Reports

Central to life on Earth, carbon is essential to the molecular makeup of all living things and plays a key role in regulating global climate. To understand carbon’s role in these processes, researchers measure and evaluate carbon stocks and fluxes. A stock is the quantity of carbon contained in a pool or reservoir in the Earth system (e.g., carbon in forest trees), and a flux is the...

The Natural Resource Assessment Program aims to document condition and trends of selected park resources while identifying emerging issues and information needs. This information is intended to serve as a platform for natural resource managers to use in developing future resource stewardship priorities and planning. Olympic National Park (OLYM) on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula protects...

Sprague’s Pipit (Anthus spragueii), Chestnut-collared Longspur (Calcarius ornatus), McCown’s Longspur (Rhynchophanes mccownii), and Baird’s Sparrow (Centronyx bairdii) [hereafter, “the Species”] are North American grassland-obligate songbirds whose populations have experienced significant annual population declines and are the focus of increasing conservation concern. The purpose of this...

The purpose of this report is to evaluate the use of site-specific regression models to estimate metal concentrations at nine U.S. Geological Survey streamflow-gaging stations on the Animas and San Juan Rivers in Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. Downstream users could use these regression models to determine if metal concentrations are elevated and pose a risk to water supplies...

Dauphin Island and Little Dauphin Island, collectively, make up a geomorphically complex barrier island system located along Alabama’s southern coast, separating Mississippi Sound from the Gulf of Mexico and Mobile Bay. The barrier island system provides numerous economical (tourism, fisheries) and natural (habitat for migratory birds, natural protection of inland and coastal areas from...

Extensive groundwater withdrawal from the unconsolidated deposits in the San Joaquin Valley caused widespread aquifer-system compaction and resultant land subsidence from 1926 to 1970—locally exceeding 8.5 meters. The importation of surface water beginning in the early 1950s through the Delta-Mendota Canal and in the early 1970s through the California Aqueduct resulted in decreased...

The U.S. Geological Survey monitors groundwater-storage change and land-surface elevation change caused by groundwater withdrawal in Tucson Basin and Avra Valley—the two most populated alluvial basins within the Tucson Active Management Area. The Tucson Active Management Area is one of five active management areas in Arizona established by the 1980 Groundwater Management Act and governed...

Explore U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) water-use websites to learn how and where the Nation's water use has changed over time! Learn how to find and access USGS water-use data shown in maps, graphs, visualizations, and information products. Gain a better understanding of water-use terms and USGS educational resources. Learn how to find and use USGS visualizations to see how water use has...

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Bureau of Reclamation and the Oklahoma Water Resources Board, (1) quantified the groundwater resources of the Rush Springs aquifer in western Oklahoma by developing a numerical groundwater-flow model, (2) evaluated the effects of estimated equal-proportionate-share (EPS) pumping rates on aquifer storage and streamflow for time periods...

The East Siberian Sea Basin, which lies beneath the continental shelf east of the New Siberian Islands, is one of the better-known basins in a series of postorogenic (successor) basins in the East Siberian-Chukchi Sea region because of a reconnaissance network of seismic-reflection profiles and outcrops on nearby islands. In spite of the seismic coverage, the basin’s petroleum potential...

Information on the biophysical features of Federal lands identified as suitable for transfer to the State of Colorado was requested by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). This information is intended for use in conducting an Environmental Assessment prior to the transfer of ownership (conveyance) to the State. The Colorado State Land Board filed a selective application to obtain public...

Tucked in a grove of thorny mesquite trees, on an ancient coral reef on the south side of the Hawaiian island of Oahu, west of Pearl Harbor, a small unmanned observatory quietly records the Earth’s time-varying magnetic field. The Honolulu Magnetic Observatory is 1 of 14 that the U.S. Geological Survey Geomag­netism Program operates at various locations across the United States and its...