bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Great Plains
Authors: Osterkamp Waite R. , Fenton Mark M. , Gustavson Thomas C. , Hadley Richard F. , Holliday Vance T. , Morrison Roger B. , Toy Terrence J.
Published: April 2015

The Great Plains Physiographic Province (Fig. 1) is a generally north-south band of the western interior of North America, subcontinental in scale, that averages about 600 km in width and extends from northwestern Canada through the United States to the border with Mexico. With tongue-in-cheek, Thornbury (1965, p. 287) claimed that “in the public mind the Great Plains are thought of as a vast monotonous plain that lacks scenic interest, but has to be crossed to reach the scenic Rocky Mountains to the west.” It is generally true that the Great Plains, and especially the High Plains, have low relief. But there are many scenic exceptions, largely areas of negative relief along the eroded margins of the plains and in river valleys. Areas of positive relief include structural highs such as the Black Hills (Fig. IB) and other outliers of the Rocky Mountains. These areas of positive and negative relief are especially important, because they contain the sections where the geologic and geomorphic history of the Great Plains is best exposed.
Rocky Mountains
Authors: Madole Richard F. , Bradley William C. , Loewenherz Deborah S. , Ritter Dale F. , Rutter Nathaniel W. , Thorn Colin E.
Published: April 2015

The Rocky Mountain region is one of the most topographically distinct and impressive parts of North America. The Rocky Mountains rise abruptly above the bordering regions, particularly on the east and northeast where they are flanked by plains, less so on the west and southwest where they are bounded by high plateaus. The Rocky Mountains comprise more than 100 individually named ranges that form a belt extending for slightly more than 5,000 km, from near Santa Fe, New Mexico, on the south to the Bering Sea on the north (Fig. 1). The belt varies in width from less than 100 km in the Canadian Rockies to nearly 600 km in the Middle Rockies of Wyoming and northeast Utah. The summits of the ranges rise 1,500 to 2,100 m above adjacent lowlands, to heights 1,800 to 4,400 m above sea level. The Southern Rockies of Colorado have the greatest amount of area, between 3,300 and 4,400 m, and the highest peak, Mount Elbert (4,400 m). The largest area of low mountains is in the Northern Rockies of Idaho and Montana, where summits are commonly only 2,100 to 2,400 m above sea level.

A substantial part of the Rocky Mountain region consists of lowlands, in the form of basins and fault-bounded troughs and trenches that lie between ranges. The Rocky Mountain Trench is perhaps the most spectacular fault-bounded lowland, even if it is not the most representative. It extends north from Flathead Lake, Montana, more than 1,500 km, and forms
Colorado Plateau
Authors: Graf William L. , Hereford Richard , Laity Julie , Young Richard A.
Published: April 2015

Field studies in the Colorado Plateau occupy an honored place in the development of geomorphic theory. The purpose of this chapter is to briefly review the foundational, regional, and process-oriented studies in the region, and to provide a review of promising threads of inquiry set in a context of more than a century of geomorphologic research in the region.

The Colorado Plateau has sharply defined boundaries that separate it from neighboring geomorphic provinces (Fig. 1; for details see Thornbury, 1965). On the west, faults and the perimeters of volcanic plateaus mark the boundary between the Colorado Plateau and the Basin and Range Province. The boundary extends across the southern edge of the plateau where it is less radically defined, but is nonetheless visible on the surface in the form of an uplifted edge of sedimentary rocks known as the Mogollon Rim, which extends from northwest Arizona diagonally into north-central New Mexico. The eastern and northern boundaries are delineated by the contact between sedimentary rocks and upthrust or folded crystalline rocks of the Rocky Mountains.

The plateau is a definable tectonic unit relatively easily separated from other provinces, but it shows considerable internal variation (Fig. 1; for details see Hunt, 1974a). The interior of the kidney-shaped Colorado Plateau Province reveals a series of subsections that depend on geologic and geomorphologic definition. The centrally located Canyon Lands Section is dominated by gently folded sedimentary rocks, while the western High Plateaus Section reveals widespread accumulations of volcanic materials.

The Uinta
Central America and the Caribbean
Authors: Gardner Thomas W. , Back William , Bullard Thomas F. , Hare Paul W. , Kesel Richard H. , Lowe Donald R. , Menges Chris M. , Mora Sergio C. , Pazzaglia Frank J. , Sasowsky Ira D. , Troester Joseph W. , Wells Stephen G.
Published: April 2015

Central America and the Caribbean islands encompass an extraordinarily diverse suite of geomorphic processes and land-forms created by the interaction of distinctly different climatic, tectonic, and lithologie domains. The purpose of this overview is to review some of the significant types of geomorphic contributions from the region; to provide a summary of the climatic and tectonic setting of the region; and to introduce the four sections that comprise this chapter.

