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At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources
USGS1992

Geology of the Eel River basin and adjacent region: Implications for late Cenozoic tectonics of the southern Cascadia subduction zone and Mendocino triple junction

Two upper Cenozoic depositional sequences of principally marine strata about 4000m thick overlie accreted basement terranes of the Central and Coastal belts of the Franciscan Complex in the onshore-offshore Eel River basin of northwestern California. The older depositional sequence is early to middle Miocene in age and represents slope basin and slope-blanket deposition, whereas the younger sequence, late Miocene to middle Pleistocene in age, consists largely of forearc basin deposits. -from Author

California↗
USGS1968

Hydrogeologic data for the lower Thames and southeastern coastal river basins, Connecticut

This report presents hydrologic and geologic data collected by the U.S. Geological Survey during an investigation of water resources in the lower Thames and southeastern coastal river basins in cooperation with the Connecticut Water Resources Commission. The report area occupies about 440 square miles in the southeastern part of the State; it includes about 5 square miles in southwestern Rhode Island. It includes the towns of Bozrah, Groton, Ledyard, Montville, New London, Stonington, and Waterford, and parts of Columbia, Colchester, East Lyme, Franklin, Lebanon, North Stonington, Norwich, Old Lyme, Preston, Salem, and Voluntown. A companion interpretive report, Connecticut Water Resources Bulletin No. 15, (Thomas and others, in preparation), evaluates the water resources of the area. The data on the following pages serve to document and supplement that report and should be especially useful in planning the development of water resources at specific localities. Data were collected as part of this investigation from 1963 to 1965. Streamflow records from continuous~record gaging stations in the report area for this period have been published annually along with data from other parts of the State in a series of U.S. Geological Survey reports entitled "Surface Water Records of Connecticut." Water-level measurements in wells throughout the State from 1960 through 1966~ including those made as part of this investigations are published in Connecticut Water Resources Bulletin No. 7 (Meikle and Baker~ 1965) and Connecticut Water Resources Bulletin No. 13 (Melklee 1967). Most other data collected during this investigation are tabulated on the following pages. Included are some previously unpublished data collected prior to the start of this study. The locations of sites at which data were collected are shown on Plate A in the pocket at the back of the report. Plate A includes the locations of 42 miscellaneous sites where measurements of streamflow were made during 1963 and 1964 and 6 other sites where continuous records are maintained. Data for 25 of the 42 miscellaneous sites are included in this report: data for the remaining 17 miscellaneous sites and for 5 of the 6 continuous-record sites have already been published in "Surface Water Records of Connecticut." Streamflow records for Pawcatuck River at Westerly~ Rhode Island have been previously published in "Surface Water Records of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont." Data presented, unless otherwise noted, were collected by U.S. Geological Survey personnel.

Connecticut↗
USGS1962

Geology and ground-water resources of west-central Lewis County, Washington

Lewis County lies within the Puget Trough section of the Pacific Border physiographic province. The west-central part of the county, an irregularly shaped area of about 830 square miles, contains the bulk of the county's population and virtually all of its ground-water development. It occupies the central part of a structural and topographic basin surrounded by well-dissected hills, which rise as much as 2,000 feet above the flood plains of the major streams. The area is drained by two major river systems, the Chehalis-Newaukum and the Cowlitz.

Washington↗
USGS1970

Water resources inventory of Connecticut Part 4: Southwestern coastal river basins

The 44O square miles of the southwestern coastal river basins (394 square miles of which are in Connecticut) yield about 183 billion gallons, or 23.9 inches of runoff during an average year. This amount of runoff is almost entirely derived from precipitation falling on the basins, and is eventually discharged into Long Island Sound. In 1965, some streamflow originated from 5.5 billion gallons of water imported from the Housatonic River basin. Mean annual runoff is generally an index of the water potentially available for development; however, in the basins, large-scale impoundment and diversion of streamflow has preempted most of the surface water available.

