Reports

Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey assessed mean undiscovered, technically recoverable continuous resources of 1.5 billion barrels of oil and 4.6 trillion cubic feet of gas in the Upper Cretaceous Tuscaloosa marine shale in onshore and State waters of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida in the U.S. Gulf Coast region.

Little St. Germain Lake is a 978-acre, multibasin lake in Vilas County, Wisconsin. In the interest of improving its water quality, the Little St. Germain Lake Protection and Rehabilitation District initiated a cooperative study with the U.S. Geological Survey to describe the current phosphorus input into and export from Little St. Germain Lake and evaluate how water releases at different...

Understanding changing nutrient concentrations in surface waters requires quantitative information on changing nutrient sources in contributing watersheds. For example, the proportion of nutrient inputs reaching streams and rivers is directly affected by when and where those nutrients enter the landscape. The goal of this report is to contribute to the U.S. Geological Survey’s efforts to...

Decadal changes in groundwater quality in two study units on the north-central California coast were evaluated by the Priority Basin Project (PBP) of the Groundwater Ambient Monitoring and Assessment (GAMA) Program. Groundwater samples collected from wells during 2004–05 were compared on a pair-wise basis to samples collected from the same wells during 2014. The data set consisted of...

Rapid population growth and declining annual recharge to aquifers in the upper Santa Cruz Basin area of southern Arizona, have increased the demand for additional groundwater resources. This demand is predicted to escalate in the future because of higher temperatures, longer droughts, less aquifer recharge, and decreased river and stream base flow. We conducted geologic studies to help...

Digital flood-inundation maps for an 8-mile (mi) reach of the Huron River near Hamburg, Michigan (station number 04172000), from downstream of Rickett Road to Strawberry Lake, were created by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with Green Oak and Hamburg Townships, Michigan, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The flood-inundation maps also include a 1.16-mi reach of the...

Review of previous investigations indicates that potential decreases in groundwater recharge and increased groundwater extraction in the vicinity of the Lower Des Plaines River Valley in Will County, Illinois, may reduce the amount of groundwater flow in the Silurian aquifer in this area. Groundwater discharge from the Silurian aquifer to wetlands in the Lower Des Plaines River Valley...

An exploratory discrete Bayesian network (BN) was developed to assess the potential of this type of model for estimating the magnitudes and uncertainties of an arbitrary subset of unmeasured water-quality parameters given the measured complement of parameters historically measured at a U.S. Geological Survey streamgage. Water-quality data for 27 water-quality parameters from 596 discrete

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Strong Motion Project (NSMP) operates numerous strong-motion seismographs to monitor ground shaking and structural response caused by large, nearby earthquakes. This report describes a problem NSMP scientists encountered communicating over the Internet with several Kinemetrics, Inc., Granite strong-motion recorders. The Granite strong-motion...

This report describes our laboratory and field results for the period February 1, 2018-January 31, 2019.

Overview Land managers make decisions regarding restoration and rehabilitation actions that influence landscapes and ecosystems. Many of these decisions involve soil and vegetation manipulations, often known as land treatments. Historically, treatments were planned on a case by case basis with decisions derived from personal experience of past successes or failures. Current adaptive...

Secure, reliable, and sustainable water resources are fundamental to food production, energy independence, and the health of humans and ecosystems. But the large-scale development of fresh groundwater resources has stressed aquifers in some areas, causing declines in the amount of groundwater in storage and decreases in discharge to surface-water bodies like rivers and springs (Reilly...