Climatic extremes within the region are significant for their impact on process and form diversity. For example, during the Pleistocene a climate gradient created by topographic relief produced glacial deposits in the Cordillera de Talamanca, Costa Rica (Hastenrath, 1973), that are only several kilometers from economic laterite and bauxite oxisols in the adjoining Valle de El General (Castillo and others, 1970). Modern climatic zones range from wet tropical with annual rainfall in excess of 4.0 m in parts of Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Panama to dry tropical steppe with annual rainfall not exceeding 1.0 m in parts of Nicaragua, Honduras, and the Caribbean. Some of these climatic zones at lower elevations that did not experience the dramatic Pleistocene climatic oscillations of North America provide superb locations for the study of climate, process, and form without the overprint of relict climatic landforms.

Superimposed on the climatic diversity is an active plate setting that juxtaposes areas of rapid crustal movement and complex geology with relatively more stable carbonate platforms, for example, in the area of the Yucatan and Motagua fault zone. This
Columbia and Snake River Plains
Authors: Baker Victor R. , Greeley Ronald , Komar Paul D. , Swanson Donald A. , Waitt Richard B.
Published: April 2015

This chapter treats two areas of the northwestern United States characterized by great late Cenozoic outpourings of basaltic lava. The western part of this region is underlain by flood basalt of the Columbia River Basalt Group. As discussed below by Waitt and Swanson, this area constitutes the Columbia Plain. The laterally extensive, thick cooling units of the Columbia River Basalt Group contrast with the thinner, less extensive flows of the Snake River Plain, which lies to the southeast. Lavas of the Snake River Plain were emplaced coincident with Pliocene-Quaternary rifting, from about 5 Ma to present.

Much of the Columbia Plain is overlain by tens of meters of Pleistocene loess, which is extensively dissected to form the rolling topography of the Palouse Hills. In the northeast, broad channels were carved into the Palouse loess and underlying basalt by cataclysmic Pleistocene floods. The characteristic flood erosion of the basalt impressed early settlers as a scaring of the earth by removing its protective soil, and the term “scabland” was applied to it.

The best known geomorphic studies in the Columbia Plateau centered on the role of cataclysmic flooding in the origin of its landscape. The central figure in this research for over half a century was J Harlen Bretz (Fig. 1), a glacial geologist at the University of Chicago. Bretz (1923a) used the name “Channeled Scabland” to describe the area of loess-mantled northeastern Columbia Plain that was scoured by flood channels. In 20 major articles and monographs, mostly published between
The Interior Mountains and Plateaus
Authors: Bovis Michael J.
Published: April 2015

This chapter evaluates the most significant contributions to geomorphology from a region of considerable climatic, topographic, and geologic diversity (Fig. 1). Climate ranges from subtropical semidesert, through temperate montane and alpine environments, to boreal forest and arctic tundra. This wide range of conditions has prompted the appearance of significant publications in virtually every subdiscipline of geomorphology. The region is renowned for original contributions in topics as diverse as erosional surfaces, volcanic landforms, glaciation, periglacial landforms, and fluvial and hillslope processes. These form the major themes of this chapter. There are two criteria for the inclusion of a work in this review. The first, and most restrictive, is that it contain a fundamental contribution to geomorphic theory not previously stated elsewhere. If this were followed rigorously, relatively few works would be included. A second criterion is that the work be a significant contribution to the geomorphology of the region. Although this chapter is not an account of regional geomorphology, the second criterion has been adopted for the following reasons. First, it allows contributions to basic theory to be included. Second, it places great value on regional or local studies that have contributed to knowledge of the morphology, the evolution, and the geographic distribution of particular landforms. Since complexity of landform evolution and distribution is the rule, deeper theoretical understanding of landforms in this region, as elsewhere, has occurred only after a prolonged period of empirical investigation.

In this chapter, relatively little attention is paid to Quaternary paleoenvironments and topics
Appalachian mountains and plateaus
Authors: Mills Hugh H. , Brakenridge G. Robert , Jacobson Robert B. , Newell Wayne L. , Pavich Milan J. , Pomeroy John S.
Published: April 2015

William Morris Davis (1888) considered the Appalachians to have had an important role in the development of geomorphology. He saw the systematic study of topography as largely of American origin, and suggested that there were two steps in its development. The first began about 1840 with the founding of the Eastern state surveys, during which geologists such as Lesley (1856) established the intimate relationship between topography and structure (in the broad sense) in the Appalachians. During this first step, according to Davis, topographic form was regarded as acompleted product of extinct processes. Topography revealed structure, but it did not then reveal the long history that the structure has passed through. … The systematic relation of forms to structure, base level, and time; the change of drainage areas by contest of headwaters at divides; the revival of exhausted rivers by massive elevations of their drainage areas; all these consequences of slow adjustments were then unperceived (Davis, 1888, p. 14).