Connecticut↗
USGS1965

Geology and ground water resources of Burleigh County, North Dakota: Part 1 - geology

Burleigh County in south-central North Dakota lies within the Missouri River Trench, Coteau Slope, and Missouri Coteau physiographic districts of the Glaciated Missouri Plateau section. Subdivisions of the Coteau Slope in Burleigh County are the Burnt Creek, Badger Creek Uplands, Lake McKenzie Basin, Long Lake, Apple Creek Uplands, Long Lake Basin, and Painted Woods Creek subdistricts.

North Dakota↗
USGS1967

Reconnaissance of the chemical quality of water in western Utah, Part I: Sink Valley area, drainage basins of Skull, Rush, and Government Creek Valleys, and the Dugway Valley-Old River Bed area

This report presents data collected during the first part of an investigation that was started in 1963 by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the Utah Geological and Mineralogical Survey. The investigation has the purpose of providing information about the chemical quality of water in western Utah that will help interested parties to evaluate the suitability of the water for various uses in a broad area of Utah where little information of this type previously has been available. The area studied includes the Sink Valley area, the drainage basins of Skull, Rush, and Government Creek Valleys, and the Dugway Valley-Old River Bed area (fig. 1). Osamu Hattori and G. L. Hewitt started the investigation, and the author completed it and prepared the report.

Utah↗
USGS1969

Hydrogeologic data for the southwestern coastal river basins, Connecticut

This report presents hydrologic and geologic data collected by the U.S. Geological Survey during an investigation of water resources in the southwestern coastal river basins of Connecticut in cooperation with the Connecticut Water Resources Commission. These basins occupy about 394 square miles in Connecticut and 46 square miles in New York, including the towns of Greenwich, Stamford, Darien, New Canaan, Norwalk, Wilton, Westport, Weston, Fairfield, Easton, and Bridgeport and parts of Danbury, Ridgefield, Redding, Bethel, Newtown, Trumbull, Monroe, Shelton, and Stratford. A companion interpretive report evaluating the water resources of the basins will be published as Connecticut Water Resources Bulletin No. 17. The data on the following pages serve to document and supplement that report and should be especially useful in planning the development of water resources at specific localities. Data were collected as part of this investigation during the period July 1963 through November 1966. Streamflow records from continuous-record gaging stations in the basins have been published annually along with data from other parts of the State in a series of U.S. Geological Survey reports entitled "Surface Water Records of Connecticut." Water-level measurements in wells throughout the State from 1960 through 1966, including most of those made as part of this investigation, are published in Connecticut Water Resources Bulletins No. 7 and No. 13. Most other data collected during this investigation are tabulated on the following pages. Included are some well records and chemical analyses of water samples collected prior to July 1963 and not previously published. The locations of sites at which data were collected are shown on plate A in the pocket at the back of the report. Data presented, unless otherwise noted, were collected by U.S. Geological Survey personnel.

Connecticut↗
USGS1977

Evolution of Seismic Geyser, Yellowstone National Park

The most significant event that has affected the geyser basins of Yellowstone National Park since its discovery was the Hebgen Lake earthquake, which occurred at 11:37 PM on August 17, 1959, with a Richter magnitude of 7.1. The epicenter of this earthquake was just west of the park, about 48 km northwest of the Upper Geyser Basin. No earthquake of comparable intensity had jarred the geyser basins in historic times. More hydrothermal changes occurred in response to this disturbance than during the previous 90 years of the park's history. During the first few days after the earthquake, a reconnaissance was made of most of the thermal features in the Firehole River geyser basins (fig. 1). Early results showed that at least 289 springs had erupted as geysers, and, of these, 160 were springs with no previous record of eruption (Marler, 1964). Some previously obscure springs had erupted very powerfully, and large pieces of sinter were strewn about their craters.

