The availability of abundant new borehole data from recent coal bed natural gas development was utilized by the U.S. Geological Survey for a comprehensive evaluation of coal resources and reserves in the southwestern part of the Powder River Basin in Wyoming. This report on the Southwestern Powder River Basin assessment area represents the third area within the basin to be assessed, the first being for coal resources and reserves in the Gillette coal field in 2008, and the second for coal resources and reserves in the northern Wyoming area of the basin in 2010.

This study was requested by the Division of Education Outreach (DEO) at the National Conservation Training Center (NCTC) of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). To complete this study, the DEO partnered with the Policy Analysis and Science Assistance Branch (PASA) of the U.S. Geological Survey. The objective of the study was to explore the effect that providing training courses through use of distance education technology would have on the enrollment in courses offered on the campus at NCTC. The study includes two components: analysis of existing training enrollment data for the time...

Reports or research investigations studying children in nature are rapidly expanding and increasingly diverse. This document reports a review of a particular part of this field-studies of constraints to recreation and participation in environmental and outdoor recreation programs. The findings result from a review of more than 125 journal articles, books, and reports that were published between 1980 and 2009. This report discusses how the current information concerning constraints to participation can be understood in terms of four concentrations or foci of work generated in this particular...

Studies of the natural environment in the Grants Mineral Belt in northwestern New Mexico have been conducted since the 1930s; however, few such investigations predate uranium mining and milling operations, which began in the early 1950s. This report provides an annotated bibliography of reports that describe the hydrology and geochemistry of groundwaters and surface waters and the geochemistry of soils and sediments in the Grants Mineral Belt and contiguous areas. The reports referenced and discussed provide a large volume of information about the environmental conditions in the area after...

Principles of resource assessment: previous methods of assessing continuous resources: methodology issues addressed by the revised USGS methodology

Selected aspects of National Atmospheric Deposition Program / National Trends Network (NADP/NTN) protocols are evaluated in four studies. Meteorological conditions have minor impacts on the error in NADP/NTN sampling. Efficiency of frozen precipitation sample collection is lower than for liquid precipitation samples. Variability of NTN measurements is higher for relatively low-intensity deposition of frozen precipitation than for higher-intensity deposition of liquid precipitation. Urbanization of the landscape surrounding NADP/NTN sites is not affecting trends in wet-deposition chemistry...

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) names "connecting people with nature" as one of its top six priorities in the online Service Employee Pocket Guide (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2010). The National Conservation Training Center (NCTC) took the initiative to identify issues that impede greater progress in addressing the constraints to connecting children with nature. The Division of Education Outreach (DEO) at NCTC formed a working relation with the Policy Analysis and Science Assistance (PASA) branch of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to conduct a study on these issues. To meet...

We calculated liquefaction potential index for a grid of sites in the Evansville, Indiana area for two scenario earthquakes-a magnitude 7.7 in the New Madrid seismic zone and a M6.8 in the Wabash Valley seismic zone. For the latter event, peak ground accelerations range from 0.13 gravity to 0.81 gravity, sufficiently high to be of concern for liquefaction.

The 2008 National Seismic Hazard Mapping Project (NSHMP) update for the conterminous United States employs several new ground-motion prediction equations which include modern empirical models of linear and nonlinear site response to local and regional earthquakes. The recent availability of attenuation functions incorporating site conditions via Vs30 values permits the calculation of site-specific hazard maps for a wide range of spectral accelerations. I compare alternative site specific hazard maps using Vs30 values estimated according to the methods of Wills and Clahan (2006), Wald and...

This is the third report produced by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) for the Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative (WLCI) to detail annual USGS work activities. The 2008 report described work activities for FY2007 and FY2008, and the 2009 report described work activities for FY2009; this report covers work activities conducted in FY2010. The 2008 and 2009 reports may be accessed at http: //pubs.usgs.gov/of/2009/1201/ and http: //pubs.usgs.gov/of/2010/1231/, respectivel