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Publications

USGS research activities relevant to Alaska have yielded more than 9400 historical publications. This page features some of the most recent newsworthy research findings.

Filter Total Items: 2892

The United States Geological Survey in Alaska: Accomplishments during 1978

This circular describes the 1979 programs of the U.S. Geological Survey in Alaska. The mission of the Geological Survey is to identify the Nation 's land, water, energy, and mineral resources; to classify federally-owned mineral lands and water-power sites; to resolve the exploration and development of energy and natural resources on Federal and Indian lands; and to explore and appraise the petrol

The Alaskan Mineral Resource Assessment Program: Background information to accompany folio of geologic and mineral resource maps of the Big Delta quadrangle, Alaska

The geology, geochemistry, geophysics, and Landsat imagery of the Big Delta quadrangle, 16,335 km 2 in the Yukon-Tanana Upland of east-central Alaska, were investigated, and maps and reports were prepared by an interdisciplinary research team for the purpose of assessing the mineral potential. The quadrangle is dominantly a complex terrane of greenschist- to amphibolitefacies metamorphic rocks tha
Authors
Helen Laura Foster, N. R. D. Albert, Andrew Griscom, T. D. Hessin, W. D. Menzie, D. L. Turner, Frederic H. Wilson

Pomarine jaeger preys on adult black-legged kittiwake

On 5 June 1977, while on a cruise in the decomposing pack ice in the Bering Sea, we observed a light phase Pomarine Jaeger (Stercorarius pomarinus) attack, kill and feed on an adult Black-legged Kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla), 1 of approximately 10 individuals within 20 m of the ship's stern. We did not observe the birds until 1 min after the initial attack and do not know if the kittiwake was sitti
Authors
George J. Divoky, Karen L. Oakley, H.R. Huber

Nesting ecology of Arctic loons

Arctic Loons were studied on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, Alaska, from the time of their arrival in May to their departure in September, in 1974 and 1975. Pairs arrived on breeding ponds as soon as sufficient meltwater was available to allow their take-off and landing. Loons apparently do not initiate nests immediately after their arrival, even when nest-sites are available. Delayed egg-laying may b
Authors
Margaret R. Petersen

Tufted Puffins nesting in estuarine habitat

The Tufted Puffin (Lunda cirrhata) apparently has the most extensive breeding distribution of any North Pacific seabird, extending in the western North Pacific from Hokkaido to the north Chukotsk Peninsula on the Chukchi Sea, and in North America from Cape Lisburne on the Chukchi Sea, south to the Farallon Islands off central California (Udvardy 1963). Despite this wide breeding distribution, the
Authors
Robert E. Gill, Gerald A. Sanger

A preliminary assessment of the timing and migration of shorebirds along the northcentral Alaska Peninsula

An intensive study of post-breeding and migrating shorebirds was conducted in 1976 on a major estuary of the Alaska Peninsula at Nelson Lagoon. Twenty species were recorded, eight of them breeding on the study area. Temporal patterns of relative abundance were obtained from aerial and ground censuses. Prominent events in the seasonal southward movements were (a) congregation of non- and post-breed
Authors
Robert E. Gill, Paul D. Jorgensen

Dispersal and migratory patterns of San Francisco Bay produced herons, egrets, and terns

San Francisco Bay, California, including its fringing marshes, supports a large and diverse water related avifauna (Grinnell and Wythe 19271 Sibley 1952, Gill 1973, 1977). Certain of man's alterations of the Bay's shallower wetlands have resulted in increased habitat diversity which has allowed colonization by several species of birds including some colonial nesting species. The extensive dikes as
Authors
Robert E. Gill, L. Richard Mewaldt

Yolk formation in some Charadriiform birds

By counting and measuring the major ova of breeding birds at autopsy and combining these data with time intervals between ovipositions, rough estimates have been made of the time required to form yolk in some non-captive birds (King 1973). Direct studies have been made in domestic fowl (Gallus gallus var. domesticus; Gilbert 1972), turkeys (Meleagris galloparvo; Bacon and Cherms 1968), and Common
Authors
T.E. Roudybush, C.R. Grau, Margaret R. Petersen, D. G. Ainley, K.V. Hirsch, A.P. Gilman, S.M. Patten

Paleozoic rocks on the Alaska Peninsula: A section in The United States Geological Survey in Alaska: Accomplishments during 1978

Two small areas of middle Paleozoic limestone were discovered near Gertrude Creek, 16 km north of Becharof Lake on the Alaska Peninsula, during reconnaissance flying as part of the Alaska Mineral Resource Assessment Program (AMRAP) for the Alaska Peninsula. Previously, the only known occurrence of Paleozoic rocks on the Alaska Peninsula was a small exposure of middle Permian limestone on an island
Authors
Robert L. Detterman, James E. Case, Frederic H. Wilson

Catalog of Alaskan seabird colonies

No abstract available.
Authors
Arthur L. Sowls, Scott A. Hatch, C. J. Len-Sink

Preliminary aeromagnetic map of the eastern part of southern Alaska

No abstract available.
Authors
John E. Decker, Susan M. Karl