Conference Papers

Worldwide oil pollution has killed millions of marine birds in this century but it has been difficult to directly link these losses to population declines. Estimated bird losses from acute spills and chronic pollution are not precise because we usually do not know the proportion of birds killed at sea that are detected on beach surveys or the origin of those birds. Data required to assess effects

No abstract.

Effluent from uranium-mine dewatering and acidic water released by a tailings-pond dike failure increased radionuclide activities in streamflow in the Puerco River in New Mexico and Arizona. Median dissolved gross-alpha activity in the streamflow was 1,130 picocuries per liter from 1975 to 1986 when mine discharges ceased and 6.2 picocuries per liter from 1986 to 1989. From 1975 to July 1979, majo

Coastline comparison on 1951 and 1981 charts to determine erosion and accretion showed that ocean-facing coastal bluffs were retreating while deltas were rapidly expanding. Where the coast is fronted by a lagoon, and coast-parallel sand and gravel islands, bluff retreat was reduced. The extensive bluff erosion was volumetrically balanced by accretion at the mouths of deltas. Coastal erosion is dri

No abstract available

Large vein-like deposits of calcite and opaline silica that infill the Bow Ridge fault are exposed by Trench 14 at the Nevada Test Site. The origin of the deposits has been the center of considerable controversy because the deposits occur on the edge of Yucca Mountain, which is being characterized geologically as a possible site for the nation's first high level nuclear waste repository, and the v

Fully three-dimensional representations of the geologic system at Yucca Mountain have been developed using a Geoscientific Information System, which is an expansion of a traditional Geographic Information Systems. These advanced, three dimensional, representations of Yucca Mountain are required to adequately evaluate the complex geologic and hydrologic conditions surrounding the site. This Geoscie

A method was developed for measuring the spatial distribution of immiscible liquid contaminants in the subsurface. Fluid saturation distributions measured at a crude-oil spill site were used to test a numerical multiphase flow model.

An intensive hydrologic investigation of the North Fork Bens Creek Watershed on Laurel Hill in southwestern Pennsylvania was made during 1984-85. Precipitation was sampled weekly, and stream water was sampled monthly and during selected storms for discharge and chemical composition. The watershed is underlain by sandstone and sandy shale consisting of quartz, feldspar, muscovite, chlorite, calcite

A study of the barrier islands and wetlands in the deltaic plain of Louisiana is presented. Its purpose was to document rapid changes and to learn more about the processes responsible and the geologic framework within which they operate. It included systematic collection and analysis of precision nearshore hydrographic data, high resolution seismic profiles, surface sediment samples, continuous vi

The Wyoming Province is an Archean craton which underlies portions of Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah, and much of Wyoming. The cratonic block consists of Archean age granite-gneiss with interspersed greenstone belts and related supracrustal terranes exposed in the cores of several Laramide uplifts. Resources found in the Province and in the adjacent accreted Proterozoic terrane include banded iron f

The plate tectonic setting, regional geology, and certain aspects of the economic geology of the iron-rare-earth-niobium ore bodies at Bayan Obo, Inner Mongolia, China, were studied by a team of geologists from the Tianjin Geologic Research Academy and the U.S. Geological Survey between 1987 and 1989. These ore bodies were formed by hydrothermal replacement of Middle Proterozoic dolomite in an int