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Publications

Browse more than 160,000 publications authored by our scientists over the past 100+ year history of the USGS.  Publications available are: USGS-authored journal articles, series reports, book chapters, other government publications, and more.

Filter Total Items: 171178

Evidence for a high-level porphyritic intrusion below the Sunnyside epithermal vein deposit, Colorado

High-temperature quartz veins were identified in drill core at ~600 m below the Sunnyside epithermal base and pre-cious metal deposit in southwestern Colorado. The veins consist of early anhedral quartz that shows a bluish ca-thodoluminescence emission and hosts heterogenous silicate melt inclusions. The early quartz is overgrown by a later generation of quartz that exhibits euhedral termina-tions

Authors
Mario A Guzman, Thomas Monecke, T. James Reynolds, Thomas J. Casadevall

Geology of the Mount Rogers area, revisited: Evidence of Neoproterozoic continental rifting, glaciation, and the opening and closing of the Iapetus Ocean, Blue Ridge, VA–NC–TN

Recent field and geochronological studies in eight 7.5-minute quadrangles near Mount Rogers in Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee recognize (1) important stratigraphic and structural relationships for the Neoproterozoic Mount Rogers and Konnarock Formations, and the northeast end of the Mountain City window; (2) the separation of Mesoproterozoic rocks of the Blue Ridge into three age groups; a
Authors
Arthur J. Merschat, Ryan J. McAleer, Christopher Holm-Denoma, C. Scott Southworth

Resistivity imaging over porphyry copper systems in the Red Mountain district, southwest Colorado, USA

The Red Mountain district in southwestern Colorado produced base and precious metals hosted in breccia pipes and vein structures related to an extensive lithocap that overlies pervasive quartz-sericite-pyrite alteration. A helicopter-borne time-domain electromagnetic survey flown over the district yielded resistivity values that range from tens to thousand or more ohm-m, with lesser resistivity va

Authors
Eric D. Anderson, Maryla Deszcz-Pan, Douglas Yager, Kyle Eastman, Bennett Eugene Hoogenboom

Reconnaissance mineral and cathodoluminescence studies of gold occurrences in the Pogo-Black Mountain area, eastern interior Alaska, USA

The Pogo Au deposit is the largest of a number of gold occurrences in eastern interior Alaska, that occur along a broad trend from west of Pogo to Black Mountain. Some of these occurrences are hosted in amphibolite facies gneisses and others in mid-Cretaceous igneous rocks that intruded the older metamorphic rocks. All occurrences contain arsenopyrite and pyrite. Whole rock geochemical trends dist

Authors
Garth E. Graham, Erin E. Marsh, Heather A. Lowers, Ryan Taylor

Critical minerals: Germanium and cobalt in the Bornite deposit, southwestern Brooks Range, Alaska

Increasing demand for Ge and Co has led to a renewed interest and focus on advancing our understanding of the occurrence, distribution, and sequestration of these critical elements in known ore deposits. A workflow using a variety of analytical techniques and co-registered datasets has been developed and was applied to the carbonate hosted Bornite Cu-Co (Zn,-Ge) deposit in Alaska, where a new oreb

Authors
Katharina Pfaff, Garth E. Graham, Alex Jones, Karen D. Kelley

National- to continental-scale governmental geophysical efforts for critical mineral mapping, USA

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has established robust collaborations with domestic state and international geological surveys to provide geophysical and other types of earth science data that act to underpin critical mineral research efforts across the United States, Canada, and Australia. The Earth Mapping Resource Initiative (EMRI) is a national-scale collaborative effort with state geologic
Authors
Anne E. McCafferty, Chelsea Morgan Amaral, Garth E. Graham

The Mount Weld rare earth element deposit, Western Australia: A carbonatite-derived laterite

Carbonatite-hosted rare earth element (REE) deposits are the primary source of the world’s light REEs and have the potential to be a source of heavy REEs. The Mount Weld REE deposit in Western Australia is hosted in a lateritic sequence that reflects supergene enrichment of the underlying carbonatite complex. Similar to other carbonatite-related ore deposits, ore from Mount Weld displays extreme l

Authors
Philip Verplanck, Heather A. Lowers, Adam Boehlke, Jay Michael Thompson, Ganesh Bhat, Cameron Mark Mercer

Critical minerals in Climax-type magmatic-hydrothermal systems

Today’s global economy is challenged to meet the growing demand for commodities used in existing and emerging advanced technologies. Critical minerals are commodities found in a wide variety of ore deposits that are vital to the economic or national security of individual nations that are vulnerable to supply disruption. The U.S. Geological Survey is striving to advance understanding of critical m

Authors
Celestine N. Mercer, Mario A Guzman, Albert H. Hofstra, Joshua Mark Rosera

James Tributary summary: A summary of trends in tidal water quality and associated factors, 1985-2021

The James Tributary Summary outlines change over time for a suite of monitored tidal water quality parameters and associated potential drivers of those trends for the period 1985 – 2021 and provides a brief description of the current state of knowledge explaining these observed changes. Water quality parameters described include surface (above pycnocline) total nitrogen (TN), surface total phospho
Authors
Breck Maura Sullivan, Kaylyn Gootman, Alex Gunnerson, Cindy Johnson, Chris A. Mason, Elgin Perry, Gopal Bhatt, Jennifer L. Keisman, James S. Webber, Jon Harcum, Mike Lane, Olivia Devereux, Qian Zhang, Rebecca Murphy, Renee Karrh, Tom Butler, Vanessa Van Note, Zhaoying Wei

Increasing ocean wave energy observed in Earth’s seismic wavefield since the late 20th century

Ocean waves excite continuous globally observable seismic signals. We use data from 52 globally distributed seismographs to analyze the vertical component primary microseism wavefield at 14–20 s period between the late 1980s and August 2022. This signal is principally composed of Rayleigh waves generated by ocean wave seafloor tractions at less than several hundred meters depth, and is thus a prox
Authors
Richard C. Aster, Adam T. Ringler, Robert E. Anthony, Thomas A. Lee

Spatially interactive modeling of land change identifies location-specific adaptations most likely to lower future flood risk

Impacts of sea level rise will last for centuries; therefore, flood risk modeling must transition from identifying risky locations to assessing how populations can best cope. We present the first spatially interactive (i.e., what happens at one location affects another) land change model (FUTURES 3.0) that can probabilistically predict urban growth while simulating human migration and other respon
Authors
Georgina M. Sanchez, Anna Petrasova, Megan M. Skrip, Elyssa Collins, Margaret A. Lawrimore, John B. Vogler, Adam Terando, Jelena Vukomanovic, Helena Mitasova, Ross K. Meentemeyer

Importance of understanding bottom-up control when characterizing geothermal systems

Methods designed to identify favorable areas for geothermal resources have traditionally been focused on near-surface information, namely data that can be compiled into a 2D map. However, these methods fail to account for the third dimension: depth. As a result, they do not incorporate deep crustal and mantle features like heat sources. Geophysical methods with multi-scale capabilities, such as ma
Authors
Jared R. Peacock, Paul A. Bedrosian