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Publications

Products (journal articles, reports, fact sheets) authored by current and past scientists are listed below. Please check the USGS Pubs Warehouse for other USGS publications.

Filter Total Items: 1826

J is for jack

The early days of drilling created a test of strength and endurance for miners.
Authors
W. H. Langer

I is for isinglass

Once commonly used in coal and wood-burning stoves, U.S. production of mica has all but ceased.
Authors
W. H. Langer

Using airborne geophysical surveys to improve groundwater resource management models

Increasingly, groundwater management requires more accurate hydrogeologic frameworks for groundwater models. These complex issues have created the demand for innovative approaches to data collection. In complicated terrains, groundwater modelers benefit from continuous high‐resolution geologic maps and their related hydrogeologic‐parameter estimates. The USGS and its partners have collaborated to
Authors
Jared D. Abraham, James C. Cannia, Steven M. Peterson, Bruce D. Smith, Burke J. Minsley, Paul A. Bedrosian

Kinetics of selenium release in mine waste from the Meade Peak Phosphatic Shale, Phosphoria Formation, Wooley Valley, Idaho, USA

Phosphorite from the Meade Peak Phosphatic Shale member of the Permian Phosphoria Formation has been mined in southeastern Idaho since 1906. Dumps of waste rock from mining operations contain high concentrations of Se which readily leach into nearby streams and wetlands. While the most common mineralogical residence of Se in the phosphatic shale is elemental Se, Se(0), Se is also an integral compo
Authors
Lisa L. Stillings, Michael C. Amacher

The tectono-stratigraphic framework and evolution of southwestern Maine and southeastern New Hampshire

Five belts of metamorphosed sedimentary and volcanic rocks underlie southwestern Maine and southeastern New Hampshire: Middle Ordovician Falmouth-Brunswick sequence; Middle and Late Ordovician Casco Bay Group, and Late Ordovician to Early Silurian rocks of the Merribuckfred Basin; Late Ordovician to Early Silurian rocks of the East Harpswell Group; Silurian to Early Devonian rocks of the Central M
Authors
Arthur M. Hussey, Wallace A. Bothner, John N. Alienikoff

Estimating natural background groundwater chemistry, Questa molybdenum mine, New Mexico

This 2 1/2 day field trip will present an overview of a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) project whose objective was to estimate pre-mining groundwater chemistry at the Questa molybdenum mine, New Mexico. Because of intense debate among stakeholders regarding pre-mining groundwater chemistry standards, the New Mexico Environment Department and Chevron Mining Inc. (formerly Molycorp) agreed that the U
Authors
Phillip L. Verplanck, D. Kirk Nordstrom, Geoffrey S. Plumlee, Bruce M. Walker

Response to the comment by Henry Kahn and Dennis Santella on a summary of the development of a signature for detection of residual dust from the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings

A response by Gregory P. Meeker and colleagues to a commentary on their article on the development of a signature for detection of residual dust from the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings is presented
Authors
Gregory P. Meeker, Heather Lowers, Paul J. Lioy, Morton Lippmann

Thermochronology and tectonics of the Leeward Antilles: Evolution of the southern Caribbean Plate boundary zone

Tectonic reconstructions of the Caribbean Plate are severely hampered by a paucity of geochronologic and exhumation constraints from anastomosed basement blocks along its southern margin. New U/Pb, 40Ar/39Ar, apatite fission track, and apatite (U-Th)/He data constrain quantitative thermal and exhumation histories, which have been used to propose a model for the tectonic evolution of the emergent p
Authors
Roelant van der Lelij, Richard A. Spikings, Andrew C. Kerr, Alexandre Kounov, Michael Cosca, David Chew, Diego Villagomez

Episodic swell growth inferred from variable uplift of the Cape Verde hotspot islands

On the Beagle voyage, Charles Darwin first noted the creation and subsidence of ocean islands1, establishing in geology’s infancy that island freeboard changes with time. Hotspot ocean islands have an obvious mechanism for freeboard change through the growth of the bathymetric anomaly, or swell2, on which the islands rest. Models for swell development indicate that flexural9, thermal2,3 or dynamic
Authors
R. Ramalho, G. Helffrich, M. Cosca, D. Vance, D. Hoffmann, D.N. Schmidt

Formation of the Wiesloch Mississippi Valley-type Zn-Pb-Ag deposit in the extensional setting of the Upper Rhinegraben, SW Germany

The Mississippi Valley-type (MVT) Zn–Pb–Ag deposit in the Wiesloch area, Southwest Germany, is controlled by graben-related faults of the Upper Rhinegraben. Mineralization occurs as vein fillings and irregular replacement ore bodies consisting of sphalerite, banded sphalerite, galena, pyrite, sulfosalts (jordanite and geocronite), barite, and calcite in the Middle Triassic carbonate host rock. Com
Authors
Katharina Pfaff, Ludwig H. Hildebrandt, David L. Leach, Dorrit E. Jacob, Gregor Markl