The awareness of such principles, the second step in the advancement of the study of topography, came about largely as a result of the geological exploration of the western U.S., exemplified by the work of Powell (1875, 1876) and Gilbert (1877). Once this awareness came about, however, these principles were applied to the Appalachians; Davis (1888, p. 15) stressed the importance of the Appalachians in this second phase as well as the first: If it be true that the greater part of this second advance is American like the
Pacific Coast and Mountain System
Authors: Muhs Daniel R. , Thorson Robert M. , Clague John J. , Mathews W. H. , McDowell Patricia F. , Kelsey Harvey M.
Published: April 2015

The Pacific Coast and Mountain System (PCMS) includes the coastal mountains and plains fronting the Pacific Ocean from the United States-Mexico border in the south to the northernmost part of the Alaska Range in Alaska, a latitudinal span of approximately 31°. In Alaska, the region encompasses the Alaska-Aleutian Range, the coastal mountain ranges to the south (the Kodiak, Kenai, Chugach, St. Elias, and Fairweather ranges), and the lowlands in between. In British Columbia, the PCMS includes, from west to east, the Insular Ranges on Vancouver Island and the Queen Charlotte Islands, the Coastal Depression, which includes the coastal lowlands and the continental shelf, and the Coast Mountains. The PCMS in Washington and Oregon comprises the Olympic Peninsula, the Coast Ranges, the Klamath Mountains, and the coastal plain bordering the Pacific Ocean. The Klamath Mountains extend into extreme northern California, but the Coast Ranges, which comprise the bulk of the PCMS in this region, continue from the Klamath Mountains and extend southward over most of the northern two-thirds of California. South of the Coast Ranges in California, the PCMS includes the Transverse and Peninsula ranges. In addition, a narrow coastal plain extends along much of the California coast.

The great latitudinal variation of the PCMS, along with elevations that extend from sea level to almost 7,000 m, make the PCMS in North America a region of extreme climatic contrasts. Conditions have been cold and moist enough to support glaciers in Alaska since the Miocene, whereas southern California probably has had a
Arctic Lowlands
Authors: Carter L. David , Heginbottom J. Alan , Woo Ming-ko
Published: April 2015

The Arctic Lowlands as defined for this chapter includes the Arctic Coastal Plains of Canada and Alaska and the western Arctic Islands of Canada (Fig. 1). In this chapter we discuss landforms and geomorphic processes that are characteristic of this part of North America, processes whose attributes are significantly different in the Arctic Lowlands than elsewhere, and landforms that occur elsewhere but have been studied most extensively in the Arctic Lowlands. Landforms and processes included are associated with the formation and degradation of ground ice, fluvial processes in the arctic environment, arctic coastal processes, and the formation of oriented lakes. We also discuss the sensitivity of the landscape of the Arctic Lowlands to human activity and to climatic change. Finally, we present recommendations for geomorphological research that will help us to better understand the evolution of the landscape of this region and to predict the effects on this landscape of natural or human-induced environmental perturbations. Brief descriptions of the physiography, climate, permafrost, and vegetation are presented as background for these discussions.
The heritage of engineering geology; Changes through time
Authors: Kiersch George A.
Published: April 2015

The history of remarkable engineering construction feats is as old as man’s records. Subsurface mining for copper ore on the Sinai Peninsula began at least 15,000 years ago (Stone Age), and tunneling (adit) was started about 3500 B.C. As civilization and commerce advanced and people congregated in cities, the problem of water-supply protection agianst the attacks of enemies became increasingly acute, and new methods, such as construction of aqueducts and reservoirs, had to be devised.

Use of “geologists” to assist in evaluating natural sites for engineering works and related legal implications has a long history if we include the lore of our forefathers regarding natural conditions and their meaning. In North America, early assistance and insight on geological reasoning for engineering purposes was fostered by a group of pioneers whose endeavors are described in this chapter; geological input for litigation and forensic purposes is discussed in Chapters 24 and 25 of this volume. However, any review of the early efforts in application of geology to engineering works in North America must recognize the fund of knowledge that had been acquired by earlier pioneers in Europe and Asia, and parts of Central and South America.

The numerous remnants and intact examples of remarkable construction feats built in past centuries represent a legacy to the early “engineer’s” skills. It is not difficult to imagine a relation and interdependence between the “architect-engineer” and the “geologist,” which began far back in ancient times. Obviously, even then, some individuals had an awareness of rock and soil conditions and offered counsel on excavations and the properties of natural materials for siting and construction of castles, canals, water tunnels, and aqueducts.
History and heritage of Engineering Geology Division, Geological Society of America, 1940s to 1990
Authors: Kiersch George A. , Hatheway Allen W.
Published: April 2015

During the 1890s, the importance of an interrelation between geologic principles and guidance for construction of major engineering works was being clearly demonstrated through the efforts of Professor William O. Crosby (M.I.T.) and Professor James F. Kemp (Columbia). A half-century earlier, geologists in North America had begun to show this interdependence, as indicated by works of James Hall of the New York State Geological Survey in 1839 on rock cuts of the Erie Canal and William W. Mather of the Ohio Geological Survey in 1838 on rotational slides along the lake front at Cleveland. The contributions of these and other early workers are described in Chapter 1, as are other early geological studies for dams, tunnels, aqueducts, canals, and related works. However, the first organizations and groups formed to represent the early practitioners of applied geology only developed in the early 1900s.

