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At least 1,315 records · Page 73Linked to original sources
USGS2014

USGS Field Activities 11CEV01 and 11CEV02 on the West Florida Shelf, Gulf of Mexico, in January and February 2011

During January and February 2011 the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the University of South Florida (USF), conducted geochemical surveys on the west Florida Shelf. Data collected will allow USGS and USF scientists to investigate the effects of climate change on ocean acidification within the northern Gulf of Mexico, specifically, the effect of ocean acidification on marine organisms and habitats. This work is part of a larger USGS study on Climate and Environmental Variability (CEV). The first cruise was conducted from January 3 – 7 (11CEV01) and the second from February 17 - 27 (11CEV02). To view each cruise's survey lines, please see the Trackline page. Both cruises took place aboard the R/V Weatherbird II , a ship of opportunity led by Dr. Kendra Daly (USF), which departed and returned from Saint Petersburg, Florida. Data collection included sampling of the surface and water column (referred to as station samples) with lab analysis of pH, dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), and total alkalinity. Augmenting the lab analysis was a continuous flow-through system with a Conductivity-Temperature-Depth (CTD) sensor, which also recorded salinity, and pH. Corroborating the USGS data are the vertical CTD profiles collected by USF. The CTD casts measured continuous vertical profiles of oxygen, chlorophyll fluorescence, optical backscatter, and transmissometer. Discrete samples for nutrients, chlorophyll, and particulate organic carbon/nitrogen were also collected during the CTD casts.

Florida↗
USGS2014

USGS field activities 11BHM01 and 11BHM02 on the west Florida shelf, Gulf of Mexico, May and June 2011

During May and June 2011 the (USGS), in cooperation with (USF), conducted geochemical surveys on the west Florida Shelf to investigate the effects of climate change on ocean acidification within the northern Gulf of Mexico, specifically, the effect of ocean acidification on marine organisms and habitats. The first cruise was conducted from May 3 to 9 (11BHM01) and the second was from June 25 to 30 (11BHM02). To view each cruise's survey lines, please see the Trackline page. Each cruise took place aboard the Research Vessel (R/V) Weatherbird II, a ship of opportunity led by Dr. Kendra Daly (USF), which departed from and returned to Saint Petersburg, Florida. Data collection included sampling of the surface and water column with lab analysis of pH, dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) or total carbon dioxide (TCO 2 ), and total alkalinity (TA). lLb analysis was augmented with a continuous flow-through system (referred to as sonde data) with a conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) sensor, which also recorded salinity and pH. Corroborating the USGS data are the vertical CTD profiles (referred to as station samples) collected by USF. The CTD casts measured continuous vertical profiles of oxygen, chlorophyll fluorescence and optical backscatter. Discrete samples for nutrients, chlorophyll, and particulate organic carbon/nitrogen were also collected during the CTD casts. Two autonomous flow-through (AFT) instruments recorded pH and CO2 every 3-5 minutes on each cruise (referred to as AFT data).

Florida↗
USGS2013

Drill hole data for coal beds in the Powder River Basin, Montana and Wyoming

This report by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) of the Powder River Basin (PRB) of Montana and Wyoming is part of the U.S. Coal Resources and Reserves Assessment Project. Essential to that project was the creation of a comprehensive drill hole database that was used for coal bed correlation and for coal resource and reserve assessments in the PRB. This drill hole database was assembled using data from the USGS National Coal Resources Data System, several other Federal and State agencies, and selected mining companies. Additionally, USGS personnel manually entered lithologic picks into the database from geophysical logs of coalbed methane, oil, and gas wells. Of the 29,928 drill holes processed, records of 21,393 are in the public domain and are included in this report. The database contains location information, lithology, and coal bed names for each drill hole.

