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At least 883 records · Page 49Linked to original sources

USGS2000

Evolution of the Creede Caldera and its relation to mineralization in the Creede mining district, Colorado

At 25 Ma a major epithermal silver and base metal deposit formed in rhyolitic welded tuff near Creede, Colorado. Nearly 24000 metric tons of silver, appreciable lead, and small amounts of zinc, copper, and gold, have been produced from large, crustified veins under Bachelor and Bulldog Mountains north and northwest of Creede. Prior geologic, hydrologic, and stable-isotope studies showed that ore deposition was associated with the mixing and boiling of waters from diverse sources and suggester that a critical part of the ore-forming fluid may have originated within the ancient lake and sediments of the lacustrine Creede Formation that filled the Creede caldera. Two drill holes that sampled the heretofore hidden lower half of the Creede Formation are the focus of this book. The Creede caldera formed at 26.9 Ma within a high constructional plateau of silicic ashflows that covered and were sporadically interlayed with, intermediate lavas and lahars from large stratovolcanoes. The Creede caldera lake had an inflow evaporation balance that did not permit rapid filling to create a brim-full deep lake. Thus salts were evaporatively concentrated; but, with the exception of possible gypsum, no evaporite minerals preserved. Cool springs deposited travertine as mounds and contributed to limestone interlaminations within the sediment. The lake bottom was anoxic, and bacterial reduction of sulfate led to extreme sulfur isotopic fractionation in diagenetic pyrite. The caldera gradually resurged, converting the initial equant lake into an arcuate moat. Resurgent doming, alluvial fans, lacustrine sediments, ashfalls, and lava domes displaced water, lifted the lake so that it overlapped what later became the southern edge of the mineralized are, and eventually filled the basin. At 25.1 Ma an unseen pluton intruded beneath the northen part of the Creede district and created a convecting olume that drew in brine from the Creede caldera fill, meteotic water from highlands to the north, and possibly a fluid carrying radiogenic lead. These waters mixed and boiled as they approached the surface and moved southward, deposited a zoned epithermal deposit a few hundred meters below the paleosurface, and finally discharged into the top of the Creede Formation. The sulfide in the ores was the igneous derivation, but the sulfate was a mixture of biogenic sulfur from the Creede Formation, oxidized igneous sulfide, and thermochemically reduced and partially oxygen exchanged sulfate. The studies of the Creede caldera provide key observational and conceptual elements for the generalized model of the Creede ore deposit. The relation of the Creed ore deposit to a brine reservoir has broad significance because other brine accumulations (as in the Great Basin, the Green River Basin, or the playas of the Altiplano offer similar setting and exploration opportunities.

Colorado↗

USGS1999

Synchroneity of the K-T oceanic mass extinction and meteorite impact: Blake Nose, western North Atlantic

A 10-cm-thick layer of green spherules occurs precisely at the biostratigraphic boundary between the Cretaceous and Paleogene (K-T boundary) at Ocean Drilling Program Site 1049 (lat 30°08′N, long 76°06′W). The spherulitic layer contains abundant rock fragments (chalk, limestone, dolomite, chert, mica books, and schist) as well as shocked quartz, abundant large Cretaceous planktic foraminifera, and rounded clasts of clay as long as 4 mm interpreted as altered tektite glass probably derived from the Chicxulub impact structure. Most of the Cretaceous foraminifera present above the spherule layer are not survivors since small specimens are conspicuously rare compared to large individuals. Instead, the Cretaceous taxa in Paleocene sediments are thought to be reworked. The first Paleocene planktic foraminifera and calcareous nannofossil species are recorded immediately above the spherule bed, the upper part of which contains an iridium anomaly. Hence, deposition of the impact ejecta exactly coincided with the biostratigraphic K-T boundary and demonstrates that the impact event was synchronous with the evolutionary turnover in the oceans. These results are consistent with a reanalysis of the biostratigraphy of the K-T boundary stratotype, which argues that shallow-marine K-T boundary sections are not biostratigraphically more complete than deep-sea K-T boundary sites.

