Browse more than 5,500 book chapters authored by our scientists over the past 100+ year history of the USGS and refine search by topic, location, year, and advanced search.
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Geology and paleontology of Cretaceous and Paleocene sediments of the Cabin Branch, Cabin Creek (Cappy Avenue), and Tinkers Creek outcrops, Prince George’s County, Maryland
This field guide presents a one-day excursion in Prince George’s County, Maryland, USA, and documents the transition across the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary by examining sediments from the upper Maastrichtian of the Severn Formation to the Paleocene sediments of the Brightseat and Aquia formations. Emphasis is placed on understanding how differences in depositional character and lithostratigraphy
Authors
Jean Self-Trail, David L. Govoni, Laurel M. Bybell, Kristina Frank Gardner
Colorado River Basin
The Colorado River is often referred to as “the lifeblood of the west.” The basin supplies municipal water to nearly 40 million people and irrigates approximately 22,000 km2 of agricultural lands. Twenty-two major rivers converge with the Colorado after it begins its descent from the Rocky Mountains and winds through the plateaus of Colorado, Utah, and Arizona, onto the deserts of southwestern Ari
Authors
Anya Metcalfe, Jeffrey Muehlbauer, Morgan Ford, Theodore Kennedy
Management of vampire bats and rabies: Past, present, and future
Rabies virus transmitted via the bite of common vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus) has surpassed canine-associated cases as the predominant cause of human rabies in Latin America. Cattle, the preferred prey of D. rotundus, suffer extensive mortality from vampire bat associated rabies, with annual financial losses estimated in the tens of millions of dollars. Organized attempts to manage or curtail v
Authors
Tonie E. Rocke, Daniel G. Streicker, Ariel Elizabeth Leon
Population Monitoring
No abstract available.
Authors
J. Joshua Nowak, Mark A. Hurley, Paul M Lukacs, Daniel P. Walsh, C. LeAnn White
Planktic foraminifera
Planktic foraminifera are single-celled marine organisms that secrete calcium carbonate tests. They live in the ocean's photic zone, and when they die, their tests, each about the size of a grain of sand, collect on the ocean floor. The geographic distribution of planktic foraminifera is mostly governed by the temperature and salinity of the ocean surface, and species assemblages are generally arr
Authors
Harry J. Dowsett, Marci M. Robinson
Endangered Klamath suckers
Since Lost River suckers (Deltistes luxatus) and shortnose suckers (Chasmistes brevirostris) hatched in the early 1990s, almost none of the fish have survived to adulthood. When full grown, Lost River suckers are the largest of the Klamath suckers, averaging about two and a half feet long, whereas shortnose suckers are at around twenty-one inches. Rather than an inability to spawn, these species a
Authors
Summer M. Burdick
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 hypotheses; est
Authors
Alison P. Appling, Samantha K. Oliver, Jordan Read, Jeffrey Michael Sadler, Jacob Aaron Zwart
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 groundwater presenc
Authors
William Schulz
Osmoregulation and acid-base balance.
Maintaining relatively constant levels of internal cellular ions is critical to the normal function of all animals. For many organisms this is achieved primarily by regulating the ion and acid-base composition of the blood within narrow limits. This understanding of the importance of “le milieu interior,” first espoused by Claude Bernard in the mid-1800s and later described as “homeostasis” by Wal
Authors
Stephen D. McCormick, Eric T. Schultz, Colin Brauner
The Colorado River – The science-policy interface
No abstract available.
Authors
John C. Schmidt, Lindsey Bruckerhoff, Jianghao Wang, Charles Yackulic
Invasive species control and management: The sea lamprey story
Control of invasive species is a critical component of conservation biology given the catastrophic damage that they can cause to the ecosystems they invade. This is particularly evident with sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) in the Laurentian Great Lakes. Native to the Atlantic Ocean, the sea lamprey's ability to osmoregulate in fresh water, its wide thermal tolerance, generalist diet, and high fec
Authors
Michael P. Wilkie, Nicholas S. Johnson, Margaret F. Docker