Montana, Wyoming↗
USGS2012

Water-level data for the Albuquerque Basin and adjacent areas, central New Mexico, period of record through September 30, 2011

The Albuquerque Basin, located in central New Mexico, is about 100 miles long and 25–40 miles wide. The basin is defined as the extent of consolidated and unconsolidated deposits of Tertiary and Quaternary age that encompasses the structural Rio Grande Rift within the basin. Drinking-water supplies throughout the basin were obtained solely from groundwater resources until December 2008, when surface water from the Rio Grande began being treated and integrated into the system. An increase of about 20 percent in the basin human population from 1990 to 2000 and of about 22 percent increase from 2000 to 2010 also resulted in an increased demand for water. A network of wells was established by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the City of Albuquerque from April 1982 through September 1983 to monitor changes in groundwater levels throughout the basin. This network consisted of 6 wells with analog-to-digital recorders and 27 wells where water levels were measured monthly in 1983. Currently (2011), the network consists of 126 wells and piezometers (a piezometer is a specialized well open to a specific depth in the aquifer and is often of small diameter and nested with other piezometers open to different depths). This report presents water-level data collected by U.S. Geological Survey personnel at those 126 sites through water year 2011 to better help the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority manage water use.

New Mexico↗
USGS2012

Hydrologic and geochemical data collected near Skewed Reservoir, an impoundment for coal-bed natural gas produced water, Powder River Basin, Wyoming

The Powder River Structural Basin is one of the largest producers of coal-bed natural gas (CBNG) in the United States. An important environmental concern in the Basin is the fate of groundwater that is extracted during CBNG production. Most of this produced water is disposed of in unlined surface impoundments. A 6-year study of groundwater flow and subsurface water and soil chemistry was conducted at one such impoundment, Skewed Reservoir. Hydrologic and geochemical data collected as part of that study are contained herein. Data include chemistry of groundwater obtained from a network of 21 monitoring wells and three suction lysimeters and chemical and physical properties of soil cores including chemistry of water/soil extracts, particle-size analyses, mineralogy, cation-exchange capacity, soil-water content, and total carbon and nitrogen content of soils.

Wyoming↗
USGS2012

High-resolution digital elevation dataset for Crater Lake National Park and vicinity, Oregon, based on LiDAR survey of August-September 2010 and bathymetric survey of July 2000

Crater Lake partially fills the caldera that formed approximately 7,700 years ago during the eruption of a 12,000-foot volcano known as Mount Mazama. The caldera-forming or climactic eruption of Mount Mazama devastated the surrounding landscape, left a thick deposit of pumice and ash in adjacent valleys, and spread a blanket of volcanic ash as far away as southern Canada. Because the Crater Lake region is potentially volcanically active, knowledge of past events is important to understanding hazards from future eruptions. Similarly, because the area is seismically active, documenting and evaluating geologic faults is critical to assessing hazards from earthquakes. As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, the U.S. Geological Survey was awarded funding for high-precision airborne LiDAR ( Li ght D etection A nd R anging) data collection at several volcanoes in the Cascade Range through the Oregon LiDAR Consortium, administered by the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI). The Oregon LiDAR Consortium contracted with Watershed Sciences, Inc., to conduct the data collection surveys. Collaborating agencies participating with the Oregon LiDAR Consortium for data collection in the Crater Lake region include Crater Lake National Park (National Park Service) and the Federal Highway Administration. In the immediate vicinity of Crater Lake National Park, 798 square kilometers of LiDAR data were collected, providing a digital elevation dataset of the ground surface beneath forest cover with an average resolution of 1.6 laser returns/m 2 and both vertical and horizontal accuracies of ±5 cm. The LiDAR data were mosaicked in this report with bathymetry of the lake floor of Crater Lake, collected in 2000 using high-resolution multibeam sonar in a collaborative effort between the U.S. Geological Survey, Crater Lake National Park, and the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping at the University of New Hampshire. The bathymetric survey collected 16 million soundings with a spatial resolution of 2 meters using an EM1002 system owned and operated by C&C Technologies, Inc. The combined LiDAR and bathymetric dataset has a cell size of 1 meter and will contribute to understanding past volcanic events and their deposits, recognizing of faults and volcanic landforms, and quantifying landscape modification during and after the next volcanic eruption at Crater Lake.