Geology↗

USGS2015

Preface

This book grew out of a topical session on “Central Virginia Earthquakes of 2011: Geology, Geophysics, and Significance for Seismic Hazards in Eastern North America” at the 2012 The Geological Society of America (GSA) Annual Meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina (USA). It also benefitted from related sessions at other meetings. The goal of this volume, The 2011 Mineral, Virginia, Earthquake, and Its Significance for Seismic Hazards in Eastern North America , is to bring together as much information as possible on lessons learned from this rare event. Chapters encompass a wide range of geoscience, engineering, and related studies of this earthquake and its effects from the epicentral area in central Virginia to Washington, D.C., and beyond. The intended audience is a broad spectrum of geoscientists, engineers, and decision makers interested in understanding earthquakes and seismic hazards in eastern North America and other intraplate settings. Chapters by Berti et al. (21), Chapman (2), Costain (8), Davenport et al. (15), Green et al. (9), Heller and Carter (10), Horton et al. (14), Hughes et al. (19), Powars et al. (23), Pratt et al. (16), Roeloffs et al. (7), Shah et al. (17), Stephenson et al. (3), Walsh et al. (18), and Wells et al. (12) are expansions of presentations at the 2012 GSA meeting. The volume also contains chapters from recent studies that were not presented at the GSA meeting, including those by Bobyarchick (22), Burton et al. (20), Dreiling and Mooney (5), Li et al. (11), McNamara et al. (4), Pollitz and Mooney (6), and Shahidi et al. (13). Following an overview and synthesis by the volume editors (1), chapters are arranged under the topical headings “Seismology and Regional Effects,” “Earthquake Damage, Geotechnical, and Engineering Investigations,” “Aftershocks, Geophysical Imaging, and Modeling,” “Geologic Investigations—Epicentral Area,” and “Geologic Investigations— Central Virginia Seismic Zone and Nearby Faults.” We thank the authors for their contributions and the many scientists and engineers who contributed time and expertise in reviewing manuscripts to substantially improve the quality of the volume. These reviewers include Gail Atkinson, Christopher Bailey, Richard Berquist, Kimberly Blisniuk, Paul Bodin, Aaron Bradshaw, Clive Collins, Ariel Conn, Randy Cox, Haitham Dawood, James Dewey, John Ebel, David Fenster, Alexander Gates, Kathleen Haller, Gregory Hancock, Robert Hatcher, William Henika, Paul Hsieh, Steven Jaumé, Jeffrey Kimball, Charles Langston, Jongwon Lee, Andrea Llenos, John McBride, Scott Olson, Michael Oskin, Brent Owens, Gilles Peltzer, Mark Quigley, Dhananjay Ravat, David Saftner, Arthur Snoke, Jamison Steidl, Kevin Stewart, Alice Stieve, Danielle Sumy, Ertugrul Taciroglu, Roy Van Arsdale, Mason Walters, Chiyuen Wang, Yang Wang, Richard Whittecar, Lorraine Wolf, Clint Wood, Liam Wotherspoon, and some anonymous reviewers.

Virginia↗

USGS2024

Reviews

World Atlas of Submarine Gas Hydrates in Continental Margins , edited by Jürgen Mienert et al., ISBN 978-3-030-81185-3, Springer, 2022, 514 p., US$299.99 (print), $299.99 (e-book). The recently published World Atlas of Submarine Gas Hydrates in Continental Margins , edited by Mienert et al., provides a remarkably comprehensive global look at gas hydrates in continental margins. Given that approximately 99% of global gas hydrates are thought to exist on continental margins (the rest are in permafrost areas), this atlas covers the vast majority of gas hydrates on the earth. In addition to 37 geographically focused chapters covering essentially every continental margin on the planet (plus the Black Sea and Lake Baikal), the first six chapters review the history of gas-hydrate studies and fundamental considerations. The geographically focused chapters generally present a thorough description of geophysical and geologic observations from that area, written by an author or authors representing many years or decades of expertise there.

The Leading Edge↗

USGS2012

Root zone water quality model (RZWQM2): Model use, calibration and validation

The Root Zone Water Quality Model (RZWQM2) has been used widely for simulating agricultural management effects on crop production and soil and water quality. Although it is a one-dimensional model, it has many desirable features for the modeling community. This article outlines the principles of calibrating the model component by component with one or more datasets and validating the model with independent datasets. Users should consult the RZWQM2 user manual distributed along with the model and a more detailed protocol on how to calibrate RZWQM2 provided in a book chapter. Two case studies (or examples) are included in this article. One is from an irrigated maize study in Colorado to illustrate the use of field and laboratory measured soil hydraulic properties on simulated soil water and crop production. It also demonstrates the interaction between soil and plant parameters in simulated plant responses to water stresses. The other is from a maize-soybean rotation study in Iowa to show a manual calibration of the model for crop yield, soil water, and N leaching in tile-drained soils. Although the commonly used trial-and-error calibration method works well for experienced users, as shown in the second example, an automated calibration procedure is more objective, as shown in the first example. Furthermore, the incorporation of the Parameter Estimation Software (PEST) into RZWQM2 made the calibration of the model more efficient than a grid (ordered) search of model parameters. In addition, PEST provides sensitivity and uncertainty analyses that should help users in selecting the right parameters to calibrate.

