Know your forest biomass...

distribution by studying this new map showing the concentration of carbon in trees in the U.S.  (Click on the image to download the ~ 4 MB JPG hi-res version).

Can't see the forest for the trees?  Now you can.

Twittering nitwits forecast earthquake...

in southern California:  Thursday's Predicted Earthquake Downgraded to Hoax.  The USGS responded appropriately with a tweet of its own: 

"Seeing many tweets on quake prediction. Folks, let's set the record straight...no one can predict quakes...no one http://go.usa.gov/xA9."

The peak has passed...

on the Colorado River for this runoff season, having crested a bit above the median flow for the 91 year period of record at the Cisco gage. Here's a live webcam view of the river a few miles downstream of the gaging station.

Vigorous eruption from vent...

in Halema`uma`u crater on Kilauea in October 2008, showing the roiling ejection of incandescent ash at 3X normal speed. This video was shown last night during an excellent lecture by Don Swanson of the USGS and I am sharing it here with readers of this blog.

Caribbean Sea rocked...

by mag 7.0 earthquake in the Haiti region. Tsunami warnings have been issued, and the death toll is likely to be significant. Initial news reports here and here.

UPDATE: Link to slideshow of damage (very graphic).

This well-monitored field site...

located near Castle Valley, Utah is part of a USGS-directed program in assessing the impact and change to microbiotic soils. And here's an excellent document on biological soil crusts (303 MB .pdf file).

Something has been missing...

at Balanced Rock in Arches National Park, Utah for quite a while. The smaller pinnacle - named Chip Off the Old Block - toppled during the winter of 1975-1976.

The upper photograph shown here was taken in 1972 by R.B. Colton (click on image for the historic, un-cropped archival photo from the U.S. Geological Survey) while the lower image, taken at a different angle, was acquired this last summer by your humble correspondent.

Evaluation of hazardous faults...

in the Intermountain West region has just been published by the U.S. Geological Survey. Open-File Report 2009-1140 is available on-line as a free download at the linked web page.

Mount Redoubt aerial video...

shot by USGS personnel on 7 February 2009 showing the volcano, plume, and vents.

Link to weekly status report.

Geologic Investigations Map...

I-2800 from the U.S. Geological Survey is now in a downloadable form on the web. The map is entitled This Dynamic Planet and it consists of a world map of volcanoes, earthquakes, impact craters, and plate tectonic features. Students will recognize this wall map since it is posted in most of the classrooms and laboratories in the geology department.

Warning: read the web page linked above before you download these huge .pdf files.