Reports

The Glacial Ridge National Wildlife Refuge was established in 2004 on land in northwestern Minnesota that had previously undergone extensive wetland and prairie restorations. About 7,000 acres of drained wetlands were restored to their original hydrologic function and aquatic ecosystem. During 2007–9, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and...

This memo lays out a procedure for the GEM software to offer an available vulnerability function for any acceptable set of attributes that the user specifies for a particular building category. The memo also provides general guidelines on how to submit the vulnerability or fragility functions to the GEM vulnerability repository, stipulating which attributes modelers must provide so that...

This report, which updates and revises the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) (1999) publication, “Metal Prices in the United States Through 1998,” presents an extended price history for a wide range of metals available in a single document. Such information can be useful for the analysis of mineral commodity issues, as well as for other purposes. The chapter for each mineral commodity...

A survey of methane in groundwater was undertaken to document methane occurrence on the basis of hydrogeologic setting within a glaciated 1,810-square-mile area of south-central New York that has not seen shale-gas resource development. The adjacent region in northeastern Pennsylvania has undergone shale-gas resource development from the Marcellus Shale. Well construction and subsurface...

More than 300 ambient monitoring sites in New Jersey have been identified by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) in its integrated water-quality monitoring and assessment report (that is, the 305(b) Report on general water quality and 303(d) List of waters that do not support their designated uses) as being impaired with respect to aquatic life; however, no...

Peak-flow frequency analyses were completed for 409 streamgages in and bordering Minnesota having at least 10 systematic peak flows through water year 2011. Selected annual exceedance probabilities were determined by fitting a log-Pearson type III probability distribution to the recorded annual peak flows. A detailed explanation of the methods that were used to determine the annual...

This report summarizes the methods and spatial extent of geophysical surveys conducted on Mono Lake and Paoha Island by U.S. Geological Survey during 2009 and 2011. The surveys include acquisition of new high resolution seismic reflection data, shipborne high resolution magnetic data, and ground magnetic and gravity data on Paoha Island. Several trials to acquire swath bathymetry and...

A statewide study was performed to develop regional regression equations for estimating selected annual exceedance-probability statistics for ungaged stream sites in Iowa. The study area comprises streamgages located within Iowa and 50 miles beyond the State’s borders. Annual exceedance-probability estimates were computed for 518 streamgages by using the expected moments algorithm to fit...

This report presents the results of a study to develop methods for estimating selected low-flow statistics and for determining annual flow-duration statistics for Ohio streams. Regression techniques were used to develop equations for estimating 10-year recurrence-interval (10-percent annual-nonexceedance probability) low-flow yields, in cubic feet per second per square mile, with...

Water consumption at thermoelectric power plants represents a small but substantial share of total water consumption in the U.S. However, currently available thermoelectric water consumption data are inconsistent and incomplete, and coefficients used to estimate consumption are contradictory. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has resumed the estimation of thermoelectric water consumption...

The potential effect of global climate change on calcifying marine organisms, such as scleractinian (reef-building) corals, is becoming increasingly evident. Understanding the process of coral calcification and establishing baseline calcification rates are necessary to detect future changes in growth resulting from climate change or other stressors. Here we describe the methods used to...

To understand the emission reduction potential of carbon capture and storage (CCS), decision makers need to understand the amount of CO2 that can be safely stored in the subsurface and the geographical distribution of storage resources. Estimates of storage resources need to be made using reliable and consistent methods. Previous estimates of CO2 storage potential for a range of...