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Paco Van Sistine

Paco Van Sistine is a Geographer with the Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center

Science and Products

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scientists near Saratoga Springs, Death Valley

Quaternary Hydroclimate Records of Spring Ecosystems

Desert springs and wetlands are among the most biologically productive, diverse, and fragile ecosystems on Earth. They are home to thousands of rare, endemic, and endangered plants and animals and reflect the availability and health of emergent groundwater. Despite the ecological importance of these wetlands, our knowledge of how they might respond to predicted future climate change is limited...
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Climate Research and Development Program
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Quaternary Hydroclimate Records of Spring Ecosystems

Desert springs and wetlands are among the most biologically productive, diverse, and fragile ecosystems on Earth. They are home to thousands of rare, endemic, and endangered plants and animals and reflect the availability and health of emergent groundwater. Despite the ecological importance of these wetlands, our knowledge of how they might respond to predicted future climate change is limited...
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Measuring paleoflow directions in the overturned beds of the Pennsylvanian Atoka Formation at the Paris Spillway, Paris, AR

Ozark Dome-Arkoma Basin-Ouachita Transect

The Ozark Dome-Arkoma Basin-Ouachita Transect (ODABOuT) project examines the three-dimensional geology of a transect of the southern orogenic margin of North America in its best surface exposure in western Arkansas. The Ozark Dome and Arkoma Basin represent a foreland uplift and foreland basin that formed as a result of the impinging Ouachita orogenic belt. Understanding the geometry and evolution...
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Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center
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Ozark Dome-Arkoma Basin-Ouachita Transect

The Ozark Dome-Arkoma Basin-Ouachita Transect (ODABOuT) project examines the three-dimensional geology of a transect of the southern orogenic margin of North America in its best surface exposure in western Arkansas. The Ozark Dome and Arkoma Basin represent a foreland uplift and foreland basin that formed as a result of the impinging Ouachita orogenic belt. Understanding the geometry and evolution...
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Mt. Ouray, Colorado with aspen colors

Geologic Framework of the Intermountain West

The Geologic Framework of the Intermountain West project was launched with the goal of producing a new digital geologic map database and 3D geologic model of a transect from the Rio Grande rift to the Basin and Range, based on a synthesis of existing geologic maps with new targeted new mapping, subsurface data, and other data sets. This database will integrate disparate map data, resolve...
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Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center
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Geologic Framework of the Intermountain West

The Geologic Framework of the Intermountain West project was launched with the goal of producing a new digital geologic map database and 3D geologic model of a transect from the Rio Grande rift to the Basin and Range, based on a synthesis of existing geologic maps with new targeted new mapping, subsurface data, and other data sets. This database will integrate disparate map data, resolve...
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Geologic map of the north half of the Lake Walcott 30'×60' quadrangle, Idaho

The geologic map of the northern half of the Lake Walcott 30ʹ×60ʹ quadrangle shows the volcanic geology of the southern part of the Craters of the Moon lava field, the complex geologic features of the Holocene Kings Bowl and Wapi lava fields, and the southern part of the Great Rift volcanic rift zone. The long extent and distribution of skylights in lava-tube systems of the Horse Butte and Wapi Pa
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Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center

Geologic map of Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado

Geologic mapping was begun after a range fire swept the area of what is now the Great Sand Dunes National Park in April 2000. The park spans an area of 437 square kilometers (or about 169 square miles), of which 98 percent is blanketed by sediment of Quaternary age, the Holocene and Pleistocene Epochs; hence, this geologic map of the Great Sand Dunes National Park is essentially a surficial geolog
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Groundwater and Streamflow Information Program, Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center

Geologic map of the Rio Rico and Nogales 7.5’ quadrangles, Santa Cruz County, Arizona

The Rio Rico and Nogales (Arizona) 1:24,000-scale quadrangles are located in the Basin and Range Province of southern Arizona, and the southern edge of the map is the international border with Sonora, Mexico.  The major urban area is Nogales, a bi-national city known as “the gateway to Mexico.”  Rocks exposed in the map area range in age from Jurassic through Quaternary.  Major physiographic, geol
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Groundwater and Streamflow Information Program, Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center

Surficial geology and stratigraphy of Pleistocene Lake Manix, San Bernardino County, California

Pluvial Lake Manix and its surrounding drainage basin, in the central Mojave Desert of California, has been a focus of paleoclimate, surficial processes, and neotectonic studies by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) since about 2004. The USGS initiated studies of Lake Manix deposits to improve understanding of the paleoclimatic record and the shifts in atmospheric circulation that controlled precip
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Groundwater and Streamflow Information Program, Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center

