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Aeromagnetic map of the Adel and parts of the Burns, Boise, and Jordan Valley 1° by 2° quadrangles, Oregon
No abstract available.
Aeromagnetic map of the Klamath Falls and part of the Crescent 1° by 2° quadrangles, Oregon
No abstract available.
Aeromagnetic map of parts of Coos Bay and Medford 1° by 2° quadrangles, southwestern Oregon
No abstract available.
Aeromagnetic map of part of the Cascade Range, southwestern Washington and northern Oregon
No abstract available.
Aeromagnetic map of southwest Washington and northwest Oregon
No abstract available.
Digital Mapping Techniques '05--Workshop Proceedings, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, April 24-27, 2005
Introduction: The Digital Mapping Techniques '05 (DMT'05) workshop was attended by more than 100 technical experts from 47 agencies, universities, and private companies, including representatives from 25 state geological surveys (see Appendix A). This workshop was similar in nature to the previous eight meetings, held in Lawrence, Kansas (Soller, 1997), in Champaign, Illinois (Soller, 1998), in Madison, Wisconsin (Soller, 1999), in Lexington, Kentucky (Soller, 2000), in Tuscaloosa, Alabama (Soller, 2001), in Salt Lake City, Utah (Soller, 2002), in Millersville, Pennsylvania (Soller, 2003), and in Portland, Oregon (Soller, 2004). This year's meeting was hosted by the Louisiana Geological Survey, from April 24-27, 2005, on the Louisiana State University campus in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. As in the previous meetings, the objective was to foster informal discussion and exchange of technical information. It is with great pleasure I note that the objective was successfully met, as attendees continued to share and exchange knowledge and information, and to renew friendships and collegial work begun at past DMT workshops. Each DMT workshop has been coordinated by the Association of American State Geologists (AASG) and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Data Capture Working Group, which was formed in August 1996, to support the AASG and the USGS in their effort to build a National Geologic Map Database (see Soller and Berg, this volume, and http://ngmdb.usgs.gov/info/standards/datacapt/). The Working Group was formed because increased production efficiencies, standardization, and quality of digital map products were needed for the database?and for the State and Federal geological surveys?to provide more high-quality digital maps to the public. At the 2005 meeting, oral and poster presentations and special discussion sessions emphasized: 1) methods for creating and publishing map products (here, 'publishing' includes Web-based release); 2) field data capture software and techniques, including the use of LIDAR; 3) digital cartographic techniques; 4) migration of digital maps into ArcGIS Geodatabase format; 5) analytical GIS techniques; 6) continued development of the National Geologic Map Database; and 7) progress toward building and implementing a standard geologic map data model and standard science language for the U.S. and for North America.
Urban streams across the USA: Lessons learned from studies in 9 metropolitan areas
Studies of the effects of urbanization on stream ecosystems have usually focused on single metropolitan areas. Synthesis of the results of such studies have been useful in developing general conceptual models of the effects of urbanization, but the strength of such generalizations is enhanced by applying consistent study designs and methods to multiple metropolitan areas across large geographic scales. We summarized the results from studies of the effects of urbanization on stream ecosystems in 9 metropolitan areas across the US (Boston, Massachusetts; Raleigh, North Carolina; Atlanta, Georgia; Birmingham, Alabama; Milwaukee-Green Bay, Wisconsin; Denver, Colorado; Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Portland, Oregon). These studies were conducted as part of the US Geological Survey’s National Water-Quality Assessment Program and were based on a common study design and used standard sample-collection and processing methods to facilitate comparisons among study areas. All studies included evaluations of hydrology, physical habitat, water quality, and biota (algae, macroinvertebrates, fish). Four major conclusions emerged from the studies. First, responses of hydrologic, physical-habitat, water-quality, and biotic variables to urbanization varied among metropolitan areas, except that insecticide inputs consistently increased with urbanization. Second, prior land use, primarily forest and agriculture, appeared to be the most important determinant of the response of biota to urbanization in the areas we studied. Third, little evidence was found for resistance to the effects of urbanization by macroinvertebrate assemblages, even at low levels of urbanization. Fourth, benthic macroinvertebrates have important advantages for assessing the effects of urbanization on stream ecosystems relative to algae and fishes. Overall, our results demonstrate regional differences in the effects of urbanization on stream biota and suggest additional studies to elucidate the causes of these underlying differences.