Oregon↗
USGS2012

Data from a thick unsaturated zone in Joshua Tree, San Bernardino County, California, 2007--09

Data were collected on the physical properties of unsaturated alluvial deposits, the chemical composition of leachate extracted from unsaturated alluvial deposits, the chemical and isotopic composition of groundwater and unsaturated-zone water, and the chemical composition of unsaturated-zone gas at four monitoring sites in the southwestern part of the Mojave Desert in the town of Joshua Tree, San Bernardino County, California. The presence of denitrifying and nitrate-reducing bacteria from unsaturated alluvial deposits was evaluated for two of these monitoring sites that underlie unsewered residential development. Four unsaturated-zone monitoring sites were installed in the Joshua Tree area—two in an unsewered residential development and two adjacent to a proposed artificial-recharge site in an undeveloped area. The two boreholes in residential development areas were installed by using the ODEX air-hammer method. One borehole was drilled through the unsaturated zone to a depth of 541 ft (feet) below land surface; a well screened across the water table was installed. Groundwater was sampled from this well. The second borehole was drilled to a depth of 81 ft below land surface. Drilling procedures, lithologic and geophysical data, construction details, and instrumentation placed in these boreholes are described. Core material was analyzed for water content, bulk density, matric potential, particle size, and water retention. The leachate from over 500 subsamples of cores and cuttings was analyzed for soluble anions, including fluoride, sulfate, bromide, chloride, nitrate, nitrite, and orthophosphate. Groundwater was analyzed for major ions, inorganic compounds, select trace elements, and isotopic composition. Unsaturated-zone water from suction-cup lysimeters was analyzed for major ions, inorganic compounds, select trace elements, and isotopic composition. Unsaturated-zone gas samples were analyzed for argon, oxygen, nitrogen, methane, carbon dioxide, ethane, nitrous oxide, and carbon monoxide. Drill cuttings were analyzed for denitrifying and nitrate-reducing bacteria. One of the boreholes installed adjacent to the Joshua Basin Water District proposed groundwater-recharge facility was installed by using the ODEX air-hammer method and the other was installed by using a 7.875-inch hollow-stem auger. Drilling procedures, lithologic and geophysical data, construction details, and instrumentation placed in these boreholes are described; however, geochemical data were not available at the time of publication.

California↗
USGS2012

Groundwater-quality and quality-control data for two monitoring wells near Pavillion, Wyoming, April and May 2012

In June 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency installed two deep monitoring wells (MW01 and MW02) near Pavillion, Wyoming, to study groundwater quality. During April and May 2012, the U.S Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality, collected groundwater-quality data and quality-control data from monitoring well MW01 and, following well redevelopment, quality-control data for monitoring well MW02. Two groundwater-quality samples were collected from well MW01—one sample was collected after purging about 1.5 borehole volumes, and a second sample was collected after purging 3 borehole volumes. Both samples were collected and processed using methods designed to minimize atmospheric contamination or changes to water chemistry. Groundwater-quality samples were analyzed for field water-quality properties (water temperature, pH, specific conductance, dissolved oxygen, oxidation potential); inorganic constituents including naturally occurring radioactive compounds (radon, radium-226 and radium-228); organic constituents; dissolved gasses; stable isotopes of methane, water, and dissolved inorganic carbon; and environmental tracers (carbon-14, chlorofluorocarbons, sulfur hexafluoride, tritium, helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon, and the ratio of helium-3 to helium-4). Quality-control sample results associated with well MW01 were evaluated to determine the extent to which environmental sample analytical results were affected by bias and to evaluate the variability inherent to sample collection and laboratory analyses. Field documentation, environmental data, and quality-control data for activities that occurred at the two monitoring wells during April and May 2012 are presented.

Wyoming↗
USGS2001

2000 Multibeam sonar survey of Crater Lake, Oregon - Data, GIS, images, and movies

In the summer of 2000, the U.S. Geological Survey, Pacific Seafloor Mapping Project in cooperation with the National Park Service, and the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping, University of New Hampshire used a state-of-the-art multibeam sonar system to collect high-resolution bathymetry and calibrated, co-registered acoustic backscatter to support both biological and geological research in the Crater Lake area. This interactive CD-ROM contains the multibeam bathymetry and acoustic backscatter data, along with an ESRI ArcExplorer project (and software), images, and movies.