The Economic Geology Publishing Company was formed to serve the interests of all applied/economic geologists in 1905, and the first issues of Economic Geology were released that year. This scientific journal soon developed a wide circulation, both domestic and foreign, and was the medium for all four branches of applied, or economic, geology, described by D. W. Johnson in 1906 as mining, petroleum, ground water, and “applications of geology to various uses of mankind and engineering structures.” Waldemar Lindgren, chief geologist of the U.S. Geological Survey, in his 1913 textbook Mineral Deposits, defined these four branches and made reference to engineering geology practice. The main geological principles and their relevance to engineering works were put forth in the textbook by Ries and Watson (1914), Engineering Geology.
Surface water and flooding
Authors: Rahn Perry H.
Published: April 2015

Rivers provide numerous benefits to man as avenues of commerce and sources of water supply. Flood plains have rich agricultural soils, and some of the earth’s most heavily populated areas occur along rivers.

Yet the riverine environment can be hazardous. Ancient civilizations struggled against floods while trying to earn a living from the fertile land adjacent to the Nile, Tigris, Euphrates, Indus, and Yellow Rivers. The worst geologic disaster known occurred in 1887 when about 800,000 Chinese lost their lives from the Yellow River flood (Costa and Baker, 1981). Another 100,000 Chinese died when the Yangtze River flooded in 1911. The great flood of 1927 extensively damaged the lower Mississippi River Valley and a flood-control plan was quickly adopted. The Arno River ripped through Florence, Italy, in 1966 and damaged one of the foremost art centers of the world.

Legget (1973, p. 66) has noted that in Central Europe the builders of medieval towns generally avoided the flood plains. They were rightly afraid of floods, and recognized the difficulty of construction on the wet ground adjacent to rivers. The early sectors of the older cities were usually located on the higher ground provided by river terraces. This wise practice was not based consciously on geological training, but utilized the same craft-lore demonstrated by the builders of the Pyramids and other early works (Chapter 1, this volume). Unfortunately, since the late 1800s, buildings on flood plains has steadily increased throughout the world with the growth of major cities to satisfy pressures for urban living.

In the United States, flood-related deaths continue, and annual flood damage is increasing (Rahn, 1986).
Coasts and beaches
Authors: Leatherman Stephen P.
Published: April 2015

Coasts, often sedimentary in nature, serve as the dynamic interface between land and sea. While rocky shores exist along much of New England and the West Coast, the preponderance of United States coastal urbanization has occurred along sedimentary coasts. Indeed, much of the outer shoreline along the U.S. East and Gulf coasts is characterized by barrier systems.

The study of sedimentary coasts is a multidiscipline effort involving geologists, physical geographers, and coastal engineers, including hydraulic engineers and fluid hydrodynamicists. These specialities can all be considered under the general field of coastal geomorphology wherein the morphological development of the coast, acting under the influence of winds, waves, currents, and sea-level changes, is the subject of these physical science investigations. Coastal engineering, while primarily a branch of civil engineering, leans heavily upon coastal and geological sciences. Their charge is to address both the natural and human-induced changes in the coastal zone, design structural and nonstructural devices and procedures to intercede against such changes, and evaluate the impacts of proposed solutions on these problem areas.

Because numerous factors govern the development and evolution of coastal areas, solutions devised for one area will often fail if blindly applied to another. This stems from the wide-ranging morphologies and energy conditions found along the coast. Coastal engineering, therefore, is site specific, and project success requires careful collection and evaluation of all pertinent physical data from the geosciences.

The coastal engineering literature is replete with coastal defense or harbor failures due to a lack of understanding of coastal processes. The importance of applied coastal research is clearly demonstrated by harbors built in Dublin, Ireland, during the nineteenth century.
Slope movements
Authors: Fleming Robert W. , Varnes David J.
Published: April 2015

Hillslopes are a fundamental unit of a landscape, comprising that reach of ground between a drainage divide and a valley floor, and thus much effort has been expended in their study. Early research by Davis (1899) and Penck (1924) was directed toward developing unified theories of slope formation and evolution. Subsequently, emphasis has shifted toward morphometric description of slopes (Strahler, 1956) and study of hillslope processes (Schumm, 1956). Currently, geomorphologists are making impressive advances in understanding hillslope forms and processes (Carson and Kirkby, 1972; Scheidegger, 1970, 1975; Huggett, 1985). While unified theories of hillslope formation and evolution are apparently many years away, the next generation of models can be based on carefully obtained measurements of hillslope processes.

