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Research about Texas
Source-linked reports with geographic coverage including Texas.
Water resources data for Texas, water year 1972; Part 1, Surface water records
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Water resources data for Texas, water year 1972; Part 2. Water quality records
Water resources data for the 1972 water year for Texas include records of data for the chemical and physical characteristics of surface water. The records were collected by the Water Resources Division of the U.S. Geological Survey under the direction of I.D. Yost, district chief. These data represent that portion of the National Water Data System collected by the U.S. Geological Survey and cooperating State and Federal agencies in Texas.
Annual compilation and analysis of hydrologic data for urban studies in the Austin, Texas Metropolitan Area, 1971
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Texas Water Development Board, began hydrologic studies in the Austin urban area in 1954. The objectives of this project are as follows: 1. To determine the effects of progressive urbanization on infiltration, rates of peak discharge, and rainfall-runoff relations in the Waller Creek watershed. 2. To provide rainfall-and-runoff data from the rural Wilbarger Creek watershed to be used for comparative purposes in determining the effects of existing and progressive urbanization in the Waller Creek watershed. 3. To provide applied research facilities for studies at the University of Texas at Austin. The purpose of this report is to present rainfall-and-runoff data for the Waller Creek and Wilbarger Creek study areas for the 1971 water year (October 1, 1970, to September 30, 1971). To facilitate the publication and distribution of this report at the earliest feasible time, certain material has been included that does not conform to the formal publication standards of the U.S. Geological Survey.
Reconnaissance investigation of the ground-water resources of the Brazos River basin, Texas
The Brazos River Basin in Texas extends from the New Mexico State line southeastward to the Gulf of Mexico. The basin is about 600 miles long and ranges in width from 1 to 120 miles--an area of about 42,000 square miles, which includes all or parts of 69 counties. About 1,385,000 persons reside in the basin.
Ground-water resources of Brazoria County, Texas
The Chicot and Evangeline aquifers are the only hydrologic units bearing fresh (less than 1,000 milligrams per liter dissolved solids) or slightly saline water (1,000-3,000 milligrams per liter dissolved solids in Brazoria County. These aquifers are composed of gravel, sand, silt, and clay of Pliocene, Pleistocene, and Holocene age.
Ground-water resources of Wheeler and eastern Gray Counties, Texas
Wheeler and eastern Gray Counties are in the east·central part of the Texas Panhandle. The two counties are characterized by rolling to fairly rugged topography with many sand-dune areas and a well developed drainage system.
Ground-water resources of Coke County, Texas
Coke County, located in semiarid west-central Texas, where large ranches, small farms, and oil production are the main bases of the economy, has a small supply of ground and surface water. Of the approximately 1,900 acre-feet of fresh to moderately saline ground water used in 1968, industry used 880 acre-feet, irrigation used 210 acre-feet, and domestic supply and livestock used 820 acre-feet. All of the water for municipal supply and some of the water for industry is obtained from surface-water reservoirs.
Disseminated pyrite in a latite porphyry at Texan Mountain, Hudspeth County, Texas
A pyrite-bearing latite porphyry that contains fragments of syenite and a quartz porphyry intruded into the Cretaceous Cox Sandstone are well exposed in a roadcut at Texan Mountain, Hudspeth County, Tex. The pyrite, which occurs along tiny fractures as well as disseminated, and the multiple episodes of intrusion, coupled with copper minerals in veins in the overlying Cox Sandstone, indicate a slight potential for porphyry-type copper or molybdenum deposits at depth.
Pesticide mortality of young white-faced ibis in Texas
The combination of the symptoms observed in sick and dying birds and the high brain residues in the three birds collected dying, as well as in two of the four collected dead, implicate dieldrin as at least one of the causes of mortality of young ibis at the Lavaca Bay colony. Mercury residues in the kidneys of all four dead young, including those with low brain residues of dieldrin, suggest that birds were exposed to mercury in rice fields and that mercury may also have contributed to the mortality. Since adult ibis normally feed their young on invertebrates collected in rice fields treated with aldrin and Ceresan L, the use of these rice pesticides appears to be a serious hazard to this species, and probably to other wild birds with similar habits.
Biscalitheca suzanneana, N. Sp., from the uppermost Pennsylvanian of Texas
Biscalitheca suzanneana , n. sp., is described from specimens found in an uppermost Pennsylvanian deposit in north-central Texas. The genus was identified primarily on the basis of impressions of the unique sporangial annuli. The occurrence establishes for Biscalitheca a stratigraphic range equivalent to nearly the entire Upper Pennsylvanian Series.
