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Science Quality and Integrity
The USGS provides unbiased, objective, and impartial scientific information upon which our audiences, including resource managers, planners, and other entities, rely.
The USGS provides unbiased, objective, and impartial scientific information upon which our audiences, including resource managers, planners, and other entities, rely.
Browse almost 1,000 books authored by our scientists over the past 100+ year history of the USGS and refine search by topic, location, year, and advanced search.
Filter Total Items: 970
Landscapes of West Africa: A window on a changing world
Our global ecosystem is and has always been complex, dynamic, and in constant flux. Science tells us how natural forces of enormous power have shaped and reshaped Earth’s surface, atmosphere, climate, and biota again and again since the planet’s beginnings about 4.5 billion years ago. For most of the planet’s history those environmental changes were the result of the interaction of natural process
Authors
G. Gray Tappan, W. Matthew Cushing, Suzanne E. Cotillon, John A. Hutchinson, Bruce Pengra, Issifou Alfari, Edwige Botoni, Amadou Soulé, Stefanie M. Herrmann
Surface slip during large Owens Valley earthquakes
The 1872 Owens Valley earthquake is the third largest known historical earthquake in California. Relatively sparse field data and a complex rupture trace, however, inhibited attempts to fully resolve the slip distribution and reconcile the total moment release. We present a new, comprehensive record of surface slip based on lidar and field investigation, documenting 162 new measurements of lateral
Authors
Elizabeth Haddon, Colin Amos, Olaf Zielke, Angela S. Jayko, Roland Burgmann
Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Programme: Coastal Expert Workshop meeting summary
The Coastal Expert Workshop brought together a diverse group of coastal experts with the common goal of developing a biodiversity monitoring program for coastal ecosystems across the circumpolar Arctic. Meeting participants, including northern residents, industry and Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) representatives, scientists, and government regulators from across the circumpolar Arctic, gathe
Authors
L. Thomson, Donald McLennan, Rebecca D. Anderson, S. Wegeberg, Maria Pettersvik Arvnes, Liudmila Sergienko, Carolina Behe, Pitseolak Moss-Davies, S. Fritz, T. Christensen, C. Price
Crustal permeability
Permeability is the primary control on fluid flow in the Earth’s crust and is key to a surprisingly wide range of geological processes, because it controls the advection of heat and solutes and the generation of anomalous pore pressures. The practical importance of permeability – and the potential for large, dynamic changes in permeability – is highlighted by ongoing issues associated with hydrau
Ecology and conservation of Lesser Prairie-Chickens
Lesser Prairie-Chickens have experienced substantial declines in terms of population and the extent of area that they occupy. While they are an elusive species, making it difficult at times to monitor them, current evidence indicates that they have been persistently decreasing in number since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s dramatically affected their core range. In May of 2014, the United States Fish
Geology and geomorphology of the Carolina Sandhills, Chesterfield County, South Carolina
This two-day field trip focuses on the geology and geomorphology of the Carolina Sandhills in Chesterfield County, South Carolina. This area is located in the updip portion of the U.S. Atlantic Coastal Plain province, supports an ecosystem of longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) and wiregrass (Aristida stricta), and contains three major geologic map units: (1) An ~60–120-m-thick unit of weakly consolid
Authors
Christopher S. Swezey, Bradley A. Fitzwater, G. Richard Whittecar
Glacial Lake Hitchcock and the sea: Fieldtrip Guidebook for the 78th Annual Reunion of the Northeast Friends of the Pleistocene
The fieldtrip will demonstrate the evidence for a close connection of Lake Hitchcock levels
with lake levels and the position of sea level in Long Island Sound via a channel cut into glacial
lake deposits in the lower Connecticut River valley, which issuperposed on a bedrock ridge at
the mouth of the Connecticut River. On the trip we will explain important offshore features like
an extensive ‐40‐
Authors
Janet Radway Stone, J.C. Ridge, Ralph S. Lewis, Mary L. DiGiacomo-Cohen
Regional geophysics of western Utah and eastern Nevada, with emphasis on the Confusion Range
As part of a long term geologic and hydrologic study of several regional
groundwater flow systems in western Utah and eastern Nevada, the U.S.
Geological Survey was contracted by the Southern Nevada Water Authority
to provide geophysical data. The primary object of these data was to enable
construction of the geological framework of the flow systems. The main
new geophysical data gathered du
Authors
Edward A. Mankinen, Peter D. Rowley, Gary L. Dixon, Edwin H. McKee
Volcanogenic massive sulphide and orogenic gold deposits of northern southeast Alaska
This five-day field trip visits the most significant mineral deposits in northern southeast Alaska. The trip begins and ends with regional transects in the interior Intermontane terranes around Whitehorse, Yukon, and the Insular terranes along the northern Chatham Strait region of southeast Alaska (Fig. A-1 and Fig. A-2; Plate-1). To put the deposits in a regional tectonic framework, the guidebook
Authors
Patrick J Sack, Susan M. Karl, Nathan Steeves, J Bruce Gemmell
Placer deposits of the Atlantic coastal plain: Stratigraphy, sedimentology, mineral resources, mining, and reclamation Cove Point, Maryland, Williamsburg and Stony Creek, Virginia
No abstract available.
Authors
C. Rick Berquist, Anjana K. Shah, Adam T. Karst
Field guide to the Mesozoic arc and accretionary complex of South-Central Alaska, Indian to Hatcher Pass
This field trip traverses exposures of a multi-generation Mesozoic magmatic arc and subduction-accretion complex that had a complicated history of magmatic activity and experienced variations in composition and deformational style in response to changes in the tectonic environment. This Mesozoic arc formed at an unknown latitude to the south, was accreted to North America, and was subsequently tra
Authors
Susan M. Karl, P.J. Oswald, Chad P. Hults
Ecology and conservation of North American sea ducks
The past decade has seen a huge increase in the interest and attention directed toward sea ducks, the Mergini tribe. This has been inspired, in large part, by the conservation concerns associated with numerical declines in several sea duck species and populations, as well as a growing appreciation for their interesting ecological attributes. Reflecting the considerable research recently conducted