Publications

In this report, subjects discussed include components of mineral supply, production, and consumption data, and information on selected mineral commodities in which the Energy Critical Elements Study Group has an interest, and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) recycling studies, with some results of these studies.

Severe flooding occurred in Aroostook and Penobscot Counties in northern Maine between April 28 and May 1, 2008, and damage was extensive in the town of Fort Kent. Aroostook County was declared a Federal disaster area on May 9, and the declaration was expanded to include Penobscot County on May 16-qualifying the entire region for federal assistance. Water in the St. John River peaked at...

Severe flooding occurred in Aroostook and Penobscot Counties in northern Maine between April 28 and May 1, 2008, and was most extreme in the town of Fort Kent. Peak streamflows in northern Aroostook County were the result of a persistent heavy snowpack that caused high streamflows when it quickly melted during the third week of April 2008. Snowmelt was followed by from two to four inches...

Early comparisons between rates of vertical accretion and sea level rise across marshes in different tidal ranges inspired a paradigm that marshes in high tidal range environments are more resilient to sea level rise than marshes in low tidal range environments. We use field‐based observations to propose a relationship between vegetation growth and tidal range and to adapt two numerical...

Various species of frogs produce foam nests that hold their eggs during development. We examined the external morphology and histology of structures associated with foam nest production in frogs of the genus Leptodactylus and a few other taxa. We found that the posterior convolutions of the oviducts in all mature female foam-nesting frogs that we examined were enlarged and compressed...

Acidic mine drainage (AMD) from legacy anthracite mines has contaminated Swatara Creek in eastern Pennsylvania. Intermittently collected base-flow data for 1959–1986 indicate that fish were absent immediately downstream from the mined area where pH ranged from 3.5 to 7.2 and concentrations of sulfate, dissolved iron, and dissolved aluminum were as high as 250, 2.0, and 4.7 mg/L...

A variety of passive and semi-passive treatment systems were constructed by state and local agencies to neutralize acidic mine drainage (AMD) and reduce the transport of dissolved metals in the upper Swatara Creek Basin in the Southern Anthracite Coalfield in eastern Pennsylvania. To evaluate the effectiveness of selected treatment systems installed during 1995–2001, the US Geological...

There are numerous reports of spiders that have become established outside of their native ranges, but few studies examine their impact on native spiders. We examined the effect of the European hammock spider Linyphia triangularis (Araneae, Linyphiidae) on the native bowl-and-doily spider Frontinella communis (Araneae, Linyphiidae) in Acadia National Park, Maine, USA. First, we added L

This report presents summary papers of work conducted between 2002 and 2007 under a 5-year project effort funded by the U.S. Geological Survey Mineral Resources Program, formerly entitled 'Tintina Metallogenic Province: Integrated Studies on Geologic Framework, Mineral Resources, and Environmental Signatures.' As the project progressed, the informal title changed from 'Tintina...

During the period August 14-23, 2002, the discharge of total suspended solids (TSS) from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority sewage-treatment plant ranged from 32 to 132 milligrams per liter, causing the monthly average discharge to exceed the limit specified in the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit. Time-series monitoring data collected by the U.S...

A variety of algorithms are available for parameterizing the hydrodynamic bottom roughness associated with grain size, saltation, bedforms, and wave–current interaction in coastal ocean models. These parameterizations give rise to spatially and temporally variable bottom-drag coefficients that ostensibly provide better representations of physical processes than uniform and constant...

A study of road-deicing chloride (Cl) concentrations and loads was conducted at three streams in Chittenden County, VT, from November 2005 to 2007. This study was done by the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Vermont Agency of Transportation. The streams, Alder Brook, Allen Brook, and Mill Brook, were selected to represent different land uses in the upstream watershed...