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Book Chapters

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: 6063

A chronicle of Miocene extension near the Colorado Plateau-Basin and Range boundary, southern White Hills, northwestern Arizona: Paleogeographic and tectonic implications

In northwestern Arizona, the high-standing, relatively unextended Colorado Plateau abruptly gives way across a system of major west-dipping normal faults to a highly extended part of the Basin and Range province known as the northern Colorado River extensional corridor. The transition from unextended to highly extended upper crust is unusually sharp within this region, contrasting with a broad tra
Authors
James E. Faulds, Linda M. Price, Lawrence W Snee, Philip B. Gans

Bioaccumulation and trophic transfer of selenium

No abstract available. 
Authors
A. Robin Stewart, M. Grosell, David B. Buchwalter, Nicholas S. Fisher, S. N. Luoma, T. Matthews, P. Orr, W.-X. Wang

Tools for assessing contaminated sediments in freshwater, estuarine, and marine ecosystems

Traditionally, concerns about the management of aquatic resources in aquatic ecosystems have focused primarily on water quality. As such, early water resource management efforts were often directed at assuring the potability of surface water or groundwater sources. Subsequently, the scope of these management initiatives expanded to include protection of instream (i.e., fish and aquatic life), agri
Authors
Donald D. MacDonald, Christopher G. Ingersoll

Late eighteenth century Old Maid eruption and lahars at Mount Hood, Oregon (USA) dated with tree rings and historical observations

Tree rings of subfossil trees buried by lahars and lahar-derived sediments along the Sandy and Zigzag Rivers record the onset of a late eighteenth century eruption at Mount Hood, Oregon, USA (Figs. 1–2). Crandell (1980) described and named this eruptive activity the ‘Old Maid eruptive period’ and estimated its age at about “200–300 year” using radiocarbon ages of trees killed by lahars. Cameron an
Authors
Patrick T. Pringle, Thomas C. Pierson, Kenneth A. Cameron, P.R. Sheppard

Interpolating a consumption variable for scaling and generalizing potential population pressure on urbanizing natural areas

Measures of population pressure, referring in general to the stress upon the environment by human consumption of resources, are imperative for environmental sustainability studies and management. Development based on resource consumption is the predominant factor of population pressure. This paper presents a spatial model of population pressure by linking consumption associated with regional urban
Authors
Dalia Varanka

Real-time decision support systems: the famine early warning system network

A multi-institutional partnership, the US Agency for International Development’s Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) provides routine monitoring of climatic, agricultural, market, and socioeconomic conditions in over 20 countries. FEWS NET supports and informs disaster relief decisions that impact millions of people and involve billions of dollars. In this chapter, we focus on some of F
Authors
Christopher C. Funk, James P. Verdin

Oscillating load-induced acoustic emission in laboratory experiment

Spatial and temporal patterns of acoustic emission (AE) were studied. A pre-fractured cylinder of granite was loaded in a triaxial machine at 160 MPa confining pressure until stick-slip events occurred. The experiments were conducted at a constant strain rate of 10−7 s−1 that was modulated by small-amplitude sinusoidal oscillations with periods of 175 and 570 seconds. Amplitude of the oscillations
Authors
Alexander Ponomarev, David A. Lockner, S. Stroganova, S. Stanchits, V. Smirnov

Repeat photography and low-elevation fire responses in the southwestern United States

No abstract available.
Authors
R. M. Turner, R. H. Webb, T. C. Esque, G.F. Rogers

Submarine mass transport within Monterey Canyon: Benthic disturbance controls on the distribution of chemosynthetic biological communities

Documenting mass transport within Monterey Canyon and Fan has been a focus of remotely operated vehicle (ROV) observations, sampling, monitoring, and multibeam mapping studies. These efforts indicate that major mass transport events occur within upper Monterey Canyon (<2 km water depths) with a sub-annual recurrence frequency. However, 14C-stratigraphies indicate that a sand carrying event has not
Authors
Charles K. Paull, B. Schlining, W. Ussler, E. Lundsten, James P. Barry, D. W. Caress, D. E. Johnson, Mary McGann

The impact of hydrate saturation on the mechanical, electrical, and thermal properties of hydrate-bearing sand, silts, and clay

Proper understanding of the physical properties of hydrate-bearing sediments is required for interpretation of borehole logs and exploration geophysical data, the analysis of borehole and submarine slope stability, and the formulation of reservoir simulation and production models. Yet current knowledge of geophysical and geotechnical properties of hydrate-bearing sediments is still largely derived
Authors
J. Carlos Santamarina, Carolyn D. Ruppel

Flooding and Flood Management

Floods result in great human disasters globally and nationally, causing an average of $4 billion of damages each year in the United States. Minnesota has its share of floods and flood damages, and the state has awarded nearly $278 million to local units of government for flood mitigation projects through its Flood Hazard Mitigation Grant Program. Since 1995, flood mitigation in the Red River Valle
Authors
K.N. Brooks, J. D. Fallon, D. L. Lorenz, J. R. Stark, Jason Menard