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At least 577 records · Page 32Linked to original sources
USGS1879

Volume V: Bulletin of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, 1879

The object of the present paper is to set forth some interesting biological facts relating to the gall-making Pemphiginre, and which were presented in abstract at the late meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. These facts have a special interest just at this time on account of the close relation·ship between the insects of the sub-family in question and the notorious Grape-vine Phylloxera (Phylloxera vastatrix).

Report↗
USGS2003

Data specifications for the Landsat Data Continuity Mission

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) plans to procure data from a privately-owned and commercially-operated remote sensing system for the next Landsat Mission, the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM).Data requirements are documented in an LDCM Data Specification. The specifications require delivery of data covering 250 Landsat scenes on a daily basis. The data are to be acquired in a manner that affords seasonal coverage of the global land mass. Data are required for the heritage reflective Thematic Mapper (TM) spectral bands plus two new bands, a blue band for coastal zone observations and a short wave infrared band for cirrus cloud detection. The specifications do not require thermal data, representing a departure from the TM heritage. The specification also requires data providing a 30 m ground sample distance for each of the spectral bands with the exception of the new cirrus cloud band at 120 m. An absolute uncertainty of 5 percent or less is required for radiometrically corrected LDCM data and the commercial operator is required to deliver data that can be registered to a cartographic projection with an uncertainty of 65 m or less. Procuring data from a commercial operator represents a new approach for the 30-year old Landsat program. The LDCM Data Specification ensures that the procured data provides continuity of the Landsat data stream and advances the mission.

Conference Paper↗
USGS1984

Selected papers in the hydrologic sciences 1984; July 1984

The rapid, accurate measurement of the oxygen content of soil gas in the unsaturated zone or dissolved oxygen in soil water in the saturated zone can be useful in wetland vegetation studies. A method has been devised and tested in the Great Dismal Swamp, a wetland with fine silt-clay and organic soils, that appears to provide good results. A 60-milliliter sample of soil gas or water is withdrawn from permanently installed chambers at various depths in the soil profile. The oxygen concentration of air samples is measured with a specially constructed analyzer cell fitted to the polarographic oxygen electrode of a portable oxygen meter. The dissolved oxygen concentration of water samples is measured directly with the oxygen electrode while stirring the sample in a 32-milliliter glass bottle with a portable magnetic stirrer. Field tests with duplicate chamber installations showed that consistent results are obtained for soil gas and water.

Water Supply Paper↗
USGS2026

Advances and applications of Unoccupied Aerial Systems (UAS) research in landscape ecology

Landscape ecologists have long depended on satellite and aerial remote sensing to address questions about landscape pattern and process, structure, and change (Foody 2023 ). Unoccupied aerial systems/vehicles (UAS/UAV, a.k.a. drones) technology is becoming an increasingly popular research tool in environmental sciences allowing scientists to generate low-cost, high-quality, and high-resolution imagery on demand that can be tailored to specific research questions. While satellite data are of a fixed resolution and temporal interval, UAS offer researchers control and flexibility to design studies and collect data at resolutions and scales that provide ecologically relevant information at finer spatial resolutions (e.g., < 30 cm) than what is currently available from satellite platforms (typically > 3m), thus helping capture objects such as individual plant canopies, micro-topography, and individual animals. Unlike satellites with fixed orbits, UAS can be deployed at more optimal temporal frequencies for ecological monitoring. We organized the special collection “Advances and Applications of Unoccupied Aerial Systems (UAS) Research in Landscape Ecology” to showcase the many ways that UAS tools and technologies are currently applied to advance landscape ecological research. When we announced the collection in 2023, only 11 papers published in the journal Landscape Ecology used UAS data, which was a notably small number compared to many other general ecology, environmental science and remote sensing journals. In an attempt to understand why UAS were not more widely used in landscape ecology and provide possible solutions, we published a review article (Villarreal et al. 2025) that identified the challenges, knowledge gaps, and obstacles for the adoption of UAS technologies in landscape ecology research. The main issues we identified include: (1) an abundance of UAS methods papers in the existing literature, with comparatively few studies demonstrating how UAS can be applied to address ecological questions; (2) a perceived scale mismatch between the geographic extent of UAS data collection (local) compared to larger study areas (landscapes) and a need to design robust scaling approaches to connect fine-scale UAS data with broader ecological patterns; and (3) a need for improved integration of UAS data with other commonly used remote sensing datasets including historical high resolution aerial imagery. Additionally, researchers new to UAS remote sensing may be discouraged or overwhelmed by the general lack of scientific consensus and standardized protocols for typical tasks such as data collection, vegetation classification, and change detection, as well as restrictive and/or confusing policy, regulatory, and legal issues surrounding UAS operations (Villarreal et al. 2025).