ShakeAlert®—Communication, education, outreach and technical engagement strategic vision
Executive Summary In 2006, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) began directly supporting ShakeAlert ® research and in 2012 the ShakeAlert demonstration system began testing ( Given and others, 2018 ). The ShakeAlert earthquake early warning (EEW) system is a partnership between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the three West Coast States (Washington, Oregon, and California) served by the ShakeAlert System, which is part of the larger Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS). With more than 143 million people exposed to potentially damaging shaking in the United States ( Jaiswal and others, 2015 ), earthquakes are a national hazard. Most of our Nation’s earthquake risk is concentrated in the highly populated areas on the active plate tectonic boundaries on the West Coast of the conterminous United States. ShakeAlert is the first public alert system in the United States to provide rapid mass notification of earthquake detection, potentially offering seconds of warning before strong shaking arrives. A few seconds may not seem like much time, but the information in ShakeAlert Messages can be used to trigger automated actions that can prevent injury or death, reduce immediate damage, and speed recovery from earthquakes. The information product issued by the ShakeAlert system is called a ShakeAlert Message and is one of the information products and tools of the ANSS. The ShakeAlert System includes the USGS component, plus the pathways by which ShakeAlert-powered products and (or) services are delivered to end users. Alerts can be delivered to cell phones or be used to trigger automated systems to protect equipment, facilities, and infrastructure, such as slowing or stopping a train. ShakeAlert-powered automated actions can include fire house doors that can be opened to prevent jamming, heavy equipment (for example, trains, elevators, and cranes) that can be automatically stopped or parked in safe positions, and pipeline valves that can be closed to prevent surges and spills. A few seconds of warning also may be sufficient for people to take protective actions, such as drop, cover, and hold on or modified protective actions for a broad range of populations. Advance training may increase the benefit of a speedy response to an alert. Outreach and education about EEW may raise awareness of the overall earthquake threat and how people can best react when they receive an alert or feel shaking. ShakeAlert communication, education, outreach, and technical engagement (CEO&TE) efforts are highly collaborative and essential for the success of the ShakeAlert System. This strategic vision informs how the vast ShakeAlert CEO&TE Community operates and works together. The CEO&TE Community delineates a strategic framework that is intended to set the path for a long-term, sustainable approach to CEO&TE through three focus areas and five priorities. Focus Areas Technical engagement.— The objective of this focus area is to expand and broaden ShakeAlert technical engagement and implementation. External engagement.— This focus area targets engagement in long-term communication, education, and outreach planning, implementation, and evaluation. Internal engagement.— The purpose of this focus area is to build and sustain a robust infrastructure to optimize collaboration, information sharing, and project planning among the community of stakeholders charged with implementing ShakeAlert CEO&TE. Priorities The enumeration of the five priorities listed below does not suggest priority ranking. Public safety, preparedness, and resilience; Technical implementation and engagement; Consistent messaging and communication; Integration with other Federal and State earthquake hazards products; and Educational resources development and dissemination. This strategic vision is a tangible outcome of collaboration among many stakeholders beginning in July 2016. Since then, the work of the ShakeAlert CEO&TE Community has grown into an international effort. The USGS has developed, tested, and implemented a broad spectrum of communication, education, and outreach tools and resources—all of which recognize that seconds matter when it comes to safety and mitigating harm from earthquake hazards. The CEO&TE social science research effort has provided invaluable insights into the ShakeAlert System’s human interface. USGS-licensed technical partners develop, test, and implement real-world applications using ShakeAlert Messages. The success of ShakeAlert CEO&TE efforts is predicated on robust collaboration across numerous agencies, organizations, and groups. As such, this strategic vision outlines a “partnership model” that delineates roles and responsibilities to ensure alignment with focus areas and priorities. The partnership model includes the CEO&TE lead agency (USGS); its principal partners (State agencies and university partners); its implementation partners (for example, technical partners who build systems to deliver ShakeAlert-powered products and (or) services [focus area one]), earthquake education partners who work to increase public preparedness for seismic events (focus area two); and other organizations that work together to enhance the adoption and effectiveness of the ShakeAlert System. These partners collaborate and convene through a variety of working groups and forums, which are also described in this strategic vision and align with focus area three (internal engagement). The CEO&TE Community collaboratively developed its operating principles and a consensus-based, decision-making strategic framework to guide its collective work. Performance metrics are used to continually measure success. Ultimately, the USGS and ShakeAlert CEO&TE Community are advancing the ShakeAlert System that as of the publication of this strategic vision to “provide earthquake early warning for all” serves more than 50 million people.
The 3D Elevation Program—Supporting Oregon's economy
Introduction Oregon’s physical environments and vegetation are diverse. The varied geologic and climatic conditions combined with increasing population have created the need for high-quality elevation data that can be used for infrastructure management, forestry and wildfire management, agriculture, natural resources conservation, and other business uses. Critical applications that meet the State’s management needs depend on light detection and ranging (lidar) data that provide a highly detailed three-dimensional (3D) model of the Earth’s surface and aboveground features.
