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.
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Fecal indicator organism modeling and microbial source tracking in environmental waters: Chapter 3.4.6
Mathematical models have been widely applied to surface waters to estimate rates of settling, resuspension, flow, dispersion, and advection in order to calculate movement of particles that influence water quality. Of particular interest are the movement, survival, and persistence of microbial pathogens or their surrogates, which may contaminate recreational water, drinking water, or shellfish. Mos
Authors
Meredith Nevers, Muruleedhara Byappanahalli, Mantha S. Phanikumar, Richard L. Whitman
Measurement of bedform migration rates on the Lower Missouri River in Missouri, USA using repeat measurements with a multibeam echosounder
High-resolution repeat multibeam echosounder measurements on the Lower Missouri River near Boonville, Missouri, USA show bedform movement and sand storage patterns over daily to seasonal time scales and a range of discharges. Higher flows are frequently, but not always, associated with larger bedforms, higher bedform movement rates, and higher bedload transport rates. Measurements of the temporal
Authors
Caroline M. Elliott, Robert B. Jacobson
Rare earth element ore geology of carbonatites
For nearly 50 years, carbonatites have been the primary source of niobium and rare earth elements (REEs), in particular the light REEs, including La, Ce, Pr, and Nd. Carbonatites are a relatively rare type of igneous rock composed of greater than 50 vol % primary carbonate minerals, primarily calcite and/or dolomite, and contain the highest concentrations of REEs of any igneous rocks. Although the
Authors
Philip L. Verplanck, Anthony N. Mariano, Anthony Mariano
Recreation, values and stewardship: Rethinking why people engage in environmental behaviors in parks and protected areas
Successfully promoting and encouraging the adoption of environmental stewardship behavior is an important responsibility for public land management agencies. Although people increasingly report high levels of concern about environmental issues, widespread patterns of stewardship behavior have not followed suit (Moore 2002). One concept that can be applied in social science research to explain beha
Authors
Carena J. van Riper, Ryan Sharp, Kenneth J. Bagstad, Wade M. Vagias, Jane Kwenye, Gina Depper, Wayne Freimund
Archiving and access systems for remote sensing: Chapter 6
Focuses on major developments inaugurated by the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites, the Group on Earth Observations System of Systems, and the International Council for Science World Data System at the global level; initiatives at national levels to create data centers (e.g. the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Distributed Active Archive Centers and other international
Authors
John Faundeen, George Percivall, Shirley Baros, Peter Baumann, Peter H. Becker, J. Behnke, Karl Benedict, Lucio Colaiacomo, Liping Di, Chris Doescher, J. Dominguez, Roger Edberg, Mark Ferguson, Stephen Foreman, David Giaretta, Vivian B. Hutchison, Alex Ip, N.L. James, Siri Jodha S. Khalsa, B. Lazorchak, Adam Lewis, Fuqin Li, Leo Lymburner, C.S. Lynnes, Matt Martens, Rachel Melrose, Steve Morris, Norman Mueller, Vivek Navale, Kumar Navulur, D.J. Newman, Simon Oliver, Matthew Purss, H.K. Ramapriyan, Russ Rew, Michael Rosen, John Savickas, Joshua Sixsmith, Tom Sohre, David Thau, Paul Uhlir, Lan-Wei Wang, Jeff Young
Climate change
Climate change (including climate variability) refers to regional or global changes in mean climate state or in patterns of climate variability over decades to millions of years often identified using statistical methods and sometimes referred to as changes in long-term weather conditions (IPCC, 2012). Climate is influenced by changes in continent-ocean configurations due to plate tectonic process
Authors
Thomas M. Cronin
Geologic materials and human health: Chapter 5.14
No abstract available.
Authors
Geoffrey S. Plumlee, Suzette A. Morman
Lithium brines: A global perspective
Lithium is a critical and technologically important element that has widespread use, particularly in batteries for hybrid cars and portable electronic devices. Global demand for lithium has been on the rise since the mid-1900s and is projected to continue to increase. Lithium is found in three main deposit types: (1) pegmatites, (2) continental brines, and (3) hydrothermally altered clays. Contine
Authors
LeeAnn Munk, Scott Hynek, Dwight Bradley, David Boutt, Keith A. Labay, Hillary Jochens
The F'derik-Zouerate iron district: Mesoarchean and Paleoproterozoic iron formation of the Tiris Complex, Islamic Republic of Mauritania
High-grade hematitic iron ores (of HIF, containing 60-65 wt%Fe) have been mined in Mauritania since 1952 from Superior-type iron deposits of the F'derik-Zouerate district. Depletion of the high-grade ores in recent years has resulted in new exploration projects focused on lower-grade magnetite ores occurring in Algoma-type banded iron formation (of BIF, containing ca. 35 wt% Fe). Mauritania is t
Authors
Cliff D. Taylor, Carol A. Finn, Eric D. Anderson, Dwight Bradley, Mohamed Joud, Ahmed Taleb Mohamed, John D. Horton, Craig A. Johnson
Biocrusts in the context of global change
A wide range of studies show global environmental change will profoundly affect the structure, function, and dynamics of terrestrial ecosystems. The research synthesized here underscores that biocrust communities are also likely to respond significantly to global change drivers, with a large potential for modification to their abundance, composition, and function. We examine how elevated atmospher
Authors
Sasha C. Reed, Fernando T. Maestre, Raul Ochoa-Hueso, Cheryl Kuske, Anthony N. Darrouzet-Nardi, Brian Darby, Bob Sinsabaugh, Mel Oliver, Leo Sancho, Jayne Belnap
Biological soil crusts: An organizing principle in dryland ecosystems (aka: the role of biocrusts in arid land hydrology)
Biocrusts exert a strong influence on hydrological processes in drylands by modifying numerous soil properties that affect water retention and movement in soils. Yet, their role in these processes is not clearly understood due to the large number of factors that act simultaneously and can mask the biocrust effect. The influence of biocrusts on soil hydrology depends on biocrust intrinsic character
Authors
Sonia Chamizo, Jayne Belnap, David J Elridge, Oumarou M Issa
Carbon budgets of biological soil crusts at micro-, meso-, and global scales
The importance of biocrusts in the ecology of arid lands across all continents is widely recognized. In spite of this broad distribution, contributions of biocrusts to the global biogeochemical cycles have only recently been considered. While these studies opened a new view on the global role of biocrusts, they also clearly revealed the lack of data for many habitats and of overall standards for m
Authors
Leopoldo G Sancho, Jayne Belnap, Claudia Colesie, Jose Raggio, Bettina Weber