Transactions of the ASABE↗

USGS2005

Mississippian Barnett Shale, Fort Worth basin, north-central Texas: Gas-shale play with multi-trillion cubic foot potential

The Mississippian Barnett Shale serves as source, seal, and reservoir to a world-class unconventional natural-gas accumulation in the Fort Worth basin of north-central Texas. The formation is a lithologically complex interval of low permeability that requires artificial stimulation to produce. At present, production is mainly confined to a limited portion of the northern basin where the Barnett Shale is relatively thick (>300 ft; >92 m), organic rich (present-day total organic carbon > 3.0%), thermally mature (vitrinite reflectance > 1.1%), and enclosed by dense limestone units able to contain induced fractures. The most actively drilled area is Newark East field, currently the largest gas field in Texas. Newark East is 400 mi2 (1036 km2) in extent, with more than 2340 producing wells and about 2.7 tcf of booked gas reserves. Cumulative gas production from Barnett Shale wells through 2003 was about 0.8 tcf. Wells in Newark East field typically produce from depths of 7500 ft (2285 m) at rates ranging from 0.5 to more than 4 mmcf/day. Estimated ultimate recoveries per well range from 0.75 to as high as 7.0 bcf. Efforts to extend the current Barnett play beyond the field limits have encountered several challenges, including westward and northward increases in oil saturation and the absence of lithologic barriers to induced fracture growth. Patterns of oil and gas occurrence in the Barnett, in conjunction with maturation and burial-history data, indicate a complex, multiphased thermal evolution, with episodic expulsion of hydrocarbons and secondary cracking of primary oils to gas in portions of the basin where paleotemperatures were especially elevated. These and other data imply a large-potential Barnett resource for the basin as a whole (possibly > 200 tcf gas in place). Recent assessment by the U.S. Geological Survey suggests a mean volume of 26.2 tcf of undiscovered, technically recoverable gas in the central Fort Worth basin. Recovery of a significant portion of this undiscovered resource will require continued improvements in geoscientific characterization and approaches to stimulation of the Barnett reservoirs. Copyright ?? 2005. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists. All rights reserved.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulle↗

USGS2005

Impacts of petroleum production on ground and surface waters: Results from the Osage-Skiatook Petroleum Environmental Research A site, Osage County Oklahoma

Kharaka has been a research hydrogeochemist with the U.S. Geological Survey since1975. His current research covers the fields of water-rock-gas interactions, CO 2 sequestration, contamination from agricultural drainage and petroleum produced water, and fluid-fault interactions. Kharaka has authored more than 100 scientific papers and book chapters and has delivered about 200 presentations. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1971. Thordsen is a geologist, employed with the U.S. Geological Survey since 1981 and presently working in the project team Hydrogeochemistry of Fine Grained Sediments, in the Water Resources Division, National Research Program. His recent research covers water-rock interactions and geochemical modeling in geothermal systems, fault-fluid systems, and petroleum produced water brine impacts. He received his M.S. in geology from the Ohio State University in 1988. Kakouros has been a hydrogeologist in the U.S. Geological Survey Water Resources Division in Menlo Park, California, since 1999. His current research covers the fields of Se contamination from agricultural drainage, CO 2 sequestration, and contamination from petroleum and petroleum-produced water. Kakouros received his M.Sc. from the San Jose State University in 2001. Herkelrath is a physicist in the U.S. Geological Survey's Water Resources Division National Research Program in Menlo Park, California. Herkelrath received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. His recent research interests include multiphase flow and solute transport modeling in shallow ground-water systems where oil or brine is present.

Oklahoma↗

USGS2017

Review: The size of the risk: Histories of multiple use in the Great Basin by Leisl Carr Childers

In The Size of the Risk , Leisl Carr Childers chronicles the changing ways in which public lands of the Great Basin have been managed from the latter half of the nineteenth century through the late 1970s. The main focus is the State of Nevada, which constitutes the core of the Great Basin. Rather than proceeding chronologically, the book is organized by the uses to which lands were put, including grazing of cattle and sheep, weapons testing by the military, parks and recreation, and grazing of wild mustangs. Review info: The size of the risk: Histories of multiple use in the Great Basin . By Leisl Carr Childers, 2015. ISBN: 9780806152530, 320pp.