Oregon↗
USGS2013

EAARL coastal topography and imagery–Western Louisiana, post-Hurricane Rita, 2005: First surface

These remotely sensed, geographically referenced color-infrared (CIR) imagery and elevation measurements of lidar-derived first-surface (FS) topography datasets were produced by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center, St. Petersburg, Florida, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia. This project provides highly detailed and accurate datasets of a portion of the Louisiana coastline beachface, acquired post-Hurricane Rita on September 27-28 and October 2, 2005. The datasets are made available for use as a management tool to research scientists and natural-resource managers. An innovative airborne lidar instrument originally developed at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Wallops Flight Facility, and known as the Experimental Advanced Airborne Research Lidar (EAARL), was used during data acquisition. The EAARL system is a raster-scanning, waveform-resolving, green-wavelength (532-nanometer) lidar designed to map near-shore bathymetry, topography, and vegetation structure simultaneously. The EAARL sensor suite includes the raster-scanning, water-penetrating full-waveform adaptive lidar, a down-looking red-green-blue (RGB) digital camera, a high-resolution multispectral color-infrared (CIR) camera, two precision dual-frequency kinematic carrier-phase GPS receivers, and an integrated miniature digital inertial measurement unit, which provide for sub-meter georeferencing of each laser sample. The nominal EAARL platform is a twin-engine Cessna 310 aircraft, but the instrument may be deployed on a range of light aircraft. A single pilot, a lidar operator, and a data analyst constitute the crew for most survey operations. This sensor has the potential to make significant contributions in measuring sub-aerial and submarine coastal topography within cross-environmental surveys. Elevation measurements were collected over the survey area using the EAARL system, and the resulting data were then processed using the Airborne Lidar Processing System (ALPS), a custom-built processing system developed in a NASA-USGS collaboration. ALPS supports the exploration and processing of lidar data in an interactive or batch mode. Modules for presurvey flight-line definition, flight-path plotting, lidar raster and waveform investigation, and digital camera image playback have been developed. Processing algorithms have been developed to extract the range to the first and last significant return within each waveform. ALPS is used routinely to create maps that represent submerged or sub-aerial topography. Specialized filtering algorithms have been implemented to determine the "bare earth" under vegetation from a point cloud of last return elevations. For more information about similar projects, please visit the Lidar for Science and Resource Management Website.

Louisiana↗
USGS2012

Atmospheric deposition, water-quality, and sediment data for selected lakes in Mount Rainer, North Cascades, and Olympic National Parks, Washington, 2008-10

To evaluate the potential effect from atmospheric deposition of nitrogen to high-elevation lakes, the U.S. Geological Survey partnered with the National Park Service to develop a "critical load" of nitrogen for sediment diatoms. A critical load is defined as the level of a given pollutant (in this case, nitrogen) at which detrimental effects to a target endpoint (sediment diatoms) result. Because sediment diatoms are considered one of the "first responders" to ecosystem changes from nitrogen, they are a sensitive indicator for nitrogen deposition changes in natural areas. This report presents atmospheric deposition, water quality, sediment geochronology, and sediment diatom data collected from July 2008 through August 2010 in support of this effort.

Washington↗
USGS2012

Chemicals of emerging concern in water and bottom sediment in Great Lakes areas of concern, 2010 to 2011-Collection methods, analyses methods, quality assurance, and data

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) cooperated with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on a study to identify the occurrence of chemicals of emerging concern (CECs) in water and bottom-sediment samples collected during 2010–11 at sites in seven areas of concern (AOCs) throughout the Great Lakes. Study sites include tributaries to the Great Lakes in AOCs located near Duluth, Minn.; Green Bay, Wis.; Roches­ter, N.Y.; Detroit, Mich.; Toledo, Ohio; Milwaukee, Wis.; and Ashtabula, Ohio. This report documents the collection meth­ods, analyses methods, quality-assurance data and analyses, and provides the data for this study. Water and bottom-sediment samples were analyzed at the USGS National Water Quality Laboratory in Denver, Colo., for a broad suite of CECs. During this study, 135 environmental and 23 field dupli­cate samples of surface water and wastewater effluent, 10 field blank water samples, and 11 field spike water samples were collected and analyzed. Sixty-one of the 69 wastewater indicator chemicals (laboratory method 4433) analyzed were detected at concentrations ranging from 0.002 to 11.2 micrograms per liter. Twenty-eight of the 48 pharmaceuticals (research method 8244) analyzed were detected at concentrations ranging from 0.0029 to 22.0 micro­grams per liter. Ten of the 20 steroid hormones and sterols analyzed (research method 4434) were detected at concentrations ranging from 0.16 to 10,000 nanograms per liter. During this study, 75 environmental, 13 field duplicate samples, and 9 field spike samples of bottom sediment were collected and analyzed for a wide variety of CECs. Forty-seven of the 57 wastewater indicator chemicals (laboratory method 5433) analyzed were detected at concentrations ranging from 0.921 to 25,800 nanograms per gram. Seventeen of the 20 steroid hormones and sterols (research method 6434) analyzed were detected at concentrations ranging from 0.006 to 8,921 nanograms per gram. Twelve of the 20 pharmaceuticals (research method 8244) analyzed were detected at concentrations ranging from 2.35 to 453.5 nanograms per gram. Six of the 11 antidepressants (research method 9008) analyzed were detected at concentrations ranging from 2.79 to 91.6 nanograms per gram.