Landscape Ecology↗
USGS2000

Classification methods for monitoring Arctic sea ice using OKEAN passive/active two-channel microwave data

This paper presents methods for classifying Arctic sea ice using both passive and active (2-channel) microwave imagery acquired by the Russian OKEAN 01 polar-orbiting satellite series. Methods and results are compared to sea ice classifications derived from nearly coincident Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) and Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) image data of the Barents, Kara, and Laptev Seas. The Russian OKEAN 01 satellite data were collected over weekly intervals during October 1995 through December 1997. Methods are presented for calibrating, georeferencing and classifying the raw active radar and passive microwave OKEAN 01 data, and for correcting the OKEAN 01 microwave radiometer calibration wedge based on concurrent 37 GHz horizontal polarization SSM/I brightness temperature data. Sea ice type and ice concentration algorithms utilized OKEAN's two-channel radar and passive microwave data in a linear mixture model based on the measured values of brightness temperature and radar backscatter, together with a priori knowledge about the scattering parameters and natural emissivities of basic sea ice types. OKEAN 01 data and algorithms tended to classify lower concentrations of young or first-year sea ice when concentrations were less than 60%, and to produce higher concentrations of multi-year sea ice when concentrations were greater than 40%, when compared to estimates produced from SSM/I data. Overall, total sea ice concentration maps derived independently from OKEAN 01, SSM/I, and AVHRR satellite imagery were all highly correlated, with uniform biases, and mean differences in total ice concentration of less than four percent (sd<15%).

Remote Sensing of Environment↗
USGS2017

Crop modeling applications in agricultural water management

This article introduces the fourteen articles that comprise the “Crop Modeling and Decision Support for Optimizing Use of Limited Water” collection. This collection was developed from a special session on crop modeling applications in agricultural water management held at the 2016 ASABE Annual International Meeting (AIM) in Orlando, Florida. In addition, other authors who were not able to attend the 2016 ASABE AIM were also invited to submit papers. The articles summarized in this introductory article demonstrate a wide array of applications in which crop models can be used to optimize agricultural water management. The following section titles indicate the topics covered in this collection: (1) evapotranspiration modeling (one article), (2) model development and parameterization (two articles), (3) application of crop models for irrigation scheduling (five articles), (4) coordinated water and nutrient management (one article), (5) soil water management (two articles), (6) risk assessment of water-limited irrigation management (one article), and (7) regional assessments of climate impact (two articles). Changing weather and climate, increasing population, and groundwater depletion will continue to stimulate innovations in agricultural water management, and crop models will play an important role in helping to optimize water use in agriculture.

Transactions of the ASABE↗
USGS2017

Beryllium

Beryllium is a mineral commodity that is used in a variety of industries to make products that are essential for the smooth functioning of a modern society. Two minerals, bertrandite (which is supplied domestically) and beryl (which is currently supplied solely by imports), are necessary to ensure a stable supply of high-purity beryllium metal, alloys, and metal-matrix composites and beryllium oxide ceramics. Although bertrandite is the source mineral for more than 90 percent of the beryllium produced globally, industrial beryl is critical for the production of the very high purity beryllium metal needed for some strategic applications. The current sole domestic source of beryllium is bertrandite ore from the Spor Mountain deposit in Utah; beryl is imported mainly from Brazil, China, Madagascar, Mozambique, and Portugal. High-purity beryllium metal is classified as a strategic and critical material by the Strategic Materials Protection Board of the U.S. Department of Defense because it is used in products that are vital to national security. Beryllium is maintained in the U.S. stockpile of strategic materials in the form of hot-pressed beryllium metal powder. Because of its unique chemical properties, beryllium is indispensable for many important industrial products used in the aerospace, computer, defense, medical, nuclear, and telecommunications industries. For example, high-performance alloys of beryllium are used in many specialized, high-technology electronics applications, as they are energy efficient and can be used to fabricate miniaturized components. Beryllium-copper alloys are used as contacts and connectors, switches, relays, and shielding for everything from cell phones to thermostats, and beryllium-nickel alloys excel in producing wear-resistant and shape-retaining high-temperature springs. Beryllium metal composites, which combine the fabrication ability of aluminum with the thermal conductivity and highly elastic modulus of beryllium, are ideal for producing aircraft and satellite structural components that have a high stiffness-to-weight ratio and low surface vibration. Beryllium oxide ceramics are used in a wide range of applications, including missile guidance systems, radar applications, and cell phone transmitters, and they are critical to medical technologies, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines, medical lasers, and portable defibrillators. The United States is expected to remain self-sufficient with respect to most of its beryllium requirements, based on information available at the time this chapter was prepared (2013). The United States is one of only three countries that currently process beryllium ores and concentrate them into beryllium products, and these three countries supply most of the rest of the world with these products. Exploration for new deposits in the United States is limited because domestic beryllium production is dominated by a single producer that effectively controls the domestic beryllium market, which is relatively small and specialized, and the market cannot readily accommodate new competition on the raw material supply side.