Slope movements of several different types are among the principal processes by which hillslopes evolve. Slope movements are downward and outward movements of slope-forming materials composed of natural rock, soils, artificial fills, or combinations of these materials. This definition is identical to the definition of landslide used by Eckel (1958a). The terms landslide and mass wasting are sometimes used synonymously for slope movement. Slope movements, however, include some processes that involve little or no true sliding, such as falls and flows, and do not include some processes contained in mass wasting such as subsidence (Sharpe, 1938).

Progress in understanding and control of slope movements has been the result of a truly interdisciplinary effort involving geological scientists, engineers, physicists, and hydrologists. Most of the major practitioners in applied geology in the 19th and 20th centuries have contributed significantly to our understanding of slope movement types and processes.
Nontectonic subsidence
Authors: Holzer Thomas L.
Published: April 2015

Geologists have investigated many different types of subsidence (Table 1) in North America during the past 100 years. Their principal contribution has been a better understanding of subsidence processes associated with the sudden formation of sinkholes, volcanic activity (Schuster and Mullineaux, this volume), tectonism (Bonilla, this volume), and sediment compaction induced by withdrawal or natural expulsion of underground fluids. Although major advancements in the understanding of other types of subsidence processes have been made primarily by engineers and soil scientists, geologists have outlined the geologic framework within which these subsidence processes are active. Allen (1969) provides an overview of the geologic processes that contribute to subsidence and the geologic setting of subsidence.

This chapter traces the evolution during the past 100 years of the conceptual understanding of land subsidence in North America caused by compaction of unconsolidated sediment induced primarily by the withdrawal of underground fluids. It reviews the ways these concepts have been applied, both to development of the theory of fluid flow through porous media and to gain insight into natural geologic processes. Four important case histories are examined, and the chapter concludes with discussions of the outlook for future investigations of subsidence in North America and a summary of research needs. Terminology used in the chapter follows Poland and others (1972).

Subsidence associated with man-induced compaction is one of man’s major inadvertent engineering feats. At least 34 areas in Mexico and the United States have subsided (Fig. 1); an aggregate area of about 22,000 km2, approximately equal to the area of New Jersey, has been lowered more than 30 cm.
Faulting and seismic activity
Authors: Bonilla Manuel G.
Published: April 2015

This chapter traces some of the ideas and concepts leading to the current understanding of the process of faulting and earthquake generation, gives examples of engineering geology investigations contributing to that understanding, describes some engineering projects that have been strongly influenced by the process, and suggests needed research. Each of these topics is discussed in sequence.

The understanding of faulting and earthquakes and of the significance of these to engineering has developed over several centuries. John Michell in 1761 was probably the first to publish a cross section of a clearly recognizable fault (Adams, 1938, Fig. 66). Michell did not attribute earthquakes to faulting, but proposed the important idea that seismic vibrations were the result of the propagation of elastic waves in the earth (Adams, 1938). Charles Lyell (1830) emphasized the uplift and depression of land that accompanies earthquakes. He did not attribute earthquakes to faulting, but a contemporary of his evidently did, for the following statement appeared in a review of Lyell’s book (Scrap, 1830, p. 463):

The sudden fracture of solid strata by any disruptive force must necessarily produce a violent vibratory jar to a considerable distance along the continuation of these strata. Such vibrations would be propagated in undulations, which may be expected, when influencing a mass of rocks several thousand feet at least in thickness, to produce on the surface exactly the wave-like motion, the opening and shutting of crevices, the tumbling down of cliffs and walls, and other characteristic phenomena of earthquakes.

This idea was apparently disregarded, and coseismic faulting, some of which reached the ground surface, was generally considered to be the result rather than the cause of earthquakes until the time of G. K. Gilbert.
Permafrost
Authors: Péwé Troy L.
Published: April 2015

The long, cold winters and short, cool summers in the polar regions result in the formation of a layer of frozen ground that does not completely thaw during the year. This perennially frozen ground, known as permafrost, affects many human activities in the Arctic, as well as in the Subarctic and at high altitudes, and causes problems that are not experienced elsewhere.

Permafrost is a naturally occurring material that has a temperature below 0°C continuously for two or more years (Muller, 1943, p. 3). This layer of frozen ground is designated exclusively on the basis of temperature. Part or all of its moisture may be unfrozen, depending upon the chemical composition of the water or depression of the freezing point by capillary forces. For example, permafrost with saline soil moisture, such as that found under the ocean immediately off the arctic shores, might be colder than 0°C for several years but would contain no ice and thus would not be firmly cemented. Most permafrost is consolidated by ice; permafrost with no water, and thus no ice, is termed dry permafrost. The upper surface of permafrost is called the permafrost table. In permafrost areas, the surficial layer of ground that freezes in the winter (seasonally frozen ground) and thaws in summer is called the active layer. The thickness of the active layer under most circumstances depends mainly on the moisture content; it varies from 10 to 20 cm in thickness in wet organic sediments to 2 to 3 m in well-drained gravels. Permafrost is a widespread phenomenon in the northern part of the Northern Hemisphere, underlying an estimated 20 percent of the land surface of the world (Fig. 1).
Snow and ice
Authors: Weeks Wilford F. , Brown Robert L.
Published: April 2015