Structure of Sierra Madera, Texas, as a guide to central peaks of lunar craters
Like hundreds of other lunar craters of probable impact origin, Copernicus contains central peaks presumed to expose rocks uplifted from beneath the crater floor. A possible analog of these peaks on Earth is the central uplift of the Sierra Madera cryptoexplosion structure, a probable impact scar (astrobleme) in stratified Permian and Cretaceous rocks of west Texas. The most conspicuous part of this 12-km-wide structure is its central uplift, 6 to 8 km across, in which the oldest rocks have been raised 1,200 m above their normal position. The uplift is surrounded by a structural depression, beyond which is a concentric rim containing some folds and circumferential normal faults with downthrow toward the center. The intensity of folding and faulting increases inward from the flanks of the central uplift toward a central zone about 2 km across where dips and fold plunges are near vertical or overturned. As in salt domes, the beds moved inward as well as upward to occupy their present positions, causing faulting and radial folding due to crowding in the center. Repetition by folding due to inward movement of upper beds over lower appears to have been followed by upward movement of the core of the uplift pulling away from the flanks by faulting. Minor outward-directed thrusting may have been caused by gravitational spreading of the rising dome. The structural depression surrounding the uplift resulted from tectonic thinning accompanying the inward movement of rocks in the uplift. Analogy with experimental craters and with other cryptoexplosion structures indicates that the uplift at Sierra Madera protruded into a crater (since destroyed by erosion) that was about 12 km across. Inasmuch as the rocks forming such uplifts are derived from below the crater floors, analogous peaks in lunar craters such as Copernicus may offer samples of lunar crust uplifted from distances below the crater floor on the order of one-tenth of the crater diameter.
Some effects of aldrin-treated rice on Gulf Coast wildlife
Wildlife casualties from aldrin-dieldrin poisoning are associated with the planting of aldrin-treated rice seed along the Texas Gulf Coast. The fulvous tree duck ( Dendrocygna bicolor ), which depends on the rice field habitats and is highly susceptible to aldrin-dieldrin poisoning, is suffering a serious population decline in that area. Dead waterfowl, shorebirds, and passerines were collected on study areas in Wharton, Brazoria, and Chambers counties, Texas, from 1967 through 1971. Residues of aldrin or dieldrin were found in all samples of bird casualties and in all eggs, scavengers, predators, fish, frogs, invertebrates, and soils. Fulvous tree ducks appeared to be less resistant to aldrin than other ducks. Dieldrin residues in brains of dead fulvous tree ducks were low, but whole-body residues were as high as 16 ppm. Brains of other dead ducks and geese averaged 10 ppm dieldrin. Some dead birds were exposed by eating treated rice seed, but many dead birds with high dieldrin residues were species that feed largely on invertebrates. Although soil residues were low, snails and crayfish contained enough aldrin and dieldrin (average 9.5 ppm) to account for deaths in birds that fed heavily on these invertebrates over a period of time. When fulvous tree ducks were penned for 3 days in fields aerially planted with treated seed, 3 of 10 birds died with brain residues of 2.5, 2.9, and 6.8 ppm dieldrin, and others were intoxicated. None of eight died, and some gained weight, when penned in fields planted with untreated seed. This study adds further evidence for the suspected lethal effects of aldrin-treated rice seed on wild birds and other wildlife in rice field habitats.
Annual compilation and analysis of hydrologic data for Honey Creek, Trinity River Basin, Texas, 1970
The U.S. Soil Conservation Service is actively engaged in the installation of flood- and soil-erosion reducing measures in Texas under the authority of "The Flood Control Act of 1936 and 1944" and "Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention Act" (Public Law 566), as amended. The Soil Conservation Service has found a total of approximately 3,500 floodwater-retarding structures to be physically and economically feasible in Texas. As of September 30, 1970, 1,439 of these structures had been built. This watershed-development program will have varying but important effects on the natural surface- and ground-water resources of river basins, especially where a large number of the floodwater-retarding structures are built. Basic hydrologic data under natural and developed conditions are needed to appraise the effects of the structures on the yield and mode of occurrence of runoff. Hydrologic investigations of these small watershed study areas were begun by the U.S. Geological Survey in 1951 and are now being made in 12 areas (fig. 1). These investigations are being made in cooperation with the Texas Water Development Board, the Soil Conservation Service, the San Antonio River Authority, the city of Dallas, and the Tarrant County Water Control and Improvement District No. 1. The 12 study areas were chosen to sample watersheds having different rainfall, topography, geology, and soils. In five of the study areas (North, Little Elm, Mukewater, Little Pond-North Elm, and Pin Oak Creeks), streamflow and rainfall records were collected prior to construction of the floodwater-retarding structures, thus affording the opportunity for analyses of the conditions 'before and after" development. Structures have now been built in four of these study areas. A summary of the development of the floodwater-retarding structures in each study area as of September 30, 1970, is shown in table 1.
Travel time for solutes, upper Sabine River basin, Texas, April 16-30, 1972
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Sabine River Compact Administration, conducted time-of-travel studies in the Sabine River Basin on April 16-30, 1972. One study was made on the main stem of the Sabine River in four reaches from Lake Tawakoni to Toledo Bend Reservoir, a distance of 219 miles. Two other studies were made on reaches of Lake Fork Creek and Big Sandy Creek. The purpose of these studies was to provide travel-rate data to be used by the Sabine River Authority of Texas in constructing a hydrologic model of the basin.