury in Arctic biota?
No abstract available.
Authors
Rune Dietz, Robert J. Letcher, Josh T. Ackerman, Benjamin D. Barst, Niladri Basu, Olivier Chastel, John Chételat, Sam Dastnai, Jean-Pierre Desforges, Collin A. Eagles-Smith, Igor Eulaers, Jérôme Fort, Jacob Nabe-Nielsen, Feiyue Wang, Simon Wilson