Professional Paper↗
USGS1905

Preliminary report on the geology and underground water resources of the central Great Plains

The area to which this report relates is shown in Pl. II. It comprises the greater portions of South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas, and the eastern portions of Colorado and of Wyoming, an area of about one-half million square miles. It is the result of my investigations during the past eight years, but includes also all available data from many sources. I have been aided by various field assistants, those deserving special mention being Messrs. C. A. Fisher, C. C. O'Harra, J.E. Todd, the late C. M. Hall, G. B. Eichardson, W. S. Tangier Smith, E. H. Barbour, and the late J. E. Macfarland. On account of its size, the region presents relatively diverse geologic conditions, but comprises comparatively few formations, most of which are widespread. The question of water supply, both overground and underground, is one of great interest to the people in this district, and although considerable progress has been made in some sections in developing well waters, there are vast areas in which the present supplies are inadequate, even for local domestic use. In order to understand the relations of the underground waters it has been necessary to investigate the geology, especially the structure and stratigraphy of the water-bearing and associated formations. This part of the work has required a very large amount of special field study, and the present results show that extended investigation will be required before many important questions of geology can be fully understood.

Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming↗
USGS2011

Landsat 8 on-orbit characterization and calibration system

The Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) is planning to launch the Landsat 8 satellite in December 2012, which continues an uninterrupted record of consistently calibrated globally acquired multispectral images of the Earth started in 1972. The satellite will carry two imaging sensors: the Operational Land Imager (OLI) and the Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS). The OLI will provide visible, near-infrared and short-wave infrared data in nine spectral bands while the TIRS will acquire thermal infrared data in two bands. Both sensors have a pushbroom design and consequently, each has a large number of detectors to be characterized. Image and calibration data downlinked from the satellite will be processed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center using the Landsat 8 Image Assessment System (IAS), a component of the Ground System. In addition to extracting statistics from all Earth images acquired, the IAS will process and trend results from analysis of special calibration acquisitions, such as solar diffuser, lunar, shutter, night, lamp and blackbody data, and preselected calibration sites. The trended data will be systematically processed and analyzed, and calibration and characterization parameters will be updated using both automatic and customized manual tools. This paper describes the analysis tools and the system developed to monitor and characterize on-orbit performance and calibrate the Landsat 8 sensors and image data products.

Conference Paper↗
USGS2007

The science, technology and research network (STARNET) a searchable thematic compilation of web resources

International alliances in space efforts have resulted in a more rapid diffusion of space technology. This, in turn, increases pressure on organizations to push forward with technological developments and to take steps to maximize their inclusion into the research and development (R&D) process and the overall advancement and enhancement of space technology. To cope with this vast and rapidly growing amount of data and information that is vital to the success of the innovation, the Information Management Committee (IMC) of the Research Technology Agency (RTA) developed the science, technology and research network (STARNET). The purpose of this network is to facilitate access to worldwide information elements in terms of science, technology and overall research. It provides a virtual library with special emphasis on international security; a "one stop" information resource for policy makers, program managers, scientists, engineers, researchers and others. ?? 2007 IEEE.