Great Lakes↗
USGS2012

Archive of digital chirp subbottom profile data collected during USGS cruise 10BIM04 offshore Cat Island, Mississippi, September 2010

In September of 2010, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), conducted a geophysical survey to investigate the geologic controls on barrier island framework of Cat Island, Miss., as part of a broader USGS study on Barrier Island Mapping (BIM). These surveys were funded through the Mississippi Coastal Improvements Program (MsCIP) and the Northern Gulf of Mexico (NGOM) Ecosystem Change and Hazard Susceptibility Project as part of the Holocene Coastal Evolution of the Mississippi-Alabama Region Subtask. This report serves as an archive of unprocessed digital chirp subbottom data, trackline maps, navigation files, GIS files, Field Activity Collection System (FACS) logs, and formal FGDC metadata. Gained (showing a relative increase in signal amplitude) digital images of the seismic profiles are also provided. Refer to the Acronyms page for expansions of acronyms and abbreviations used in this report. The USGS Saint Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center (SPCMSC) assigns a unique identifier to each cruise or field activity. For example, 10BIM04 tells us the data were collected in 2010 during the fourth field activity for that project in that calendar year. Refer to http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/infobank/programs/html/definition/activity.html for a detailed description of the method used to assign the field activity identification (ID). All chirp systems use a signal of continuously varying frequency; the EdgeTech SB-512i system used during this survey produces high-resolution, shallow-penetration (typically less than 50 milliseconds (ms)) profile images of sub-seafloor stratigraphy. The towfish contains a transducer that transmits and receives acoustic energy; it was housed within a float system (built at the SPCMSC), which allows the towfish to be towed at a constant depth of 1.07 meters (m) below the sea surface. As transmitted acoustic energy intersects density boundaries, such as the seafloor or sub-surface sediment layers, some energy is reflected back toward the transducer, received, and recorded by a Personal Computer (PC)-based seismic acquisition system. This process is repeated at regular time intervals (for example, 0.125 seconds (s)), and returned energy is recorded for a specific duration (for example, 50 ms). In this way, a two-dimensional (2-D) vertical image of the shallow geologic structure beneath the ship track is produced. Figure 1 displays the acquisition geometry. Refer to table 1 for a summary of acquisition parameters and table 2 for trackline statistics. The archived trace data are in standard Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) SEG Y rev. 0 format (Barry and others, 1975); the first 3,200 bytes of the card image header are in American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) format instead of Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code (EBCDIC) format. The SEG Y files may be downloaded and processed with commercial or public domain software such as Seismic Unix (SU) (Cohen and Stockwell, 2010). See the How To Download SEG Y Data page for download instructions. The printable profiles provided here are GIF images that were processed and gained using SU software, and they can be viewed from the Profiles page or from links located on the trackline maps; refer to the Software page for links to example SU processing scripts. The SEG Y files are available on the DVD version of this report or on the Web, downloadable via the USGS Coastal and Marine Geoscience Data System (http://cmgds.marine.usgs.gov). The data are also available for viewing using GeoMapApp (http://www.geomapapp.org) and Virtual Ocean (http://www.virtualocean.org) multi-platform open source software.

Mississippi↗
USGS2012

Micrometeorological, evapotranspiration, and soil-moisture data at the Amargosa Desert Research site in Nye County near Beatty, Nevada, 2006-11

This report describes micrometeorological, evapotranspiration, and soil-moisture data collected since 2006 at the Amargosa Desert Research Site adjacent to a low-level radio-active waste and hazardous chemical waste facility near Beatty, Nevada. Micrometeorological data include precipitation, solar radiation, net radiation, air temperature, relative humidity, saturated and ambient vapor pressure, wind speed and direction, barometric pressure, near-surface soil temperature, soil-heat flux, and soil-water content. Evapotranspiration (ET) data include latent-heat flux, sensible-heat flux, net radiation, soil-heat flux, soil temperature, air temperature, vapor pressure, and other principal energy-budget data. Soil-moisture data include periodic measurements of volumetric water-content at experimental sites that represent vegetated native soil, devegetated native soil, and simulated waste disposal trenches - maximum measurement depths range from 5.25 to 29.25 meters. All data are compiled in electronic spreadsheets that are included with this report.