Glaciology, the study of snow and ice, encapsulates many aspects of the more conventional world of geology, including the study of igneous (lake, river, and sea ice), sedimentary (snow packs), and metamorphic (glaciers, ice sheets, and shelves) ice masses. However, glaciology avoids some of geology’s inherent problems because snow and ice bodies always occur on or near the surface of the earth and are, geologically speaking, quite thin: snow, lake, river, and sea ice are less than a few tens of meters; ice shelves and glaciers are less than a few hundred meters; and ice sheets are less than 4,000 m. Consequently, their investigation by either direct sampling (coring) or indirect geophysical methods is comparatively straightforward. They are also basically mono-mineralic; ice 1(h) and gas, plus in the case of sea ice, a liquid phase with minor amounts of a few simple solid salts. This is clearly a simplification when one considers the mineralogical complexities of most rock masses. Furthermore, color presents few problems, basic white on white.

In considering the differences between the behavior of natural ice masses and the more typical materials considered by engineering geologists, one must remember that ice on the Earth’s surface invariably exists at or near its melting temperature, as contrasted with surficial rock masses that occur at temperatures far below melting and are, relatively speaking, the real “frozen” bodies. From a research point of view, the “high” temperatures of natural ice masses are an advantage in that igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic processes occur rapidly, resulting in changes that are invariably measurable in a few years and more commonly in a few hours or days; geologically near-lightning speeds.
Investigation of preferred sites for selection and design
Authors: Cabrera John G. , Hatheway Allen W.
Published: April 2015

Preferred sites represent those locations that have been identified and subsequently survived a Phase I screening against a set of general locational, design, and environmental requirements, which provide the basic ingredients for functionality. Ordinarily, the candidate sites are identified on a broad basis, using small-scale topographic maps (less than 1:250,000 scale), remote images such as aerial photographs, and aerial reconnaissance; geologic factors are partly downgraded, due to the lack of specific details provided during this second phase of feasibility investigations (Chapter 18, Fig. 1).

Preferred sites, representing Phase II of a project, are those considered worthwhile on the general basis of location and topography, design requirements, environmental impact potential, seismic and groundwater characteristics. By their nature, Phase II efforts are geologically intensive. During Phase II investigations, reconnaissance-level mapping and subsurface exploration, sampling, and testing of the materials can provide enormous returns when planned and conducted by mature and field-experienced applied geologists.

The concept of the alternative site-selection process emerged in the 1930s, as a result of developments in the internal combustion engine, which served as a power plant to drive mass-produced heavy construction equipment. Thus, early, large-scale heavy construction projects, such as dams, canals, and tunnels, were possible. With this capacity, national governments and cities alike became owners of transportation and water supply projects that could have, by nature of their function, several choices for location.

Heavy construction was widespread during the 1930s, with projects like dams of the Tennessee Valley Authority, and Boulder (Hoover), Coulee, and Shasta dams, and dozens of military bases and installations for World War II.
The geologist and legal responsibilities
Authors: Waggoner Eugene B. , Kiersch George A.
Published: April 2015

Throughout the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth, the involvement of geologists in legal matters as part of their normal professional services was rare. A geologist’s principal endeavors prior to the early 1900s were mainly restricted to the more classical and academic studies of the Earth’s features and resources. An exception, and one of the earliest recorded cases of geological litigation and the as-encountered site conditions, involved excavation to enlarge the Erie Canal Locks at Lockport, New York, in 1839. James Hall of the New York Geological Survey was asked to evaluate and classify a “Slate Rock and Shale” sequence; the engineer’s contract quoted a unit price for “solid rock” and a lower price for “Slate Rock and Shale” (described in Chapter 1, this volume). Terms of the 1839 contract made a clear distinction between the rock types impossible.

Even the early applied geologists (Chapter 1, this volume) were mainly involved with collecting and describing the geologic setting of a proposed project and providing the relevant information on areal and site maps with accompanying texts that described the general geologic conditions to be expected. Only on rare occasions would the highly respected early applied geologists, such as W. O. Crosby, James Kemp, Heinrich Ries, Charles P. Berkey, or Warren J. Mead, be invited to serve in litigation, and never as part of a large-scale claim or changed-conditions argument so common since the 1960s. Rather, those early applications of geology for legal purposes were usually restricted to a single geologic entity, such as the two detective problems of a geological flavor in the early 1900s solved by Professor Berkey:
Forensic geoscience for engineering works; Litigation, hearings, and testimony
Authors: Dunn James R.
Published: April 2015

Forensic geoscience, as paraphrased from a definition of “forensic,” is the component of geological sciences that belongs to or is used suitably in courts of judicature and/or public discussion and debate. Murray and Tedrow (1974) in their text, Forensic Geology, describe only those areas of forensic geology that primarily relate to criminal investigations. In the ensuing decade and a half, however, the field has expanded and changed radically. This review defines and describes the subject in a much broader sense, including such forums as public discussion and debate. The principal examples cited are the applied geosciences component of engineering works.