Conference Paper↗
USGS1905

Geology of the central Copper River region, Alaska

It is an interesting evidence of the prompt responsiveness of our governmental organization to popular needs that the year 1898, which saw the first rush of argonauts to Alaska as a result of the discovery of the Klondike in 1986, saw also several well-equipped Federal parties at work in the Territory, mapping its great waterways and mountain ranges, investigating the feasible means of transportation within it, laying out routes for future lines of communication, and studying the mineral resources and the plant and animal life. It is true that before that year, in which the general attention of the world was fixed upon our heretofore lightly regarded northern province, fur traders, adventurous travelers, and hardy prospectors had made little-heralded journeys through the interior, and that one or another of the governmental departments had had representatives on special errands within its borders, but the amount of private and public energy expended there in 1898 probably exceeded that of any ten previous years.

Alaska↗
USGS1983

EXPERIMENTS IN LITHOGRAPHY FROM REMOTE SENSOR IMAGERY.

Imagery from remote sensing systems such as the Landsat multispectral scanner and return beam vidicon, as well as synthetic aperture radar and conventional optical camera systems, contains information at resolutions far in excess of that which can be reproduced by the lithographic printing process. The data often require special handling to produce both standard and special map products. Some conclusions have been drawn regarding processing techniques, procedures for production, and printing limitations.

Conference Paper↗
USGS1999

Digital mapping of the Mars Pathfinder landing site: Design, acquisition, and derivation of cartographic products for science applications

The Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) acquired more than 16,000 images and provided panoramic views of the surface of Mars at the Mars Pathfinder landing site in Ares Vallis. This paper describes the stereoscopic, multispectral IMP imaging sequences and focuses on their use for digital mapping of the landing site and for deriving cartographic products to support science applications of these data. Two‐dimensional cartographic processing of IMP data, as performed via techniques and specialized software developed for ISIS (the U.S. Geological Survey image processing software package), is emphasized. Cartographic processing of IMP data includes ingestion, radiometric correction, establishment of geometric control, coregistration of multiple bands, reprojection, and mosaicking. Photogrammetric processing, an integral part of this cartographic work which utilizes the three‐dimensional character of the IMP data, supplements standard processing with geometric control and topographic information [ Kirk et al. , this issue]. Both cartographic and photogrammetric processing are required for producing seamless image mosaics and for coregistering the multispectral IMP data. Final, controlled IMP cartographic products include spectral cubes, panoramic (360° azimuthal coverage) and planimetric (top view) maps, and topographic data, to be archived on four CD‐ROM volumes. Uncontrolled and semicontrolled versions of these products were used to support geologic characterization of the landing site during the nominal and extended missions. Controlled products have allowed determination of the topography of the landing site and environs out to ∼60 m, and these data have been used to unravel the history of large‐ and small‐scale geologic processes which shaped the observed landing site. We conclude by summarizing several lessons learned from cartographic processing of IMP data.

Journal of Geophysical Research E: Planets↗
USGS2016

Getting quantitative about consequences of cross-ecosystem resource subsidies on recipient consumers

Most studies of cross-ecosystem resource subsidies have demonstrated positive effects on recipient consumer populations, often with very large effect sizes. However, it is important to move beyond these initial addition–exclusion experiments to consider the quantitative consequences for populations across gradients in the rates and quality of resource inputs. In our introduction to this special issue, we describe at least four potential models that describe functional relationships between subsidy input rates and consumer responses, most of them asymptotic. Here we aim to advance our quantitative understanding of how subsidy inputs influence recipient consumers and their communities. In the papers following, fish were either the recipient consumers or the subsidy as carcasses of anadromous species. Advancing general, predictive models will enable us to further consider what other factors are potentially co-limiting (e.g., nutrients, other population interactions, physical habitat, etc.) and better integrate resource subsidies into consumer–resource, biophysical dynamics models.

Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences↗
USGS2024

New developments at the Center for Engineering Strong-Motion Data (CESMD)