Potential climate-induced runoff changes and associated uncertainty in four Pacific Northwest estuaries
As part of a larger investigation into potential effects of climate change on estuarine habitats in the Pacific Northwest, we estimated changes in freshwater inputs into four estuaries: Coquille River estuary, South Slough of Coos Bay, and Yaquina Bay in Oregon, and Willapa Bay in Washington. We used the U.S. Geological Survey's Precipitation Runoff Modeling System (PRMS) to model watershed hydrological processes under current and future climatic conditions. This model allowed us to explore possible shifts in coastal hydrologic regimes at a range of spatial scales. All modeled watersheds are located in rainfall-dominated coastal areas with relatively insignificant base flow inputs, and their areas vary from 74.3 to 2,747.6 square kilometers. The watersheds also vary in mean elevation, ranging from 147 meters in the Willapa to 1,179 meters in the Coquille. The latitudes of watershed centroids range from 43.037 degrees north latitude in the Coquille River estuary to 46.629 degrees north latitude in Willapa Bay. We calibrated model parameters using historical climate grid data downscaled to one-sixteenth of a degree by the Climate Impacts Group, and historical runoff from sub-watersheds or neighboring watersheds. Nash Sutcliffe efficiency values for daily flows in calibration sub-watersheds ranged from 0.71 to 0.89. After calibration, we forced the PRMS models with four North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program climate models: Canadian Regional Climate Model-(National Center for Atmospheric Research) Community Climate System Model version 3, Canadian Regional Climate Model-Canadian Global Climate Model version 3, Hadley Regional Model version 3-Hadley Centre Climate Model version 3, and Regional Climate Model-Canadian Global Climate Model version 3. These are global climate models (GCMs) downscaled with regional climate models that are embedded within the GCMs, and all use the A2 carbon emission scenario developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. With these climate-forcing outputs, we derived the mean change in flow from the period encompassing the 1980s (1971-1995) to the period encompassing the 2050s (2041-2065). Specifically, we calculated percent change in mean monthly flow rate, coefficient of variation, top 5 percent of flow, and 7-day low flow. The trends with the most agreement among climate models and among watersheds were increases in autumn mean monthly flows, especially in October and November, decreases in summer monthly mean flow, and increases in the top 5 percent of flow. We also estimated variance in PRMS outputs owing to parameter uncertainty and the selection of climate model using Latin hypercube sampling. This analysis showed that PRMS low-flow simulations are more uncertain than medium or high flow simulations, and that variation among climate models was a larger source of uncertainty than the hydrological model parameters. These results improve our understanding of how climate change may affect the saltwater-freshwater balance in Pacific Northwest estuaries, with implications for their sensitive ecosystems.
Review of a model to assess stranding of juvenile salmon by ship wakes along the Lower Columbia River, Oregon and Washington
Long period wake waves from deep draft vessels have been shown to strand small fish, particularly juvenile Chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tschawytcha, in the lower Columbia River (LCR). The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is responsible for maintaining the shipping channel in the LCR and recently conducted dredging operations to deepen the shipping channel from an authorized depth of 40 feet(ft) to an authorized depth of 43 ft (in areas where rapid shoaling was expected, dredging operations were used to increase the channel depth to 48 ft). A model was developed to estimate stranding probabilities for juvenile salmon under the 40- and 43-ft channel scenarios, to determine if channel deepening was going to affect wake stranding (Assessment of potential stranding of juvenile salmon by ship wakes along the Lower Columbia River under scenarios of ship traffic and channel depth: Report prepared for the Portland District U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Portland, Oregon). The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers funded the U.S. Geological Survey to review this model. A total of 30 review questions were provided to guide the review process, and these questions are addressed in this report. In general, we determined that the analyses by Pearson (2011) were appropriate given the data available. We did identify two areas where additional information could have been provided: (1) a more thorough description of model diagnostics and model selection would have been useful for the reader to better understand the model framework; and (2) model uncertainty should have been explicitly described and reported in the document. Stranding probability estimates between the 40- and 43-ft channel depths were minimally different under most of the scenarios that were examined by Pearson (2011), and a discussion of the effects of uncertainty given these minimal differences would have been useful. Ultimately, however, a stochastic (or simulation) model would provide the best opportunity to illustrate uncertainty within a given set of model predictions, but such an approach would require a substantial amount of additional data collection. Several review questions focused on the accuracy and precision of the model estimates, but we were unable to address these questions because of the limited data that currently exists regarding wake stranding in the LCR. Additional field studies will be required to validate findings from Pearson (2011), if concerns regarding accuracy and precision remain a priority. Although the Pearson (2011) model provided a useful examination of stranding under pre-construction and post-construction conditions, future research will be required to better understand the effects of wake stranding on juvenile salmonids throughout the entire LCR. If additional information on wake stranding is desired in the future, the following topics may be of interest: (1) spatial examination of wake stranding throughout the entire LCR; (2) additional evaluation of juvenile salmonid behavior and population dynamics; (3) assessing and integrating predicted changes in ship development; and (4) assessing and integrating predicted changes in climate on environmental factors known to cause stranding.
Geologic field trip guide for the Cenozoic stratigraphy and late Eocene paleoecology of southwestern Washington
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