Black Elk Peak - South Dakota

Black Elk Peak - Black Hills National Forest

The highest peak east of the Rocky Mountains will now be called Black Elk Peak on federal maps.  Located in South Dakota, the summit had been labeled Harney Peak on federal maps since 1896.

The feature is located in the Black Elk Wilderness of Black Hills National Forest in Pennington County in southwestern South Dakota.

The name change was approved August by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (BGN). The name Black Elk Peak was formally proposed to the BGN in October 2014.

The BGN sought opinions from the U.S. Forest Service and the South Dakota Board on Geographic Names (SDBGN), which in turn sought opinions from the county government, numerous local, State, and Tribal organizations, and the general public.

The new name is now considered official for use in federal maps and publications. State and local governments as well as commercial entities generally follow the federal use of geographic names.

photo credit: Gary Chancey - Black Hills National Forest

source: U.S. Geological Survey

Record Floods on USA Rivers

In the final days of 2015, record floods threatened communities throughout the Mississippi River Basin.

In late December, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) field crews recorded 18 preliminary record-high flood measurements along the Meramac River. Additional historic peaks were expected throughout the southern part of the state.

The National Weather Service reported that major flooding was occurring or forecast on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers and tributaries in Missouri, Illinois, and Kentucky, and the Arkansas River & tributaries in Arkansas.

In response to dangerous flooding, the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) issued river closures on the Upper Mississippi River between mile markers 184 and 179 and the Illinois River between mile markers 0 to 50. In other areas, high water safety advisories and high water towing restrictions were in effect.

Floodwaters were predicted to downstream, with significant river flooding expected for the lower Mississippi into mid-January.

USGS Alaska Permafrost Study

Permafrost in Alaska could be reduced significantly by the end of the century, according to a recent U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) study.

Using statistically modeled maps drawn from satellite data and other sources, USGS scientists have projected that the near-surface permafrost that presently underlies 38 percent of boreal and arctic Alaska would be reduced by 16 to 24 percent by the end of the 21st century under widely accepted climate scenarios.

Permafrost is defined by USGS as ground that stays below freezing for at least two consecutive years.

In addition to developing maps of near-surface permafrost distributions, the researchers developed maps of maximum thaw depth, or active-layer depth, and provided uncertainty estimates.

The research has been published in Remote Sensing of Environment. The current near-surface permafrost map is available via ScienceBase.

USGS Field Photographs Collection

The U.S. Geological Survey has made part of a huge national repository of geographically referenced USGS field photographs publicly available, according to a recent announcement.

Images in the collection can be located by using a new mapping portal called the Land Cover Trends Field Photo Map. The collection contains over 33,000 geo-referenced field photos with associated keywords describing the land-use and land-cover change processes taking place.

Initially, nearly 13,000 photos from across the continental US will be available to the public, yet the online collection will grow as more processed photos become available. Photos may also be found on the USGS Earth Explorer website.

“This is a treasure trove of royalty and copyright-free photography collected using consistent procedures,” said Chris Soulard, project leader and USGS research geographer.

“The benefit of these photos being hosted by the USGS is equal access to all without copyright concerns and quality control,” said Jason Sherba, USGS geographer and project web-developer.

The photography was collected as part the USGS National Land Cover Trends Project, a research effort that spanned over ten years and represented one of USGS’ largest cross-center research efforts.

source: U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey