Unified Interior Regions

A cooperative agreement with the University of Southern California (USC) for the operation of the Southern California Earthquake Center has been renewed by the U.S. Geological Survey.

LECTURE: -- "LIVING WITH GEOLOGIC HAZARDS IN SAN MATEO COUNTY" WILL BE THE SUBJECT OF THE NEXT U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY’S FREE PUBLIC LECTURE.

"There is mounting evidence that Mars is a water-rich planet that may have experienced warmer climates, and therefore, life, in the past,"according to Michael Carr, an astrogeologist with the U.S.Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif.

LECTURE: -- "THE COLORADO RIVER IN THE GRAND CANYON" WILL BE THE SUBJECT OF THE NEXT U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY’S FREE PUBLIC LECTURE.

Hydrologists and chemists from the U.S. Geological Survey will be on Mallard Island, near Pittsburg today, Jan. 8, collecting water and sediment samples from Bay-Delta waters to determine the amount of pesticides that are being washed into the Bay by this year’s floods on Bay-Delta rivers.

The floods have crested and are beginning to recede in most places in the Pacific Northwest. Nevertheless dozens of U.S. Geological Survey personnel, who were busy over the holidays measuring the high streamflows and keeping river stage monitors operating, are still busy in the field and in their offices. Field crews have been hampered by mudslides, road closures, and extremely dangerous condition

The good news is that sea water and wave action aren’t being too rough on some sections of the beach cliffs of the San Mateo County, Calif., coast; the bad news is that slumping caused by fresh water erosion is destroying some of the beach cliffs at rates of up to two meters per year, according to scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif.

A new method of assessing the danger of ground failure due to soil liquefaction during an earthquake made its debut in San Francisco, Tuesday afternoon, December 17.

"Secrets in Stone," a video that chronicles the series of scientific discoveries in the early 1960s that led to broad acceptance of the theory of plate tectonics, will be shown for the first time on Tuesday, December 17, 1996, at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco. The premiere showing will be held at 4:30 p.m., in Room 122 of the Moscone Center.

Dr. Crofton B. Farmer of Pasadena, California, and Dr. M. Patrick McCormick of Hampton, Virginia, have received the 1996 Pecora Award, one of the top federal awards for contributions in remote sensing. 

Where in the United States are Carmen and San Diego? Now, you can get fast and accurate information on the Internet about Carmen, San Diego, and almost 2 million other domestic geographic names, via the new World Wide Web site for the U.S. Geological Survey’s Geographic Names Information System.