scholarly journals Long-term soil monitoring at U.S. Geological Survey reference watersheds

Fact Sheet ◽  
2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael R. McHale ◽  
Jason Siemion ◽  
Gregory B. Lawrence ◽  
Alisa Mast
Keyword(s):  
Geological Survey ◽  
Soil Monitoring

Palaeozoic studies in honour of Sir James Stubblefield

1981 ◽  
Vol 118 (6) ◽  
pp. 581-589 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Stubblefield
Keyword(s):  
Royal College ◽  
New Genus ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Field Work ◽  
Imperial College ◽  
Geological Survey ◽  
Current Survey ◽  
Lower Palaeozoic ◽  
Cambrian System

Sir James was born on 6 September 1901 at Cambridge where he attended the Perse School. He received his geological education at Chelsea Polytechnic and the Royal College of Science. In 1923 he was appointed demonstrator in geology at the Imperial College of Science and Technology, London University, where he stayed until 1928; for his last two years there he also served as Warden at the pioneer Imperial College hostel. While at Imperial College he studied the Shineton Shales of the Wrekin district of Shropshire under the guidance of W. W. Watts and in collaboration with his life-long friend O. M. B. Bulman, and was awarded a Ph.D. in 1925. This work in Shropshire provided the stimulus for his continuing contribution on the Cambrian system and its faunas, and on trilobites of all ages. During this period he also recorded his observations on Tertiary crabs from Zanzibar, a group he was to return to in later years. In 1928 he obtained one of the two posts offered by the Geological Survey, being appointed Geologist. He undertook field work in the Dorking district as a prelude to an intended posting to the Survey office at York, but the death of G. W. Lee, then palaeontologist in Edinburgh, determined that Stubblefield should remain at the headquarters of the Survey at Jermyn Street in London. Internal transfers of the palaeontological staff left no member available to determine the fossils then accumulating from the current survey of the Shrewsbury district, and Stubblefield was asked by the Director to undertake this task because of his knowledge of the Lower Palaeozoic faunas of Shropshire. This transfer became long-term and thus began his association with, and eventual leadership of, the Palaeontological Department of the Survey, and secured the continuation of his notable contributions to palaeontology. The Shrewsbury commitment led to visits to the area during which new faunal horizons were discovered in the local Cambrian and Ordovician, including the Nemagraptus gracilis fauna from the Breidden Hills; other finds included the then earliest British eurypterid subsequently described by L. Størmer as the type of a new genus under the name of Brachyopterus stubblefieldi.

Dynamics of seepage mobile inventory in forest and agricultural soils - Results from a comparative multi-year lysimeter study

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharina Lehmann ◽  
Robert Lehmann ◽  
Kai Uwe Totsche
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Agricultural Soils ◽  
Field Studies ◽  
Critical Zone ◽  
Soil Monitoring ◽  
Event Scale ◽  
Weather Events ◽  
Physico Chemical

<p>The mobile inventory in soil seepage is of fundamental importance for soil development and for functioning of subsurface ecosystem compartments. The mobile inventory may encompass inorganic, organo-mineral and organics, dissolved and colloidal, but also particulate matter and microbiota. Still unknown are the conditions and factors that trigger the release and export of seepage-contained mobile matter within soil, and its translocation through the subsurface of the critical zone. Long-term and high-resolution field studies that includes the mobile particulate inventory are essentially lacking. To overcome this knowledge gap, we established long-term soil monitoring plots in the Hainich Critical Zone Exploratory (HCZE; NW-Thuringia, central Germany). Soil seepage from 22 tension-supported lysimeters in topsoil and subsoil, covering different land use (forest, pasture, cropland) in the topographic recharge area of the HCZE, was collected and analyzed by a variety of analytical methods (physico-/chemical and spectroscopic) on a regular (biweekly) and event-scale cycle. With our study we proved that substances up to a size of 50 µm are mobile in the soils. The material spectra comprised minerals, mineral-organic particulates, diverse bioparticles and biotic detritus. Atmospheric forcing was found to be the major factor triggering the translocation of the mobile inventory. Especially episodic infiltration events during hydrological winter seasons (e.g. snow melts) with high seepage volume influences seepage hydrochemistry (e.g. pH, EC) and is important for transport of mobile matter to deeper compartments. Seasonal events cause mobilization of significant amounts of OC. On average, 21% of the total OC of the seepage was particulate (>0.45 µm). Furthermore, our results suggest that the formation environment and the geopedological setting (soil group, parent rock, land use) are controlling factors for the composition and the amount of soil-born mobile inventory. Our study provides evidence for the importance of the mobile inventory fraction >0,45 µm for soil element dynamics and budgets and highlights the role of weather events on soil and subsoil development and subsurface ecosystem functioning.</p>

The contribution of the Geological Survey of Italy to the GeoERA Programme challenges towards a geological service for Europe