Clearly, forensic geoscience, like consulting geology, is not a branch of geological sciences but rather a category of geological application. Yet it is important to separate forensic geoscience from the other areas of applied geoscience because the orientation and methodology of forensic geoscientists is normally quite different from that of the main body of practicing geoscientists. Furthermore, because much of forensic geological practice is focused on influencing public decisions of a judicial, regulatory, or legislative nature, forensic geoscience today owes its existence to government policies as expressed through laws, regulations, the judiciary, and public works.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the greatest volume of the litigation component of forensic geoscience was concerned with mining and water supplies, along with occasional criminal cases. However, by the 1930s, more forensic geological work was gradually being applied to engineering works, primarily for determining responsibility for engineering errors, unforeseen adverse conditions, and the determination of mineral values in eminent domain cases when land was taken for engineering projects.
Research efforts, governments of North America
Authors: Lee Fitzhugh T. , Scott John S. , Ruiz-Vazquez Mariano , Salas Guillermo P. , Maycotte Jorge I.
Published: April 2015

This section presents a synopsis of the evolution, function, and distribution of engineering-geological activities in the United States government. Much of the background information was obtained from material supplied by each agency in response to a written request. Other information was obtained from colleagues and library documents. Even a casual inspection of this information reveals that federal-agency engineering-geology practice from its infancy in the 1930s to its present-day maturity has followed a course that mirrors the worldwide development of the discipline. This has come about naturally as the result of agency needs that have been driven by budget, mission, and research aims. The result has been a mélange of practical applications to various civil and mining projects supported by applied and theoretical research. Federal agencies that employ geotechnical staffs, but are predominantly regulatory (e.g., Nuclear Regulatory Commission) rather than being concerned with research or practice of engineering geology, were not included in this report.

Perhaps the highest tribute to the practice of engineering geology in government was stated long ago by Charles P. Berkey, himself a pioneer in the field: “. . .I claim a place of honor for these men who spend their lives in devising new ways of using their specialistic knowledge and experience and ingenuity for more effective public works and for the greater comfort and safety of men and women everywhere. . .” (Berkey, 1942).

The U.S. Geological Survey (U.S.G.S.), Department of the Interior, has been involved in engineering geology for most of its 110-year life. In 1888, J. W. Powell, Director, began irrigation surveys, which were the first attempts at a national reclamation program and ultimately led to the establishment of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
Review of late-glacial and Holocene events in the Champlain and Goldthwait Seas areas and arrival of man in eastern Canada
Authors: LaSalle Pierre , Chapdelaine Claude
Published: April 2015

Our intent is to establish the time of occupation of the archeological sites already recorded in eastern Canada by using the age (assumed or otherwise) of the geologic features on which they are lying. This approach is used because many of the sites in Quebec and the Maritime Provinces have not been dated directly. Osteological material from the entrance talus of the St. Elzear cave is also used to assess conditions with which early man had to contend, if he was present, during the late-glacial and early Holocene time in eastern Gaspe Peninsula. We will summarize and discuss some of the literature dealing with phases of Lake Iroquois, and the Goldthwait and Champlain Seas.

Since the publication of “Early man and the age of the Champlain Sea” by Mason (1960) and the paper by Karrow and others (1961) dealing with the age of Lake Iroquois and Lake Ontario, considerable research has been published bearing on the subject in both Canada and the United States.

Ironically, the same controversies of 25 years ago are still going on, namely the age of Lake Iroquois, the age of the Champlain Sea (time of inception and end), and the reliability of radiocarbon dates obtained on marine shells collected in littoral sediments of the Champlain Sea (MacClintock and Terasmae, 1960; Stuiver and Boras, 1975; Rodrigues, 1987).

Today, with the advent of accelerator dating, radiocarbon dates are obtained from foraminifera tests (Rodrigues, 1987, 1988) and ostracodes remains, present in small but datable quantities (20 mg) in
Point bar geoarchaeology in the Upper Coastal Plain of the Savannah River Valley, South Carolina; A case study
Authors: Brooks Mark J. , Sassaman Kenneth E.
Published: April 2015

Archaeologists working in the Coastal Plain of the southeastern United States are often confronted with sites in stratigraphically undifferentiated (no observable or well-defined stratigraphy) sandy sediments of alluvial, colluvial, and aeolian origin (e.g., Anderson and others, 1979; Anderson and others, 1982; Blanton and others, 1986; Brooks and Canouts, 1984; Brooks and Hanson, 1987; Daniel and Wisenbaker, 1987). With some exceptions, geologic interpretations of such depositional environments by archaeologists are generally inadequate, and result in dubious conclusions regarding archaeological site formation. For example, vertical artifact distributions in Coastal Plain sites often assume a normal curve. Such patterning is sometimes interpreted as the result of progressively intensive occupations until an occupational peak (artifact density mode) was reached, followed by a gradual decline in occupational intensity. An implicit assumption of such reasoning is that sediment accumulation was gradual and continuous during the course of human occupation. Accordingly, between modes of artifact density, intervening sediments, often of considerable depth and containing little or no artifactual materials, are considered indicative of long periods of site abandonment.