Geologic map of the Craters of the Moon 30' x 60' Quadrangle, Idaho

The Craters of the Moon 30 x 60 minute quadrangle shows the geology of the northern two-thirds of the Craters of the Moon (COM) lava field and volcanic structures of the northern and central parts of the Great Rift volcanic rift zone. The COM lava field is the largest, predominantly Holocene lava field in the conterminous United States. The northwest corner of the map shows older sedimentary, in
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Natural Hazards, Volcano Hazards, Volcano Science Center, Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center

Distribution of Late Quaternary wind-deposited sand in eastern Colorado

Geologic map of Gunnison Gorge National Conservation Area, Delta and Montrose Counties, Colorado

This publication consists of a geologic map database and printed map sheet. The map sheet has a geologic map as the center piece, and accompanying text describes (1) the various geological units, (2) the uplift history of the region and how it relates to canyon downcutting, (3) the ecology of the gorge, and (4) human history. The map is intended to be used by the general public as well as scient

Map of glacial limits and possible refugia in the southern Alexander Archipelago, Alaska, during the late Wisconsin glaciation

During the late Wisconsin glaciation (circa 26,000-13,000 carbon-14 yr BP) the Cordilleran glacier complex formed vast ice fields and large glaciers along the crest of the Coast Mountains. As these glaciers flowed west to the Pacific Ocean, they were joined by local glaciers originating on the higher reaches of the Alexander Archipelago (Mann and Hamiltion, 1995). This extensive volume of

A new 30 meter resolution global shoreline vector and associated global islands database for the development of standardized ecological coastal units

A new 30-m spatial resolution global shoreline vector (GSV) was developed from annual composites of 2014 Landsat satellite imagery. The semi-automated classification of the imagery was accomplished by manual selection of training points representing water and non-water classes along the entire global coastline. Polygon topology was applied to the GSV, resulting in a new characterisation of the num
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Core Science Systems, Land Change Science Program

Geologic framework and hydrogeology of the Rio Rico and Nogales 7.5’ quadrangles, upper Santa Cruz Basin, Arizona, with three-dimensional hydrogeologic model

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 evaluate an
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Groundwater and Streamflow Information Program, Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center

A new high-resolution map of world mountains and an online tool for visualizing and comparing characterizations of global mountain distributions

Answers to the seemingly straightforward questions “what is a mountain?” and “where are the mountains of the world?” are in fact quite complex, and there have been few attempts to map the mountains of the earth in a consistent and rigorous fashion. However, knowing exactly where mountain ecosystems are distributed on the planet is a precursor to conserving them, as called for in Sustainable Develo
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Core Science Systems, Land Change Science Program

A new map of global ecological land units—An ecophysiographic stratification approach

In response to the need and an intergovernmental commission for a high resolution and data-derived global ecosystem map, land surface elements of global ecological pattern were characterized in an ecophysiographic stratification of the planet. The stratification produced 3,923 terrestrial ecological land units (ELUs) at a base resolution of 250 meters. The ELUs were derived from data on land surfa
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Core Science Systems, Groundwater and Streamflow Information Program, Land Change Science Program, Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center

Project plan-Surficial geologic mapping and hydrogeologic framework studies in the Greater Platte River Basins (Central Great Plains) in support of ecosystem and climate change research

The Greater Platte River Basin area spans a central part of the Midcontinent and Great Plains from the Rocky Mountains on the west to the Missouri River on the east, and is defined to include drainage areas of the Platte, Niobrara, and Republican Rivers, the Rainwater Basin, and other adjoining areas overlying the northern High Plains aquifer. The Greater Platte River Basin contains abundant surfi
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Geology, Minerals, Energy, and Geophysics Science Center, Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center

Preliminary geologic map of the Laredo, Crystal City–Eagle Pass, San Antonio, and Del Rio 1° x 2° quadrangles, Texas, and the Nuevo Laredo, Ciudad Acuña, Piedras Negras, and Nueva Rosita 1° x 2° quadrangles, Mexico

The purpose of this map is to provide an integrated, bi-national geologic map dataset for display and analyses on an Arc Internet Map Service (IMS) dedicated to environmental health studies in the United States-Mexico border region. The IMS web site was designed by the US-Mexico Border Environmental Health Initiative project and collaborators, and the IMS and project web site address is http://bor
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Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center

Ride the Rockies! 2006 Geology Highlights, Cortez to Canon City June 18-June 23, 2006, 419 Miles

Preliminary geologic map of southernmost Texas, United States, and parts of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon, Mexico: environmental health investigations in the United States-Mexico border region

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Water Resources, Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center

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