Pacific Historical Review↗

USGS1994

History of early diet development in fish culture, 1000 B.C. to A.D. 1955

This paper traces the observations and speculations of early fish culturists as they sought to define the feeds necessary to keep hatchery fish alive. Although prescientific ideas about feeding fish existed in Egypt and China over three millennia ago, it was not until the 1700s that scientific studies of feeding and digestion by fish were documented. Aside from several books that provided early anecdotal accounts of feeds and feeding, much of the technical literature up to the 1930s is found in a few journals and relatively obscure bulletins. Such was the state of knowledge regarding the feeding of fish until about 1927 when Clive McCay, a professor at Yale University, and Abram Tunison, a hatchery worker, began some part‐time research on the nutritional requirements of trout at Connecticut's Burlington Fish Hatchery. In June 1932, these men founded an experimental hatchery, designed to study the nutrition, feeds, and feeding of fish, at Cortland, New York; this hatchery was operated under the auspices of the federal Bureau of Fisheries, the Conservation Department of New York State, and Cornell University. Over the next 25 years, it was research from this hatchery as well as from other federal, state, and university facilities that led to the development of purified test diets and the identification of the (unknown) growth factors in fresh meat, both essential criteria for scientific diet formulation, The first nutritionally complete diets appeared about 1955.

Progressive Fish-Culturist↗

USGS2019

Where has turtle ecology been, and where is it going?

Over 9000 articles have been published on turtles and tortoises (excluding sea turtles) since 1950 according to the Web of Science, including over 8000 contained in a personal bibliography that we analyze in this paper. Research had a slow start from 1900 to 1950, with mostly anecdotal additions to our knowledge until the contributions of F. Cagle and A. Carr took turtle research to new levels as the cofathers of turtle ecology in the middle of the last century. Books written in 1939, 1952, and 1972 that compiled existing literature on turtles in the United States and Canada set the stage for growing interest in turtles. The first global compilation of turtle species did not become available until 1961. Publication frequency increased in the 1960s and especially the 1970s as interest in turtles grew, and a wave of turtle biologists emerged from doctoral degree programs. We briefly review the contributions of scientists who published extensively on turtle ecology in those and later decades up to the present. We also review advances in our knowledge of various topics, including the global distribution of turtle research efforts; changes in our perceptions of turtle species diversity over time; turtle community ecology; sex ratios, sex-determination, and climate change; overwintering behavior; sexual size dimorphism and sexual dichromatism; analyses of population genetics; turtles and vocalization; and the emergence of turtle conservation biology efforts. We conclude with a discussion of future opportunities and challenges for working with turtles.

Herpetologica↗

USGS2005

Birds of the Baja California Peninsula: Status, distribution, and taxonomy

Birds of the Baja California Peninsula: Status, Distribution, and Taxonomy. By Richard A. Erickson and Steve N. G. Howell (Eds.). American Birding Association Monographs in Field Ornithology No. 3, Colorado Springs, Colorado. 2001: 261 pp. ISBN: 1878788396. $39.95 (paper). This volume is a collection of eight papers and five appendices on the status and distribution of the birds of Baja California. In the preface, the editors lament the end of an era of "frontier" birding in Baja California brought on by the publication of this volume. While discoveries of new species are certain to decline with time, I suspect that interest in birding and ornithology in Baja California will be enhanced by the information contained in this book. Perhaps the "frontier" era that Erickson and Howell lament the end of is the unbirded, wide open spaces and the chance for making new discoveries.

Baja California Peninsula↗

USGS2009

Haunted Summerville: Ghostly lights or earthquake lights?

Among the colorful local lore in the Charleston, South Carolina, area, are a number of ghost stories, shared not only over campfires but also in published books. Among the most well-known of the stories is the tale of the Summerville Light. Local lore holds that a strange light sometimes seen in a remote area is a lantern carried by the ghost of a local woman who once waited hours for her husband, who turned out to have been decapitated earlier that day in a train accident (DePoppe, 2023). Extant sources suggest the ghost stories began to circulate in the 1950s to 1960s. So pervasive was the lore that (Old) Sheep Island Road became known among local residents as Light Road, with a local stretch of road known today as Old Light Road. Reviewing the location where the lights appear as well as the nature of accounts, I suggest that many if not all of the anecdotal observations can be most readily attributed to natural phenomena, including earthquake lights from earthquakes that were too small to be felt. Accounts of lights near Summerville cluster in proximity to the generally accepted epicenter of the 1886 Charleston, South Carolina, earthquake, where foreshocks to the 1886 mainshock were apparently concentrated, and within a few kilometers of three M3.5 – 4.4 earthquakes in 1959 and 1960.

