Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

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.

Filter Total Items: 6025

The evolution of geospatial reasoning, analytics, and modeling

The field of geospatial analytics and modeling has a long history coinciding with the physical and cultural evolution of humans. This history is analyzed relative to the four scientific paradigms: (1) empirical analysis through description, (2) theoretical explorations using models and generalizations, (3) simulating complex phenomena and (4) data exploration. Correlations among developments in ge
Authors
Samantha Arundel, Wenwen Li

Random variable

A random variable is a function that assigns a value in a sample space to an element of an arbitrary set (James 1992; Pawlowsky-Glahn et al. 2015). It is a model for a random experiment: the arbitrary set is an abstraction of the experimental conditions, the values taken by the random variable are in the sample space, and the function itself models the assignment of outcomes, thus also describing
Authors
Ricardo A. Olea

Introduction: Metallurgical slags - Environmental liability or valuable resource?

Slags are important by-products generated by ferrous and non-ferrous pyrometallurgical operations, with hundreds of millions of tonnes generated globally each year. Depending on the chemical and mineralogical compositions of slags, they may be disposed of as waste, which can then weather and release contaminants into the environment with the potential to impact the ecosystem and humans. Alternatel
Authors
Nadine M. Piatak, Vojtech Ettler

Weathering of slags

Weathering is a natural process causing the transformation of minerals, rocks, and related materials like glass under near-surface conditions. Although metallurgical slags are human-made materials, they also undergo natural weathering processes. As base metal slags weather, the released solutions may contain contaminants that could pose an environmental risk. On the other hand, weathering of ferro
Authors
Jakub Kierczak, Anna Pietranik, Nadine M. Piatak

Geochemistry and mineralogy of metallurgical slag

Slag is a waste product from the pyrometallurgical processing of natural ores or the recycling of man-made materials. This chapter provides an overview of the geochemical and mineralogical characteristics of different types of slag. A review of the analytical methods used to determine these characteristics is also provided. Ferrous slags include blast furnace, steelmaking, and ferroalloy slags; th
Authors
Nadine M. Piatak, Vojtech Ettler, Darryl Andre Hoppe

Middle and late Pleistocene pluvial history of Newark Valley, central Nevada, USA

Newark Valley lies between the two largest pluvial lake systems in the Great Basin, Lake Lahontan and Lake Bonneville. Soils and geomorphology, stratigraphic interpretations, radiocarbon ages, and amino acid racemization geochronology analyses were employed to interpret the relative and numerical ages of lacustrine deposits in the valley. The marine oxygen isotope stage (MIS) 2 beach barriers are
Authors
Joanna L. Redwine, R. M. Burke, Marith C. Reheis, R. J. Bowers, Jordon Bright, D. S. Kaufman, R. M. Forester

Lakes of the western United States: Novel tools and new views

No abstract available.
Authors
Scott W. Starratt, Michael R. Rosen

Paleoclimate record for Lake Coyote, California, and the Last Glacial Maximum and deglacial paleohydrology (25 to 14 cal ka) of the Mojave River

Lake Coyote, California, which formed in one of five basins along the Mojave River, acted both as a part of the Lake Manix basin and, after the formation of Afton Canyon and draining of Lake Manix ca. 24.5 calibrated (cal) ka, a side basin that was filled episodically for the next 10,000 yr. As such, its record of lake level is an important counterpart to the record of the other terminal basin, La
Authors
David M. Miller, Stephanie L Dudash, John P. McGeehin

Earth's coastlines

With approximately half the world’s population living less than 65 miles from the ocean, coastal ecosystems are arguably Earth’s most critical real estate. Yet coastlines are among the more difficult features to accurately map; until now, no comprehensive high-resolution geospatial dataset existed. This chapter presents a new map and ecological inventory of global coastlines developed by Esri, the
Authors
Roger Sayre, Madeline T. Martin, Jill Janene Cress, Kevin Butler, Keith Van Graafeiland, Sean Breyer, Dawn Wright, Charlie Frye, Deniz Karagulle, Tom Allen, Rebecca Allee, Rost Parsons, Bjorn Nyberg, Mark J. Costello, Frank Muller-Karger, Peter Harris

Steppe eagle Aquila nipalensis

The steppe eagle (Aquila nipalensis) is a globally endangered, full migrant raptor that breeds in the southern temperate zone from European Russia in the west to eastern Mongolia, Dauria and adjacent north-eastern China in the east. It winters in Africa, the Middle East and Southern and South-Eastern Asia, and migrations can sometimes entail journeys > 10,000 km in length. Kazakhstan, Russia and M
Authors
Michael J. McGrady, Evgeny A. Bragin, Igor Karyakin, Nyambayar Batbayar, Todd E. Katzner

Red-footed Falcon Falco vespertinus

Red-footed falcons (Falco vespertinus) are a small, long-distance and obligate migrant falcon that breeds at the forest-steppe interface in Eurasia and winters in Southern Africa. Research carried out with geolocators and satellite transmitters show that during the southbound migration Central Asian birds migrate through the Caucasus and the Middle East, while those from Eastern Europe cross the E
Authors
Todd E. Katzner, Evgeny A. Bragin, Tricia A. Miller

Eastern Imperial Eagle Aquila heliaca

Eastern imperial eagles are a short-, medium-distance, partially-migratory, or even non-migratory, raptor that breeds at the forest-steppe interface in Eurasia and winters in Northern Africa, the Middle East or South Asia. Migratory strategies of imperial eagles are diverse. Eagles breeding in Central and Southeast Europe and south of the Black Sea usually are year-round residents or partial- or s
Authors
Evgeny Bragin, Marton Horvath, Sharon Poessel, Todd E. Katzner