Book Chapters
Science Quality and Integrity
The USGS provides unbiased, objective, and impartial scientific information upon which our audiences, including resource managers, planners, and other entities, rely.
The USGS provides unbiased, objective, and impartial scientific information upon which our audiences, including resource managers, planners, and other entities, rely.
Browse more than 5,500 book chapters authored by our scientists over the past 100+ year history of the USGS and refine search by topic, location, year, and advanced search.
Filter Total Items: 6071
Valuing ecosystem services using benefit transfer: Separating credible and incredible approaches
Ecosystem goods and services are now widely recognized as the benefits that humans derive from the natural environment around them including abiotic (e.g. atmosphere) and biotic components. The work by Costanza et al. (1997) to value the world’s ecosystem services brought the concept of ecosystem service valuation to the attention of the world press and environmental economists working in the area
Authors
John H. Loomis, Leslie Richardson, Timm Kroeger, Frank Casey
Improving tsunami resiliency: California's Tsunami Policy Working Group
California has established a Tsunami Policy Working Group to facilitate development of policy recommendations for tsunami hazard mitigation. The Tsunami Policy Working Group brings together government and industry specialists from diverse fields including tsunami, seismic, and flood hazards, local and regional planning, structural engineering, natural hazard policy, and coastal engineering. The gr
Authors
Charles R. Real, Laurie Johnson, Lucile M. Jones, Stephanie L. Ross
Contrasting volcanism in Hawaiʻi and the Galápagos
The archipelagos of Hawai‘i and the Galápagos originated at mantle hotspots, yet the volcanoes that make up the island chains differ in most respects. Some of the most important differences include the dynamics of magma supply, characteristics of magma storage and transport, morphology, and compositional and structural evolution. Of particular significance in the Galápagos is the lack of well-deve
Authors
Michael P. Poland, Karen S. Harpp, Eric Mittelstaedt, Noémi d'Ozouville, David W. Graham
The geology and geochemistry of Isla Floreana, Galápagos: A different type of late-stage ocean island volcanism
Isla Floreana, the southernmost volcano in the Galápagos Archipelago, has erupted a diverse suite of alkaline basalts continually since 1.5 Ma. Because these basalts have different compositions than xenoliths and older lavas from the deep submarine sector of the volcano, Floreana is interpreted as being in a rejuvenescent or late-stage phase of volcanism. Most lavas contain xenoliths, or their dis
Authors
Karen S. Harpp, Dennis J. Geist, Alison M. Koleszar, Branden Christensen, John J. Lyons, Melissa Sabga, Nathan Rollins
The rock coast of the USA
The coastline of the USA is vast and comprises a variety of landform types including barrier islands, mainland beaches, soft bluffed coastlines and hard rocky coasts. The majority of the bluffed and rocky coasts are found in the northeastern part of the country (New England) and along the Pacific coast. Rocky and bluffed landform types are commonly interspersed along the coastline and occur as a r
Authors
Cheryl J. Hapke, Peter N. Adams, Jonathan Allan, Andrew Ashton, Gary B. Griggs, Monty A. Hampton, Joseph Kelly, Adam P. Young
Great Apes
Anesthesia of great apes is often necessary to conduct diagnostic analysis, provide therapeutics, facilitate surgical procedures, and enable transport and translocation for conservation purposes. Due to the stress of remote delivery injection of anesthetic agents, recent studies have focused on oral delivery and/or transmucosal absorption of preanesthetic and anesthetic agents. Maintenance of the
Authors
Jonathan M. Sleeman, Shannon Cerveny
Protected area management
Designated protected areas are diverse in scope and purpose and have expanded from Yellowstone National Park in the United States, the world’s first national park, to 157,897 parks and protected areas distributed globally. Most are publicly owned and serve multiple needs that reflect regional or national cultures. With ever-increasing threats to the integrity of protected areas, managers are turni
Authors
Daniel B. Fagre, Tony Prato
Linking environmental variability to population and community dynamics
Linking population and community responses to environmental variability lies at the heart of ecology, yet methodological approaches vary and existence of broad patterns spanning taxonomic groups remains unclear. We review the characteristics of environmental and biological variability. Classic approaches to link environmental variability to population and community variability are discussed as are
Authors
Jelena H. Pantel, Daniel E. Pendleton, Annika W. Walters, Lauren A. Rogers
Timing is everything
No abstract available.
Authors
Erin J. Walaszczyk, Cory O. Brant, Nicholas S. Johnson, Weiming Li
Diatom and silicoflagellate biostratigraphy for the late Eocene: ODP 1090 (sub-Antarctic Atlantic)
Abundant and well-preserved diatoms and silicofl agellate assemblages are documented through a complete late Eocene sequence, ODP Hole 1090B, recovered from the southern Agulhas Ridge in the sub-Antarctic South Atlantic. A sequence of Cestodiscus (diatom) species occurrence events involving C. pulchellus var. novazealandica, C. fennerae, C. antarcticus, C. convexus, C. trochus, and C. robustus is
Authors
John A. Barron, David B. Bukry, Rainer Gersonde
Graptemys gibbonsi Lovich and McCoy -- Pascagoula Map Turtle
DEFINITION. The Pascagoula Map Turtle, Graptemys gibbonsi, is a large riverine species that exhibits pronounced sexual dimorphism, where females attain a maximum carapace length (CL) of 295 mm and males a maximum of 141 mm (Lovich et al. 2009). Mean adult female CL (248 mm) can be well over twice the mean CL of adult males (104 mm; Gibbons and Lovich 1990, Lovich et al. 2009). In addition, females
Authors
Jeffrey E. Lovich, Joshua R. Ennen
Cenozoic mountain building on the northeastern Tibetan Plateau
Northeastern Tibetan Plateau growth illuminates the kinematics, geodynamics, and climatic consequences of large-scale orogenesis, yet only recently have data become available to outline the spatiotemporal pattern and rates of this growth. I review the tectonic history of range growth across the plateau margin north of the Kunlun fault (35°–40°N) and east of the Qaidam basin (98°–107°E), synthesizi
Authors
Richard O. Lease