Nevada↗
USGS2012

Flood of September 13-16, 2008, in northeastern Illinois

Major flooding occurred in northeastern Illinois during September 13–16, 2008, following extended storm activity. Rainfall recorded at select Illinois State Water Survey (ISWS), National Weather Service (NWS), and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) rain gages in northeastern Illinois, ranged from 2.39 to 10.51 inches throughout a 51-hour period during September 12–14, 2008. The rainfall resulted in extensive urban drainage and riverine flooding, causing the evacuation of thousands of residents, millions of dollars in damages, hundreds of road closings, and two water-related fatalities in the greater Chicago area. Nine counties in northeastern Illinois (16 counties throughout the State) were declared Federal disaster areas. USGS streamgages recorded new record-peak streamflows at 13 locations as a result of the heavy rainfall. Four streamgages had a calculated annual exceedance probability (AEP) ranging from 0.2 to 1 percent, and one streamgage had a calculated AEP of less than 0.2 percent. During this flood event, USGS crews made 48 streamflow measurements at 45 streamgages. After the high-water had subsided, USGS crews set 230 high-water marks in over 40 communities along 131 miles of streams. The elevations for 117 high-water marks along approximately 100 miles of streams were measured by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRDGC) and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources–Office of Water Resources (IDNR–OWR). Flood peak water-surface profiles for select streams are plotted from the high-water mark data.

Illinois↗
USGS2012

Digital recovery of 19th century surveys in Tampa Bay, Florida: Topographic charts and Public Land Surveys

Recovery of historic data to a digital setting adresses the need for data integration through time, bridging technical gaps and differences. The goal of this study was to evaluate a marsh-to-mangrove conversion spanning 125 years and the implications for present coastal-resource management (Yates and others, 2011; Raabe and others, 2012). The U.S. Geological Survey in St. Petersburg, Fla., georectified and digitized 1870s T-sheets at four Tampa Bay locations that still supported coastal wetlands in 2000 (table 1). Nineteenth century Public Land Surveys of Township and Range lines were also digitized for each site, as a secondary data source to verify historic landscape features (table 2).

Florida↗
USGS2012

Temperature logging of groundwater in bedrock wells for geothermal gradient characterization in New Hampshire, 2012

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the New Hampshire Geological Survey, measured the fluid temperature of groundwater in deep bedrock wells in the State of New Hampshire in order to characterize geothermal gradients in bedrock. All wells selected for the study had low water yields, which correspond to low groundwater flow from fractures. This reduced the potential for flow-induced temperature changes that would mask the natural geothermal gradient in the bedrock. All the wells included in this study were privately owned, and permission to use the wells was obtained from homeowners before logging. Maximum groundwater temperatures at the bottom of the logs were between 11.7 and 17.3 degrees Celsius. Geothermal gradients were generally higher than typically reported for other water wells in the United States. Some of the high gradients were associated with high natural gamma emissions. Groundwater flow was discernible in 5 of the 10 wells studied but only obscured the portion of the geothermal gradient signal where groundwater actually flowed through the well. Temperature gradients varied by mapped bedrock type but can also vary by differences in mineralogy or rock type within the wells.

New Hampshire↗
USGS2002

Hydrogeochemical investigations of historic mining districts, central western slope of Colorado, including influence on surface-water quality

This report describes reconnaissance hydrogeochemical investigations of 22 mining districts on the Western Slope of Colorado in the Gunnison and Uncompahgre National Forests and adjacent public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management. Sources and fates of contaminants from historic mines, mine waste, and mill tailings are interpreted from chemical analyses for 190 samples of surface waters; 185 samples of mined rocks, mill tailings, and altered rocks; and passive leach analyses of 116 samples of those mineralized materials. Short reaches of several headwater streams show relatively low level effects of historic mining; the headwaters of the Uncompahgre River are highly contaminated by mines and unmined altered rocks in the Red Mountain district. There is encouraging evidence that natural processes attenuate mine-related contamination in most districts.

Colorado↗