Book Chapters

The southern Appalachian part of the Cambrian–Ordovician passive margin succession of the great American carbonate bank extends from the Lower Cambrian to the lower Middle Ordovician, is as much as 3.5 km (2.2 mi) thick, and has long-term subsidence rates exceeding 5 cm (2 in.)/k.y. Subsiding depocenters separated by arches controlled sediment thickness. The succession consists of five

An 800-year-long environmental history of Biscayne Bay, Florida, is reconstructed from ostracod faunal and shell geochemical (oxygen, carbon isotopes, Mg/Ca ratios) studies of sediment cores from three mudbanks in the central and southern parts of the bay. Using calibrations derived from analyses of modern Biscayne and Florida Bay ostracods, palaeosalinity oscillations associated with...

No abstract available.

No abstract available.

This brief chapter addresses two related issues: how effort should be allocated to different parts of the sampling plan and, given optimal allocation, how large a sample will be required to achieve the PRISM accuracy target. Simulations based on data collected to date showed that 2 plots per cluster on rapid surveys, 2 intensive camps per field crew-year, 2-4 intensive plots per...

No abstract available.

This chapter reviews and synthesizes the lithostratigraphy, biostratigraphy, chronostratigraphy, and breccia types of the southwestern part of the great American carbonate bank in the southern Franklin Mountains (SFM), El Paso, Texas. Primary stratigraphic units of focus are the Lower Ordovician El Paso and Upper Ordovician Montoya Groups. These groups preserve breccias formed by...

Most of the effort in seismic design of buildings and other structures is focused on structural design. This chapter addresses another key aspect of the design process—characterization of earthquake ground motion. Section 3.1 describes the basis of the earthquake ground motion maps in the Provisions and in ASCE 7. Section 3.2 has examples for the determination of ground motion parameters...

Non-native species are considered one of the greatest threats to freshwater biodiversity worldwide (Drake et al. 1989; Allen and Flecker 1993; Dudgeon et al. 2005). Some of the first hypotheses proposed to explain global patterns of amphibian declines included the effects of non-native species (Barinaga 1990; Blaustein and Wake 1990; Wake and Morowitz 1991). Evidence for the impact of...

Moderate-resolution land imagery (MRLI) is crucial to a more complete assessment of the cumulative, landscape-level effect of agricultural land use and land cover on environmental quality. If this improved assessment yields a net social benefit, then that benefit reflects the value of information (VOI) from MRLI. Environmental quality and the capacity to provide ecosystem services evolve...

In this chapter, we share lessons learned during the elicitation and application of expert knowledge in the form of a belief network model for the habitat of a waterbird, the King Rail (Rallus elegans). A belief network is a statistical framework used to graphically represent and evaluate hypothesized cause and effect relationships among variables. Our model was a pilot project to...

The Honey Lake fault system (HLFS) strikes north-northwestward across Long Valley near Doyle, CA and is part of a network of active, dextral strike-slip faults in the northern Walker Lane (Figure 1). Geologic investigations of a right-laterally offset terrace riser along the north bank of Long Valley Creek, which we refer to as site 1 (Figure 2), indicate a latest Quaternary slip rate of...