Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Publications

Filter Total Items: 7225

Dust in the wind: long range transport of dust in the atmosphere and its implications for global public and ecosystem health

Movement of soil particles in atmospheres is a normal planetary process. Images of Martian dust devils (wind-spouts) and dust storms captured by NASA's Pathfinder have demonstrated the significant role that storm activity plays in creating the red atmospheric haze of Mars. On Earth, desert soils moving in the atmosphere are responsible for the orange hues in brilliant sunrises and sunsets. In seve
Authors
Dale W. Griffin, Christina A. Kellogg, Eugene A. Shinn

Coastal storms and shoreline change: signal or noise?

A linear regression (studentized) residual analysis was used to identify potential shoreline position outliers and to investigate the effect of the outliers on shoreline rate-of-change values for transects along the Outer Banks, North Carolina. Results from this analysis showed that, over a 134 year period, storm-influenced data contribute statistically significant information to the long-term sig
Authors
Michael S. Fenster, Robert Dolan, Robert A. Morton

Seafloor collapse and methane venting associated with gas hydrate on the Blake Ridge: causes and implications to seafloor stability and methane release

No abstract available.
Authors
William P. Dillon, Jeffrey W. Nealon, Michael H. Taylor, Myung W. Lee, Rebecca M. Drury, Christopher H. Anton

Sea-level and environmental changes since the last interglacial in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia: an overview

The Gulf of Carpentaria is an epicontinental sea (maximum depth 70 m) between Australia and New Guinea, bordered to the east by Torres Strait (currently 12 m deep) and to the west by the Arafura Sill (53 m below present sea level). Throughout the Quaternary, during times of low sea-level, the Gulf was separated from the open waters of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, forming Lake Carpentaria, an iso
Authors
Allan R. Chivas, Adriana Garcı́a, Sander van der Kaars, Martine Couapel, Sabine Holt, Jessica M. Reeves, David J. Wheeler, Adam D. Switzer, Colin V. Murray-Wallace, Debabrata Banerjee, David M. Price, Sue X. Wang, Grant Pearson, N. Terry Edgar, Luc Beaufort, Patrick de Deckker, Ewan Lawson, C. Blaine Cecil

USGS-NPS-NASA research on coastal change and habitats within US national seashores

No abstract available.
Authors
John Brock, Mark Duffy, William Krabill, Melanie Harris, Laura Moore, Asbury Sallenger

Fish species and community distributions as proxies for sea-floor habitat distributions: the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary example (northwest Atlantic, Gulf Of Maine)

Defining the habitats of fishes and associated fauna on outer continental shelves is problematic given the paucity of data on the actual types and distributions of seafloor habitats. However many regions have good data on the distributions of fishes from resource surveys or catch statistics because of the economic importance of the fisheries. Fish distribution data (species or communities) have be
Authors
Peter J. Auster, Kevin Joy, Page C. Valentine

Planetary Interactive GIS-on-the-Web Analyzable Database (PIGWAD)

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) in Flagstaff, Arizona is producing a Web-based, user-friendly interface that integrates powerful Geographic Information Systems (GIS) statistical and spatial relational tools for analyses of planetary datasets. The interface, known as “Planetary Interactive GIS-on-the-Web Analyzable Database” (PIGWAD), provides database support for the research and academ
Authors
Trent M. Hare, Kenneth L. Tanaka

Observations and recommendations regarding landslide hazards related to the January 13, 2001 M-7.6 El Salvador earthquake

The January 13, 2001 earthquake (M-7.6) off the coast of El Salvador triggered widespread damaging landslides in many parts of the El Salvador. In the aftermath of the earthquake, the Salvadoran government requested technical assistance through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID); USAID, in turn, requested help from technical experts in landslide hazards from the U.S. Geological
Authors
Randall W. Jibson, Anthony J. Crone

Assessment of landslide hazards resulting from the February 13, 2001, El Salvador earthquake; a report to the government of El Salvador and the U. S. Agency for International Development

On February 13, 2001, a magnitude 6.5 earthquake occurred about 40 km eastsoutheast of the capital city of San Salvador in central El Salvador and triggered thousands of landslides in the area east of Lago de Ilopango. The landslides are concentrated in a 2,500-km2 area and are particularly abundant in areas underlain by thick deposits of poorly consolidated, late Pleistocene and Holoce
Authors
Rex L. Baum, Anthony J. Crone, Demetreo Escobar, Edwin L. Harp, Jon J. Major, Mauricio Martinez, Carlos Pullinger, Mark E. Smith

Did you feel it? Community-made earthquake shaking maps

Since the early 1990's, the magnitude and location of an earthquake have been available within minutes on the Internet. Now, as a result of work by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and with the cooperation of various regional seismic networks, people who experience an earthquake can go online and share information about its effects to help create a map of shaking intensities and damage. Such 'Com
Authors
D. J. Wald, L. A. Wald, J. W. Dewey, Vince Quitoriano, Elisabeth Adams

Geophysics: Silent slip on the Cascadia subduction interface

Geodetic satellites of the Global Positioning System (GPS) now permit continuous recording of surface motions around earthquake faults and volcanoes with millimeter precision. Data from distinct points on Earth's surface can be combined to infer the locations of the sources of deformation at depth in the crust. These data are radically altering our understanding of earthquake processes, justifying
Authors
Wayne R. Thatcher