Wyoming↗
USGS1993

Introduction: Geomorphic studies of the storm and flood of November 3-5, 1985, in the upper Potomac and Cheat River basins

The heavy rains of November 3-5, 1985, produced record floods and extensive landsliding in the Potomac and Cheat River basins in West Virginia and Virginia (pl. 1). Although rainfall intensity was moderate, the storm covered a very large area and produced record floods for basins in the size range of 1000-10,000 km 2 . In addition, thousands of landslides were triggered on slopes underlain by shale bedrock. The total social cost of the storm amounted to 70 lives lost and an estimated $1.3 billion in damage to homes, businesses, roads, and productive land in West Virginia and Virginia (Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) 1985a, b). These extreme costs were incurred despite the fact that the affected area is sparsely populated. To understand the origins and geomorphic effects of the 1985 storm, studies were undertaken by the U.S. Geological Survey, University of Maryland, West Virginia University, Cornell University, University of Virginia, The Johns Hopkins University, and Carleton College. Personnel were also consulted from the National Weather Service, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Soil Conservation Service, and Interstate Commission on the Potomac River basin. This cooperative effort serves to document the effects of the storm as an example of an extreme geomorphic event in the central Appalachian Mountains. The following chapters comprise observations and preliminary analyses for some of the observed phenomena. Subsequent publications by the contributors to this volume will expand the scope of this research.

Virginia, West Virginia↗
USGS2024

Late Triassic paleogeography of southern Laurentia and its fringing arcs: Insights from detrital zircon U-Pb geochronology and Hf isotope geochemistry, Auld Lang Syne basin (Nevada, USA)

Fluvial strata of the Upper Triassic Chinle Formation and Dockum Group, exposed across the Western Interior of North America, have long been interpreted to record a transcontinental river system that connected the ancestral Ouachita orogen of Texas and Oklahoma, USA, to the Auld Lang Syne basin of northwestern Nevada, USA, its inferred marine terminus. Fluvial strata are well-characterized by existing detrital zircon data, but the provenance of the Auld Lang Syne basin is poorly constrained. We present new detrital zircon U-Pb and Hf isotopic data that characterize the provenance of Norian siliciclastic strata that dominate the Auld Lang Syne basin. Mixture modeling of Auld Lang Syne basin data identifies the Alleghany−Ouachita−Marathon belt of eastern Laurentia as a dominant source of sediment, but the presence of Triassic detrital zircon grains in Auld Lang Syne basin strata indicates that at least one peri-Laurentian arc segment had to have also contributed sediment. A comparison of new Hf isotopic data with those characterizing various peri-Laurentian volcanic arcs demonstrates that although multiple arc segments may have simultaneously contributed zircons to the Auld Lang Syne basin, the west Pangean arc of northern Mexico stands out as a unique source of highly evolved Permian to Triassic detrital zircon grains in samples from the Auld Lang Syne basin. Altogether, our data and analyses demonstrate source-to-sink connectivity between the Late Triassic (Norian) Cordilleran margin and remnant late Paleozoic highlands of southern to eastern Laurentia, which ultimately framed a Mississippi River−scale, transcontinental watershed that traversed the topographically subdued Laurentian continental interior.

Nevada↗
USGS1970

On the theory of evolution of river nets

An investigation is made of the growth of river basins based on the two current models of the structure of such basins: the cyclic model and the random-graph model. Based on the assumption that the networks grow allometrically, the structure of the network that evolves has been calculated based upon the above two models. Nature seems to favor the random-graph model.

International Association of Scientific Hydrology ↗
USGS1951

Geology of the Cedar Hills, Utah

The Cedar Hills, an area of about 320 square miles in central Utah between the northern end of the Wasatch Plateau and the southern end of the Wasatch Mountains, form the boundary zone between the Colorado plateaus and the Great Basin. The oldest exposed rocks are Carboniferous, but most of the area is underlain by Upper Cretaceous and Tertiary continental sediments many thousands of feet thick. The Indianola group, about 15,000 feet thick, consists principally of coarse conglomerates and sandstones indicative of near-by orogeny and contains a tongue of fossiliferous marine sandstones showing that it is of Colorado age. This group is overlain unconformably by thick fluviatile and lacustrine deposits ranging from Montana to Eocene in age (Price River, North Horn, Flagstaff, Colton, and Green River formations), which in turn are overlain unconformably by probably late Tertiary pyroclastics. The area was subjected to come pressive orogenic disturbances in middle Cretaceous, upper Cretaceous (Montana), and probably middle Tertiary time, and to the normal faulting of the Basin-Range disturbance in late Tertiary time. © 1951, The Geological Society of America, Inc.

