Publications

This report provides estimates of flood discharge at selected annual exceedance probabilities (AEPs) for streamgages in and adjacent to Vermont and equations for estimating flood discharges at AEPs of 50-, 20-, 10-, 4-, 2-, 1-, 0.5-, and 0.2-percent (recurrence intervals of 2-, 5-, 10-, 25-, 50-, 100-, and 500-years, respectively) for ungaged, unregulated, rural streams in Vermont with...

Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean conventional resources of 67 million barrels of oil and 56 billion cubic feet of gas in the Santa Maria Basin Province of California.

Barrier island resilience to climate impacts depends on sediment redistribution between the subaqueous shoreface and subaerial barrier during sea-level rise and storms. However, autogenic interactions between the upper and lower shoreface and their influence on the subaerial barrier are poorly characterized. Here, we explore the influences of various shoreface components on barrier...

An analysis of 1,375 volcanoes in the Michoacán-Guanajuato (1,148 volcanoes in a 26,200 square-kilometer area) and Sierra Chichinautzin (227 volcanoes in a 3,500 square-kilometer area) volcanic fields in central Mexico identified patterns in the spatial and temporal distribution of past eruptions. A cluster agglomerative hierarchical method and kernel analysis confirmed that the...

Rare earth elements (REEs) are a scarce but vital resource for our modern economies and lifestyles. Since the late 1990s, China has supplied the vast majority of the world’s refined REEs. Increasing global demand has broadened the search for REE deposits to unconventional places, including the Moon. Although most lunar rocks have very low REE concentrations, Apollo samples showed that...

Urban stream rehabilitation plans can benefit from knowledge of the landscape setting and vegetative communities that were adjacent to streams prior to urbanization. Downstream to upstream connections of these characteristics can be relevant for native migratory fish species that have a range of preferred spawning habitats. Based on a need for more quantitative data on these potential...

Managed aquifer recharge is a widespread practice for storing water in the subsurface as groundwater. At a managed aquifer recharge facility in southern Arizona, groundwater-level and repeat microgravity data were collected to monitor aquifer response. These data were used to inform parameter identification for an unsaturated-zone flow model used to simulate the recharge process. The...

Despite their ubiquity and importance as freshwater habitat, small headwater streams are under-monitored by existing stream gage networks. To address this gap, we describe a low-cost, non-contact, and low-effort method that enables organizations to monitor relative streamflow dynamics in small headwater streams. The method uses a camera to capture repeat images of the stream from a fixed...

Landscapes encompass both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems that experience the same climate but may respond to climate in divergent ways. For example, the time lag between seasonal dry-down of terrestrial soil moisture and decline in streamflow has important implications for species and ecosystem processes across the aquatic–terrestrial interface. How these lags between aquatic and...

The U.S. Geological Survey has developed a high-resolution inset groundwater-flow model in the Mississippi Delta as part of an interdisciplinary collaboration coordinated by the Mississippi Alluvial Plain project to provide a tool that stakeholders can use to support water-resource management decisions. Groundwater withdrawals from the Mississippi River Valley alluvial (MRVA) aquifer...

IntroductionWestern California is home to a variety of volcanic rocks. The locations, ages, and chemical compositions of these volcanic rocks help tell part of the fascinating story of California’s plate tectonic evolution over the past 40 million years. These volcanic rocks are a product of multiple tectonic processes, including subduction of divergent and transform plate boundaries...

In 2021–22, clade 2.3.4.4b highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) viruses were introduced by wild birds into North America, leading to geographically widespread disease. In response to HPAI outbreaks throughout late 2021 and early 2022, we recorded observations of sick and dead birds, estimated abundance of carcasses, collected swab and sera samples to detect viruses, and monitored...