The Center for Engineering Strong-Motion Data (CESMD), an internationally utilized joint center of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the California Geological Survey (CGS), provides a single access point for earthquake strong-motion records and station metadata from the CGS California Strong-Motion Instrumentation Program (CSMIP), the USGS National Strong-Motion Project (NSMP), the USGS Advanced National Seismic System, and other affiliates. The CESMD has been continuously improving its webtools to facilitate the access of strong-motion data and metadata for use in post-earthquake response and for scientific and engineering research applications. The Center provides raw and processed strong-motion data via the Engineering Data Center (EDC) and the Virtual Data Center (VDC) web portals. This paper focuses on the strong-motion products provided by the EDC where more than 48,000 records with peak ground accelerations greater than 0.1% g from over 2400 earthquakes are currently hosted. and on the ongoing efforts to develop data access tools and applications. The new developments and ongoing efforts in the EDC include: 1) enhancements to the CESMD webservices to facilitate access to station metadata, earthquake information, and strong motion records 2) new features to the interactive map interface, improving the visualization and access to earthquake, station, and record information, 3) efforts to develop a new web application tool for data format conversion from a number of data formats, 4) efforts to unify varying waveform data formats into a consistent format, 5) ongoing efforts to compile seismic station site geology, measured or inferred Vs30 values, shear-wave profiles, NEHRP site class, and available structural instrument deployment schematics, and 6) a special studies pages for research topic-specific ground motion datasets that offer uniform processing of records from a variety of sources.

Conference Paper↗
USGS2010

Parameter-expanded data augmentation for Bayesian analysis of capture-recapture models

Data augmentation (DA) is a flexible tool for analyzing closed and open population models of capture-recapture data, especially models which include sources of hetereogeneity among individuals. The essential concept underlying DA, as we use the term, is based on adding "observations" to create a dataset composed of a known number of individuals. This new (augmented) dataset, which includes the unknown number of individuals N in the population, is then analyzed using a new model that includes a reformulation of the parameter N in the conventional model of the observed (unaugmented) data. In the context of capture-recapture models, we add a set of "all zero" encounter histories which are not, in practice, observable. The model of the augmented dataset is a zero-inflated version of either a binomial or a multinomial base model. Thus, our use of DA provides a general approach for analyzing both closed and open population models of all types. In doing so, this approach provides a unified framework for the analysis of a huge range of models that are treated as unrelated "black boxes" and named procedures in the classical literature. As a practical matter, analysis of the augmented dataset by MCMC is greatly simplified compared to other methods that require specialized algorithms. For example, complex capture-recapture models of an augmented dataset can be fitted with popular MCMC software packages (WinBUGS or JAGS) by providing a concise statement of the model's assumptions that usually involves only a few lines of pseudocode. In this paper, we review the basic technical concepts of data augmentation, and we provide examples of analyses of closed-population models ( M 0, M h , distance sampling, and spatial capture-recapture models) and open-population models (Jolly-Seber) with individual effects.

Journal of Ornithology↗
USGS2000

Digital mapping techniques '00, workshop proceedings - May 17-20, 2000, Lexington, Kentucky

Introduction: The Digital Mapping Techniques '00 (DMT'00) workshop was attended by 99 technical experts from 42 agencies, universities, and private companies, including representatives from 28 state geological surveys (see Appendix A). This workshop was similar in nature to the first three meetings, held in June, 1997, in Lawrence, Kansas (Soller, 1997), in May, 1998, in Champaign, Illinois (Soller, 1998a), and in May, 1999, in Madison, Wisconsin (Soller, 1999). This year's meeting was hosted by the Kentucky Geological Survey, from May 17 to 20, 2000, on the University of Kentucky campus in Lexington. As in the previous meetings, the objective was to foster informal discussion and exchange of technical information. When, based on discussions at the workshop, an attendee adopts or modifies a newly learned technique, the workshop clearly has met that objective. Evidence of learning and cooperation among participating agencies continued to be a highlight of the DMT workshops (see example in Soller, 1998b, and various papers in this volume). The meeting's general goal was to help move the state geological surveys and the USGS toward development of more cost-effective, flexible, and useful systems for digital mapping and geographic information systems (GIS) analysis. Through oral and poster presentations and special discussion sessions, emphasis was given to: 1) methods for creating and publishing map products (here, 'publishing' includes Web-based release); 2) continued development of the National Geologic Map Database; 3) progress toward building a standard geologic map data model; 4) field data-collection systems; and 5) map citation and authorship guidelines. Four representatives of the GIS hardware and software vendor community were invited to participate. The four annual DMT workshops were coordinated by the AASG/USGS Data Capture Working Group, which was formed in August, 1996, to support the Association of American State Geologists and the USGS in their effort to build a National Geologic Map Database (see Soller and Berg, this volume, and http://ncgmp.usgs.gov/ngmdbproject/standards/datacapt/). The Working Group was formed because increased production efficiencies, standardization, and quality of digital map products were needed to help the Database, and the State and Federal geological surveys, provide more high-quality digital maps to the public.

Open-File Report↗