Utah↗
USGS2021

Major reorganization of the Snake River modulated by passage of the Yellowstone Hotspot

The details and mechanisms for Neogene river reorganization in the U.S. Pacific Northwest and northern Rocky Mountains have been debated for over a century with key implications for how tectonic and volcanic systems modulate topographic development. To evaluate paleo-drainage networks, we produced an expansive data set and provenance analysis of detrital zircon U-Pb ages from Miocene to Pleistocene fluvial strata along proposed proto-Snake and Columbia River pathways. Statistical comparisons of Miocene-Pliocene detrital zircon spectra do not support previously hypothesized drainage routes of the Snake River. We use detrital zircon unmixing models to test prior Snake River routes against a newly hypothesized route, in which the Snake River circumnavigated the northern Rocky Mountains and entered the Columbia Basin from the northeast prior to incision of Hells Canyon. Our proposed ancestral Snake River route best matches detrital zircon age spectra throughout the region. Furthermore, this northerly Snake River route satisfies and provides context for shifts in the sedimentology and fish faunal assemblages of the western Snake River Plain and Columbia Basin through Miocene−Pliocene time. We posit that eastward migration of the Yellowstone Hotspot and its effect on thermally induced buoyancy and topographic uplift, coupled with volcanic densification of the eastern Snake River Plain lithosphere, are the primary mechanisms for drainage reorganization and that the eastern and western Snake River Plain were isolated from one another until the early Pliocene. Following this basin integration, the substantial increase in drainage area to the western Snake River Plain likely overtopped a bedrock threshold that previously contained Lake Idaho, which led to incision of Hells Canyon and establishment of the modern Snake and Columbia River drainage network.

Alberta, British Columbia, Idaho, Montana, Oregon,↗
USGS1975

The seismic history of the Rio Grande Rift

The Rio Grande Rift, one of the major geologic structures of the Southwest, cuts through the center of New Mexico from north to south. The rift is also referred to as the Rio Grande Trench and as the Rio Grande Trough. It extends from the northern end of the San Luis Valley in Colorado southward 725 kilometres along the course of the Rio Grande River through New Mexico to near El Paso, Tex. The Rio Grande Rift is not a single trough but a series of north-trending basins arranged en echelon and separated by narrow constrictions or channels. The rift follows the western flank of the southern Rocky Mountains and apparently was formed at the same time as the moutains.

Rio Grande↗
USGS2005

Estimating the magnitude and frequency of floods for streams in west-central Florida, 2001

Flood discharges were estimated for recurrence intervals of 2, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 200, and 500 years for 94 streamflow stations in west-central Florida. Most of the stations are located within the 10,000 square-mile, 16-county area that forms the Southwest Florida Water Management District. All stations had at least 10 years of homogeneous record, and none have flood discharges that are significantly affected by regulation or urbanization. Guidelines established by the U.S. Water Resources Council in Bulletin 17B were used to estimate flood discharges from gaging station records. Multiple linear regression analysis was then used to mathematically relate estimates of flood discharge for selected recurrence intervals to explanatory basin characteristics. Contributing drainage area, channel slope, and the percent of total drainage area covered by lakes (percent lake area) were the basin characteristics that provided the best regression estimates. The study area was subdivided into four geographic regions to further refine the regression equations. Region 1 at the northern end of the study area includes large rivers that are characteristic of the rolling karst terrain of northern Florida. Only a small part of Region 1 lies within the boundaries of the Southwest Florida Water Management District. Contributing drainage area and percent lake area were the most statistically significant basin characteristics in Region 1; the prediction error of the regression equations varied with the recurrence interval and ranged from 57 to 69 percent. In the three other regions of the study area, contributing drainage area, channel slope, and percent lake area were the most statistically significant basin characteristics, and are the three characteristics that can be used to best estimate the magnitude and frequency of floods on most streams within the Southwest Florida Water Management District. The Withlacoochee River Basin dominates Region 2; the prediction error of the regression models in the region ranged from 65 to 68 percent. The basins that drain into the northern part of Tampa Bay and the upper reaches of the Peace River Basin are in Region 3, which had prediction errors ranging from 54 to 74 percent. Region 4, at the southern end of the study area, had prediction errors that ranged from 40 to 56 percent. Estimates of flood discharge become more accurate as longer periods of record are used for analyses; results of this study should be used in lieu of results from earlier U.S. Geological Survey studies of flood magnitude and frequency in west-central Florida. A comparison of current results with earlier studies indicates that use of a longer period of record with additional high-water events produces substantially higher flood-discharge estimates for many gaging stations. Another comparison indicates that the use of a computed, generalized skew in a previous study in 1979 tended to overestimate flood discharges.

