Reports

Introduction Passive groundwater sampling is defined as the collection of a water sample from a well without the use of purging by a pump or retrieval by a bailer (Interstate Technology and Regulatory Council [ITRC], 2006; American Society for Testing and Materials [ASTM], 2014). No purging means that advection of water is not involved in collecting the water sample from the well...

Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean resources of 4.6 billion barrels of oil and 561 trillion cubic feet of gas in the Lower Silurian Shale Total Petroleum System of the Arabian Peninsula.

Groundwater piezometers and lake stilling wells were deployed as paired sets at 10 locations in Upper Klamath Lake in south-central Oregon from May to October 2017 to measure hydraulic heads in and beneath the lake. Continuous water-level data from piezometers and stilling wells were then used to calculate the vertical hydraulic gradient (VHG) across the sediment-water interface to...

Keys to Lark Bunting (Calamospiza melanocorys) management include providing short vegetation with protective nest cover and tailoring grazing systems to the type of grassland. Lark Buntings have been reported to use habitats with 6–72 centimeter (cm) average vegetation height, 2–11 cm visual obstruction reading, 13–71 percent grass cover, less than or equal to (≤) 48 percent forb cover,...

The North Carolina Turnpike Authority plans to improve transportation in the Currituck Sound area by constructing a two-lane bridge—the Mid-Currituck Bridge—across Currituck Sound from the mainland to the Outer Banks, North Carolina. The results of the final environmental impact statement for the project indicate potential water-quality and habitat effects for Currituck Sound associated...

Bathymetric and velocimetric data were collected by the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Missouri Department of Transportation, near 10 bridges at 9 highway crossings of the Missouri River between Kansas City and St. Louis, Missouri, from May 22 to 31, 2017. A multibeam echosounder mapping system was used to obtain channel-bed elevations for river reaches ranging from 1...

Big Spring Run is a 1.68-square mile watershed underlain by mostly carbonate rock in a mixed land-use setting (part agricultural and part developed) in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Big Spring Run is a subwatershed of Mill Creek, a tributary to the Conestoga River. These watersheds are known contributors of nutrient and sediment loads to the Chesapeake Bay and several stream reaches...

The Fort Berthold Reservation is in west-central North Dakota and home to the Three Affiliated Tribes. The primary water-resources concerns on the Fort Berthold Reservation are associated with the different types of land uses from agricultural activities and the rapid development of oil and gas resources in western North Dakota. The Three Affiliated Tribes Environmental Department...

Executive Summary We evaluate three approaches to accounting for incidental carcasses when estimating an upper bound on total mortality (𝑀) as 𝑀∗ using the Evidence of Absence model (EoA; Dalthorp and others, 2017) to assess compliance with an Incidental Take Permit (ITP) (Dalthorp & Huso, 2015) under a monitoring protocol that includes formal, dedicated carcass surveys that achieve an...

The collective set of decisions involved with the restoration of degraded wetlands is often more complex than considering only ecological responses and outcomes. Restoration is commonly driven by a complex interaction of social, economic, and ecological factors representing the mandate of resource stewards and the values of stakeholders. The authors worked with the Herring River...

Volcanic eruptions can affect landscapes in many ways and consequently alter erosion and the fluxes of water and sediment. Hydrologic and geomorphic responses to volcanic disturbances are varied in both space and time, and, in some instances, can persist for decades to centuries. Understanding the broad context of how landscapes respond to eruptions can help inform how they may evolve...

Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean resources of 30.5 trillion cubic feet of tight gas in the Grand Erg/Ahnet Province of Algeria.