Publications

Ground-water levels in Lancaster, California, declined more than 200 feet during the 20th century, resulting in reduced ground-water supplies and more than 6 feet of land subsidence. Facing continuing population growth, water managers are seeking solutions to these problems. Injection of imported, treated fresh water into the aquifer system when it is most available and least expensive...

Part of the 2002 industrial minerals review. The production, consumption, and price of shale and common clay in the U.S. during 2002 are discussed. The impact of EPA regulations on brick and structural clay product manufacturers is also outlined.

Mexico and Spain are the leading producers of celestite, the most common strontium ore. Those countries produced nearly 80 percent of the estimated 360 kt (397,000 st) of celestite produced worldwide during 2002. China and Turkey are other significant celestite producers.

Fluorspar, this month’s featured mineral resource commodity, has been widely used in steelmaking since the introduction of basic open-hearth furnace technology in the late 19th century. Its uses have grown and changed over the last 100 years, and now fluorspar’s most important markets are fluorochemicals, aluminum refining and steel. M. Michael Miller, Fluorspar Commodity Specialist for...

Several long-term mark recapture studies have been conducted on box turtles (Terrapene c. carolina) providing valuable information on life span, basic demography, home range, and apparent effects of environmental changes on box turtle survival. One of the longest studied populations was first marked in 1942 on the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland, and has been surveyed every...

Heterogeneity in detection probabilities has long been recognized as problematic in mark-recapture studies, and numerous models developed to accommodate its effects. Individual heterogeneity is especially problematic, in that reasonable alternative models may predict essentially identical observations from populations of substantially different sizes. Thus even with very large samples...

The Leetown Science Center conducts research to provide information needed to restore, enhance, maintain, and protect fish and other important aquatic and terrestrial organisms and their supporting ecosystems.

Germanium is a hard, brittle semimetal that first came into use over a half-century ago as a semiconductor material in radar units and in the first transistor ever made. Most germanium is recovered as a byproduct of zinc smelting, but it has also been recovered at some copper smelters and from the fly ash of coal-burning industrial power plants.

Ground-water-quality data collected as part of 12 U.S. Geological Survey National Water-Quality Assessment studies during 1996-2001 were analyzed to (1) document arsenic occurrence in four types of gla-cial deposits that occur in large areas of the Midwest, (2) identify hydrogeologic or geochemical factors asso-ciated with elevated arsenic concentrations, and (3) search for clues as to...

A general treatment of petroleum and PAHs including presentations on composition and characteristics, sources, environmental fate, and effects on plants, invertebrates, fish, reptiles and amphibians, birds, and mammals. A revision of the 1995 book chapter of the same title.

Predation by bobcats (Lynx rufus) has been the greatest cause of mortality of whooping cranes (Grus americana) in the reintroduced population in Florida. This study investigated whether the behavior of juvenile cranes during captive rearing and shortly after release can be used to predict their chances of survival once released in the wild. This study also examined differences in...

The beak, or bill, of the bird is a complicated structure. The avian skull is described as having some reptilian features; this includes a quadrate bone that articulates with the articular bone of the lower jaw.