Publications
This list of Water Resources Mission Area publications includes both official USGS publications and journal articles authored by our scientists. A searchable database of all USGS publications can be accessed at the USGS Publications Warehouse.
Filter Total Items: 18465
Determining timescales for groundwater flow and solute transport
One of the principal uses of environmental tracers is for determining the ages of soil waters and groundwaters. (We may refer to this as ‘hydrochronology’by analogy with the dating of solid materials known as geochronology.) Information on soil water and groundwater age enables timescales for a range of subsurface processes to be determined. For example, ‘groundwater stratigraphy’is used increasin
Authors
Peter G. Cook, John K. Böhlke
Geochemical investigations by the U.S. Geological Survey on uranium mining, milling, and environmental restoration
Recent research by the U.S. Geological Survey has characterized contaminant sources and identified important geochemical processes that influence transport of radionuclides from uranium mining and milling wastes. 1) Selective extraction studies indicated that alkaline earth sulfates and hydrous ferric oxides are important hosts of 226Ra in uranium mill tailings. The action of sulfate-reducing and
Authors
Edward R. Landa, Charles A. Cravotta, David L. Naftz, Philip L. Verplanck, D. Kirk Nordstrom, Robert A. Zielinski
Integrating chemical, water quality, habitat, and fish assemblage data from the San Joaquin River drainage, California
No abstract available.
Authors
Larry R. Brown, Charles R. Kratzer, Neil M. Dubrovsky
An evaluation of methods for identifying and interpreting buried soils in late Quaternary loess in Alaska: A section in Geologic studies in Alaska by the U.S. Geological Survey, 1998
The presence of buried soils in Alaskan loess is controversial, and therefore criteria for identifying buried soils in these deposits need to be evaluated. In this paper, morphologic and chemical criteria for identifying buried soils are evaluated by studying modern soils developed mostly in Holocene loess under tundra, boreal forest, and transitional coastal-boreal forest vegetation in different
Authors
Daniel R. Muhs, Thomas A. Ager, Josh M. Been, Joseph G. Rosenbaum, Richard J. Reynolds
Exposure of delta smelt to dissolved pesticides in 1998 and 1999
Delta smelt is a threatened species in the San Francisco Bay Estuary. Pesticide toxicity is a possible cause for the need to list this fish (Bennett and Moyle 1996; Moyle and others 1996). Numerous pesticides are transported into the estuary from area rivers (MacCoy and others 1995). However, there are minimal data to document the presence, or absence, of pesticides within delta smelt habitat, esp
Authors
G. Edward Moon, Kathryn Kuivila, Catherine A. Ruhl, David H. Schoellhamer
Recharge from a subsidence crater at the Nevada test site
Current recharge through the alluvial fans of the Nevada Test Site (NTS) is considered to be negligible, but the impact of more than 400 nuclear subsidence craters on recharge is uncertain. Many of the craters contain a playa region, but the impact of these playas has not been addressed. It was hypothesized that a crater playa would focus infiltration through the surrounding coarser-grained materi
Authors
G. V. Wilson, D.M. Ely, S. L. Hokett, D. R. Gillespie
Use of field-applied quality control samples to monitor performance of a Goulden large-sample extractor/GC-MS method for pesticides in water
Since 1985, the Goulden large-sample extractor (GLSE) has been used to isolate a broad array of trace-organic contaminants from large volumes of water. In this study, field-applied quality control measures, including matrix and surrogate spikes and blanks, were used to monitor method performance from GLSE extraction through GC-MS analysis. The method was applied to the determination of multiple cl
Authors
W.T. Foreman, Paul M. Gates, G.D. Foster, F. A. Rinella, S. W. McKenzie
Mechanism and rate of denitrification in an agricultural watershed: Electron and mass balance along groundwater flow paths
The rate and mechanism of nitrate removal along and between groundwater flow paths were investigated using a series of well nests screened in an unconfined sand and gravel aquifer. Intensive agricultural activity in this area has resulted in nitrate concentrations in groundwater often exceeding drinking water standards. Both the extent and rate of denitrification varied depending on the groundwate
Authors
Anthony J. Tesoriero, Hugh Liebscher, Stephen E. Cox
Hydrology of the Helena area bedrock, west-central Montana, 1993-98
The Generalized Bedrock Geologic Map of the Helena Area, West-Central Montana (plate 1 in the report) provides an intermediate-scale overview of bedrock in the Helena area. The geologic map has been compiled at a scale of 1:100,000 from the most widely available sources of geologic map information (see index to geologic mapping on pl. 1). That information has been updated by M.W. Reynolds for this
Authors
Joanna N. Thamke, Mitchell W. Reynolds
Water-level conditions in the Black Creek aquifer, 1992-98, in parts of Bladen, Hoke, Robeson, and Scotland Counties, North Carolina
No abstract available.
Authors
A.G. Strickland
Techniques for estimating magnitude and frequency of peak flows for Pennsylvania streams
Regression equations for estimating the magnitude and frequency of floods on ungaged streams in Pennsylvania with drainage areas less that 2,000 square miles were developed on the basis of peak-flow data collected at 313 streamflow-gaging stations. All streamflow-gaging stations used in the development of the equations had 10 or more years of record and include active and discontinued continuous-r
Authors
Marla H. Stuckey, Lloyd A. Reed
Concentrations of selected trace elements in fish tissue and streambed sediment in the Clark Fork-Pend Oreille and Spokane River basins, Washington, Idaho, and Montana, 1998
Fish tissue and bed sediment samples were collected from 16 stream sites in the Northern Rockies Intermontane Basins study area in 1998 as part of the U.S. Geological Survey National Water-Quality Assessment Program. Bed sediment samples were analyzed for 45 trace elements, and fish livers and sportfish fillets were analyzed for 22 elements to characterize the occurrence and distribution of these
Authors
Terry R. Maret, K. D. Skinner