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luca Guerrieri ◽  
Carlo Cipolloni ◽  
Chiara D'Ambrogi ◽  
Barbara Dessi ◽  
Pio Di Manna ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Natural Hazards ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Sustainable Use ◽  
Volcanic Eruptions ◽  
Carbonate Reservoir ◽  
Geological Survey ◽  
Potential Contribution ◽  
Ornamental Stones ◽  
Available Information

<p>The better knowledge of the subsurface is one of the challenges faced by the Geological Survey Organizations all around the world. The assessment, and sustainable use, also concurrent, of subsurface resources, requires a holistic approach that takes into account also natural hazards and environmental impacts. Such approach is particularly significant in Italy where a large part of the territory is affected by several hazards (earthquakes, landslides, floods, volcanic eruptions, ground subsidence), and the exploitation of subsurface resources has been recently a theme for a scientific and political debate to address, investigate, and manage the potential contribution  of human activities to increase natural hazards.</p><p>Exploration and knowledge, sustainable use and management, impacts, and publicly available information are key topics addressed in the GeoERA Programme by the Geological Survey of Italy (SGI) a department of ISPRA, , through the participation to eight GeoERA projects.</p><p>In the Geo-Energy Theme, the SGI contribution focuses on subsurface knowledge and database production: geological 3D model of the Po Basin subsurface as base input data for geothermal assessment of Mesozoic multilayer carbonate reservoir (HotLime); the implementation of the European Fault Database – EFD with information about faults characteristics, including 3D geometry and activity (HIKE).</p><p>As regards the Raw Materials Theme, inthe last decade, various projects aimed at implementing data and metadata on available raw materials have been fostered by the EU Commission. The projects involving SGI range from cataloguing mineral resources (MINTELL4EU) into a Database INSPIRE compliant, to the inventory of ornamental stones containing information about the physical and mechanical characteristics of the rocks (EUROLITHOS), as well as to deepen the knowledge aimed at a possible recycling/reuse of minerals from extractive wastes (FRAME) in a circular economy perspective.</p><p>In the Groundwater Theme, the main efforts of the SGI are involved on the implementation of an Italian inventory of available information on thermal-mineral water, an investigation on their geological background and the preparation of maps and web-map service (HOVER); the calculation of groundwater recharge at selected observation boreholes applying a statistical lumped model and as well using satellite data to produce spatially distributed recharge maps (TACTIC).</p><p>Finally, SGI contributes to the implementation and development of the GeoERA Information Platform that is established to support the other GeoERA projects in managing and disseminating geospatial data, reports and unstructured data, and the results of their research.</p><p>In a long term perspective, through the participation to eight GeoERA projects, the SGI has contributed to the development of a geological service for Europe built on the joint cooperation among national and regional geological surveys, that  will be the long term objective of the whole GeoERA Programme.</p><p>This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 731166.</p>

scholarly journals Reanalysis of the US Geological Survey Benchmark Glaciers: long-term insight into climate forcing of glacier mass balance

2019 ◽  
Vol 65 (253) ◽  
pp. 850-866 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shad O'Neel ◽  
Christopher McNeil ◽  
Louis C. Sass ◽  
Caitlyn Florentine ◽  
Emily H. Baker ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mass Loss ◽  
Mass Balance ◽  
Climate Forcing ◽  
Geological Survey ◽  
Glacier Mass Balance ◽  
Climate Signal ◽  
Calibration Methods ◽  
Uncertainty Estimates ◽  
The Us

AbstractMountain glaciers integrate climate processes to provide an unmatched signal of regional climate forcing. However, extracting the climate signal via intercomparison of regional glacier mass-balance records can be problematic when methods for extrapolating and calibrating direct glaciological measurements are mixed or inconsistent. To address this problem, we reanalyzed and compared long-term mass-balance records from the US Geological Survey Benchmark Glaciers. These five glaciers span maritime and continental climate regimes of the western United States and Alaska. Each glacier exhibits cumulative mass loss since the mid-20th century, with average rates ranging from −0.58 to −0.30 m w.e. a−1. We produced a set of solutions using different extrapolation and calibration methods to inform uncertainty estimates, which range from 0.22 to 0.44 m w.e. a−1. Mass losses are primarily driven by increasing summer warming. Continentality exerts a stronger control on mass loss than latitude. Similar to elevation, topographic shading, snow redistribution and glacier surface features often exert important mass-balance controls. The reanalysis underscores the value of geodetic calibration to resolve mass-balance magnitude, as well as the irreplaceable value of direct measurements in contributing to the process-based understanding of glacier mass balance.

Short and long term radon in soil monitoring for geophysical purposes

1995 ◽  
Vol 25 (1-4) ◽  
pp. 547-552 ◽  
Author(s):  
N Segovia ◽  
M Mena ◽  
J.L Seidel ◽  
M Monnin ◽  
E Tamez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soil Monitoring ◽  
Short And Long Term
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