Conference Papers

Global warming, or the increasing of earth's temperatures, leads to rising sea level as polar ice caps and mountain glaciers melt and ocean water undergoes thermal expansion. Tidal records collected by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (COE), Mobile District, at Gulfport, Biloxi, and Pascagoula, Mississippi, and at Mobile, Alabama, indicate trends of water-surface elevations increasing...

We used synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images from the ERS-2 remote sensing satellite to map the freeze condition of lakes on Alaska's North Slope, the geographic region to the north of the Brooks Range. An mage from March 1997, to coincide with the period of maximum freeze depth, was used for the frozen lake mapping. Emphasis was placed on distinguishing between lakes frozen to the...

[No abstract available]

The Metals Mining Sector of the Acid Drainage Technology Initiative (ADTI-MMS) addresses technical drainage-quality issues related to metal mining and related metallurgical operations, for future and active mines, as well as, for historical mines and mining districts. One of the first projects of ADTI-MMS is to develop a handbook describing the best sampling, monitoring, predicting...

Sea otters possess physical characteristics and life history attributes that provide both opportunity and constraint to their study. Because of their relatively limited diving ability they occur in nearshore marine habitats that are usually viewable from shore, allowing direct observation of most behaviors. Because sea otters live nearshore and forage on benthic invertebrates, foraging...

Aeromagnetic and radar ice sounding results from the 1991-1997 Central West Antarctica (CWA) aerogeophysical survey over part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) and subglacial area of the volcanically active West Antarctic rift system have enabled detailed examination of specific anomaly sources. These anomalies, previously interpreted as caused by late Cenozoic subglacial volcanic...

Precipitation-runoff models are used to assess the effects of water use and management alternatives on streamflow. Often, ground-water withdrawals are a major water-use component that affect streamflow, but the ability of surface-water models to simulate ground-water withdrawals is limited. As part of a Hydrologic Simulation Program-FORTRAN (HSPF) precipitation-runoff model developed to...

A single-layer, steady-state analytic element model was constructed to simulate shallow ground-water flow in the Menomonee Valley, an old industrial center southwest of downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Project objectives were to develop an understanding of the shallow ground-water flow system and identify primary receptors of recharge to the valley. The analytic element model simulates...

Predictions of waste canister and repository driftwall temperatures as functions of space and time are important to evaluate pre-closure performance of the proposed repository for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Variations in the lithostratigraphic features in densely welded and crystallized rocks of the 12.8-million-year-old Topopah Spring...

The Tombstone, Mayo and Tungsten plutonic suites of granitic intrusions, collectively termed the Tombstone-Tungsten Belt, form three geographically, mineralogically, geochemically and metallogenically distinct plutonic suites. The granites (sensu lato) intruded the ancient North American continental margin of the northern Canadian Cordillera as part of a single magmatic episode in the...

Judy's Branch, a small basin (8.64 mi2) near Glen Carbon, Illinois, is selected as a pilot site to determine sediment yield and channel erosion of streams draining the bluffs of the American Bottoms in the Metro East area of Illinois. This paper presents results of an on-going sediment and geomorphic study in Judy's Branch. The average suspended-sediment yield from two upland sub-basins...

During the years 2002-2004 estimated sea otter population sizes were calculated for Southeast Alaska, Prince William Sound, and the Kenai Peninsula and Cook Inlet regions of Alaska. Aerial surveys were conducted by a single observer from a float-equipped Bellanca Scout fixed-wing aircraft flying at 91 m altitude and 65 mph. The surveys followed protocols written by Bodkin and Udevitz...