We suggest that under some, perhaps most conditions, buried artifact distributions at sandy Coastal Plain sites represent a series of occupation surfaces, as defined by density modes in vertical distributions, separated by the sediments of rapid, discrete depositional episodes. Under this scenario, tails of normal distributions that extend above and below the artifact density modes represent vertical displacement from the occupation surfaces due to bioturbation and human occupation. In experimental studies, Stockton (1973; see also Hughes and Lampert, 1977)
A soil-geomorphic analysis of the midden deposits at the Aztalan site, Wisconsin
Authors: Kolb Michael F. , Lasca Norman P. , Goldstein Lynne G.
Published: April 2015

The purpose of this chapter is threefold: first, to develop a framework for the geoarchaeological analysis of aggregated village sites common in the Woodland and Mississippian periods in the eastern United States; second, to illustrate how both primary and secondary source materials can be used in combination to support or generate a hypothesis or to infer environmental conditions at a site; and third, to present a preliminary analysis of an archaeological deposit, a midden, from Aztalan, a Late Woodland-Mississippian site in southern Wisconsin (Figs. 1 and 2).

Our analytical framework was developed for the investigations at Aztalan, but is applicable to other Mississippian period village sites as the structure and activities on the sites are similar even though the local géomorphologie settings differ. For example, Mississippian sites have many structural components in common such as mounds surrounding a plaza, palisades, aggregated housing and associated middens, and agricultural fields. Construction and maintenance of these features result in a disturbed landscape surface, which potentially enhances erosion on the site, as well as sedimentation on and around the site.

The following analytical framework is designed to aid in the interpretation of the archaeological deposits that result from ground-disturbing activities. The framework has three components: (1) geomorphological context, (2) archaeological context, and (3) geoarchaeological analysis; and is a modification of the contextual approaches proposed by Butzer (1982), Gladfelter (1977), and Stein and Farrand (1985). Our conceptual framework was stimulated by their work. The geomorphic context is the site's landscape setting, including the deposits
Evolution of sandstone rockshelters in eastern North America; A geoarchaeological perspective
Authors: Donahue Jack , Adovasio James M.
Published: April 2015

Though systematic studies of the genesis and subsequent evolution of limestone caves and rockshelters are relatively common, notably in Europe (Laville and others, 1980; Farrand, 1981) as well as other parts of the world (Liu, 1988), comprehensive examination of the inception and development of sandstone overhangs and rockshelters are much rarer (Raynal, 1975; Styles and others, 1983). This reflects a somewhat glaring gap in the geological and geoarchaeological literature as sandstone rockshelters are not uncommon in many parts of the New and Old Worlds. Indeed, in some areas (for example, the eastern and southwestern United States), they are quite numerous.

Whatever their frequency, sandstone rockshelters, like their limestone counterparts, were often visited and revisited throughout the period of their existence by humans. Indeed, as often highly visible features of the late Pliocene, Pleistocene, and Holocene landscape, sandstone rockshelters in the Old World were utilized as temporary bivouacs, special activity loci, seasonal encampments, or even long-term habitations for tens or occasionally hundreds of thousands of years. In the New World, such sites were utilized where available since the initial peopling of the hemisphere. As they were used by human occupants, sandstone rockshelters, again like their limestone analogues, served as places within which humans operated and interacted, however briefly, with their immediately contiguous environment. Indeed, the size, configuration, exposure, and internal topography of the rockshelter determined the parameters of what its occupants did on or in it. As both archaeologists and their counterparts in geologygeoarchaeology collectively attempt to elucidate or explain the prehistoric
Archaeological geology of the Southern Plains
Authors: Ferring C. Reid
Published: April 2015

In the Southern Plains of the United States, researchers have conducted interdisciplinary studies of archaeological sites for more than 60 years. They have documented patterns of environmental and cultural change initiated at the close of the Pleistocene when Paleoindian populations first inhabited the region.

My objectives in this review are (1) to illustrate the character of interdisciplinary archaeological research in the Southern Plains, that is, how multidisciplinary specialists have contributed to the study of archaeological records; and (2) to provide brief summaries of this research. The archaeological records of the Southern Plains are demonstrative of both diachronic and geographic variability, which is the focus of archaeological studies in the region. The following discussions, organized around geographic subregions of the Southern Plains, the Southern High Plains, and the Rolling Plains, should make clear that interdisciplinary methods of research have been essential to define and interpret that variability.