Scientific Investigations Report↗
USGS1970

Hydrogeologic data for the Upper Housatonic River basin, Connecticut

The upper Housatonic River basin covers an area of about 700 square miles in western Connecticut and includes the towns of Bridgewater, Brookfield, Canaan, Cornwall, Kent, New Fairfield, New Hilford, North Canaan, Salisbury, Sharon, Sherman and Warren and parts of Bethel, Bethlehem, Danbury, Goshen, Litchfield, Morris, Newtown, Norfolk, Ridgefield, Roxbury, Southbury, Torrington and Washington. The U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the Connecticut Water Resources Commission conducted a water resources investigation of this basin from July 1966 to November 1968. The interpretive results of this study are published separately in Connecticut Water Resources Bulletin No. 21. Streamflow and water-quality data and measurements of water levels In observation wells collected during the investigative period have been published in the 1967, 1968 and 1969 volumes of the annual series of U.S. Geological Survey reports entitled "Water Resources Data for Connecticut". The remaining significant information, consisting of records of 284 wells and 5 springs, logs of 322 wells and test holes, mechanical analyses of 58 sediment samples of stratified drift and records of 3 pumping tests is contained in this report. The locations of all sites at which hydrogeologic data were collected are shown on plate A (in pocket at back of report). The Information contained on the following pages together with data previously published~ document the companion interpretive report and should facilitate the planned development of water resources at specific localities.

Connecticut↗
USGS2014

Maximum known stages and discharges of New York streams and their annual exceedance probabilities through September 2011

Maximum known stages and discharges at 1,400 sites on 796 streams within New York are tabulated. Stage data are reported in feet. Discharges are reported as cubic feet per second and in cubic feet per second per square mile. Drainage areas range from 0.03 to 298,800 square miles; excluding the three sites with larger drainage areas on the St. Lawrence and Niagara Rivers, which drain the Great Lakes, the maximum drainage area is 8,288 square miles (Hudson River at Albany). Most data were obtained from U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) compilations and records, but some were provided by State, local, and other Federal agencies and by private organizations. The stage and discharge information is grouped by major drainage basins and U.S. Geological Survey site number, in downstream order. Site locations and their associated drainage area, period(s) of record, stage and discharge data, and flood-frequency statistics are compiled in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Flood frequencies were derived for 1,238 sites by using methods described in Bulletin 17B (Interagency Advisory Committee on Water Data, 1982), Ries and Crouse (2002), and Lumia and others (2006). Curves that “envelope” maximum discharges within their range of drainage areas were developed for each of six flood-frequency hydrologic regions and for sites on Long Island, as well as for the State of New York; the New York curve was compared with a curve derived from a plot of maximum known discharges throughout the United States. Discharges represented by the national curve range from at least 2.7 to 4.9 times greater than those represented by the New York curve for drainage areas of 1.0 and 1,000 square miles. The relative magnitudes of discharge and runoff in the six hydrologic regions of New York and Long Island suggest the largest known discharges per square mile are in the southern part of western New York and the Catskill Mountain area, and the smallest are on Long Island.

New York↗