South Carolina↗

USGS1949

Origin of the Bendigo saddle reefs with comments on the formation of ribbon quartz

"Several textural varieties of quartz, together with ore textures and structural relations, indicate that (1) open-space filling, (2) replacement, and (3) growth by accretion were active processes in the formation of saddle reefs and related quartz bodies of the Bendigo goldfield, Australia. The relative importance of each process varied with the type of quartz body. . . . Book structure, ribbon structure, and 'crinkly banding' probably resulted primarily from the replacement of previously sheared or foliated zones in wall rock; the individual leaves and ribbons are usually residues from the replacement process."

Economic Geology↗

USGS1950

Alteration and metallization in the Bagdad porphyry copper deposit, Arizona

The porphyritic to seriate-textured quartz monzonite host-rock at Bagdad was changed by hypogene alteration to a granular rock in which the plagioclase became albitic, orthoclase and quartz increased in amount, and hornblende and book-biotite were recrystallized to pale brown leafy biotite. Hypogene sulfides, pyrite and chalcopyrite, were added during the process of alteration, accompanied in part by sericite. Molybdenite is younger than the chalcopyrite. Locally, the host rock was altered to a quartz-orthoclase-sericite facies containing more quartz and orthoclase than is found in the main alteration facies. Chemical analyses indicate that alteration and mineralization of the host rock resulted in loss of iron, lime, and soda, and addition of sulfur, copper, and potash.Supergene changes include the formation of a chalcocite blanket in late Pliocene or early Pleistocene time. Chalcocite replaced chalcopyrite in preference to pyrite. The chalcocite blanket is truncated by the present erosion surface and its distribution can be recognized from the character of the iron oxide left in the leached cavities. Along some of the fractures and faults, supergene clay is present, consisting of kaolinite and a member of the saponite-montmorillonite group.

Arizona↗

USGS1960

Color of the tarsi and toes of the black rail

Examination of two fresh specimens of the Black Rail ( Laterallus jamaicensis ) has prompted us to call attention to the color of the tarsi and toes of this species, since our observations do not agree with published accounts. Audubon (Ornithological Biography, vol. IV; 361, 1838) and Friedmann (Birds of North and Middle America, U.S. Nat'l. Mus. Bull., 50: 154, 1941) state that the tarsi and toes are bright yellowish-green. Descriptions in other publications are similar. Prominent bird artists, including Fuertes, have depicted the color of these appendages as yellowish-green, yellow, or green; while Allan Brooks' illustration of this species (The Book of Birds, vol. I, National Geographic Society, p. 291, 1932) shows pink legs. An adult female specimen was collected by J. A. Hagar, C. S. Robbins, and R. E. Stewart near Elliott Island, Maryland, on 8 June 1958. A second adult Black Rail, presumed to be a female by its dull color and call, was caught alive by the authors in the same area on 17 June 1958, and is still held in captivity. The tarsi and toes of these two birds show no trace of yellow or green. They appear grayish, matching "Flint" (plate 56-1C) or "Gunmetal" (plate 48-2C) in Maerz and Paul's "A Dictionary of Color" (1930), and "blackish-brown" in the color charts provided with Palmer and Reilly's "A Concise Color Standard" (Am. Ornith. Union Handbook Fund, 1956). A grayed-off blackish-brown would seem to be an appropriate description.

The Auk↗

USGS1996

In memoriam: Harvey I. Fisher, 1916-1994

Harvey Irvin Fisher was born on 15 June 1916 in Edgar, Nebraska, and spent his youth near Blue Springs, Missouri. Following his A.A. from Kansas City in 1935, and B.S. from Kansas State University in 1937, he married Mildred Hoch; they had three sons. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1942. From 1942 through 1945, while at Berkeley, he was Technical Curator, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, Biologist with the Crocker Radiation Laboratory, and Assistant Editor of The Condor . In 1944 he joined the AOU, became a Fellow in 1950, and was Editor of The Auk from 1948 to 1952 (to which he contributed numerous book reviews). He later became a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the International Academy of Science.

The Auk↗

USGS1997

In memoriam: John Warren Aldrich, 1906-1995

John Aldrich was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on 23 February 1906, and went to the Providence public schools. He developed a broad interest in natural history at an early age, being stimulated by his mother, a kindergarten teacher, who introduced him to nature books. His interest was strengthened by Harold L. Madison, Director of the Park Museum in Providence, an Associate ( = member) of the AOU. As a high school student, John taught nature study at the Rhode Island Boy Scout Camp in summers. John was President of his class at Classical High School, and manager of the school's football team in his senior year. Also in that year, 1923, John published his first paper, a note in Bird-Lore on the occurrence of the Mockingbird in Rhode Island. That paper is a literary gem, showing that his skill in writing developed as early as his knowledge of birds. His early interest in football continued as well; he was a devoted fan of the Washington Redskins in his later years.

The Auk↗