The weather begins to cool and back-to-school merchandise and Halloween candy beckons from every store aisle. Yep, fall is here. And with it comes a harvest of great science story ideas. This monthly collection can help you cover ongoing earth and natural science research and investigations at USGS--photos and web links are provided to enhance your story.

LEADS

Bloomin' Algae -- coming to a river near you: No, it's not a new menu item, but the USGS says it's quite a problem for fish and other watery critters. In rivers and streams, excess nitrogen and phosphorus produce nasty blooms of algae and other aquatic plants that, when they die off, decompose and deplete the water of the oxygen the fish need. And there's a lot more of these "nutrients" in streams now than before industrial settlement and development in North America. Pinning down what the "natural" (predevelopment) levels are in order to set federal and state water-quality criteria for how much of these nutrients to allow has been a problem. USGS scientists have developed a computer model that fixes that. They used 63 monitoring stations in remote undeveloped stream basins, made complicated adjustments for long-distance air pollution as well as local climate, vegetation and soil conditions, and then made estimates for 65,000 stream segments across the nation. There's a great deal of geographic variability in some stream segments, like in the Great Plains, Gulf Coast and Lower Mississippi Valley, where that variability can be a factor of more than 10. This poses quite a conceptual quandary for state standard setters when what's there naturally already exceeds the criteria being set. This makes it theoretically impossible to achieve the water quality goal for those waters. For more, call Richard A. Smith at 703-648-6870

This Mercury is Not in Space or in Your Thermometer, But in a Volcano: Mercury contamination is a global problem resulting from both man-related and natural mercury emissions to the atmosphere and subsequent deposition. However, figuring out just how much mercury contamination comes from humans versus what comes naturally is difficult. Volcanically active areas are often enriched in mercury, but attempts to measure these geologic-mercury emissions are very rare. Yellowstone National Park is the world's largest active caldera, and previous research by the USGS has shown that water samples in some areas of the Park are very high in mercury, but there is no information on how much mercury gas Yellowstone burps. And those numbers could be high. In September, the USGS and several other collaborating research groups are conducting a two-week field trip to Yellowstone National Park to measure atmospheric mercury concentration, and gaseous mercury emissions from soils and geothermal features (warm springs and geysers). The goal of the research effort is to provide an estimate of mercury emissions from Yellowstone to improve understanding of just how much naturally occurring mercury there is. For more, call Butch Kinerney at 703-648-4732.

FEEDS

Water Data Continued Flowing When Electricity Stopped Flowing: Despite the massive blackout which struck the Northeast on August 15, the USGS office in New York, which was affected by the power outage, continued providing vital real-time streamflow information thanks to newly installed back-up systems. These systems provide redundancy to the services used to automatically move streamflow information to the USGS National Water Information System (NWIS) Web and WaterWatch web page, where it is accessible to water managers and the public in real-time. The back-up systems provide an alternate means for receiving, processing and delivering data from satellite telemetered gages. The real-time back-up systems have been configured for about one-half of the USGS state offices, including New York. When the power went out, New York's 129 streamgages with satellite telemetry continued to provide real-time data to NWISWeb and WaterWatch by utilizing its backup in California. The real-time back-up systems are being configured for the remaining USGS State Offices. The USGS operates and maintains more than 7,000 streamgages nationwide providing long-term and accurate streamflow information meeting the needs of many diverse users including advanced notification of floods, drought monitoring, environmental information, recreational information and a host of other uses. To see real-time streamflow information nationwide, visit http://waterwatch.usgs.gov. For more information, call Butch Kinerney at 703-648-4732

Story Seeds

Will this bunny go into hiding forever? While scientists track changes in the earth's climate, other scientists say that small, mobile animals will migrate either to higher latitudes or upslope to find suitable habitats. USGS scientists are concerned that the American pika, a mountain-dwelling relative of rabbits and hares, is one of the first mammals observed to pack their bags and move to colder climes over short time scales because of climate change. Ochotona princeps, a stocky animal with a hidden tail resembling a small hamster, lives in talus and other rocky habitats which are cool and moist. Pikas are often recognized by their characteristic squeaky calls and by the large ears. Unlike most other mountain mammals, pikas are active year-round. A recent report in the Journal of Mammalogy found that at 25 places where pikas had been found historically, researchers were unable to locate the furry critters at nearly 30 percent of the sites. Their analyses suggests that the stress of climate change, combined with shrinking habitats and closer proximity to large roads could pose an extinction risk for the pika. For more, call Erik Beever at 541-758-7785.

Science, just in time for back-to-school:. The USGS Learning Web opens the door to a world of science for students, teachers, homeschoolers, and anyone curious about what's on, in, and around the Earth. Students will find handy research tools, such as glossaries covering volcanoes, mapping, biology, and water, or search for homework help and school project ideas. Teachers and homeschoolers will find lesson plans with innovative activities addressing environmental concerns, fossils, caves, and much more. "Explorers" can look into areas of special interest, such as understanding natural hazards, investigating careers in science, and tracing history through maps. Click on the USGS Learning Web at http://www.usgs.gov/education/index.html. Call Carolyn Bell at 703-648-4463 for more.

Kids: Get a Closer Look at Mars! Now that kids have seen Mars as close as 34.6 million miles from Earth, it's time they see it even closer! Kids should log on to the USGS Web site, Astro Kids, at http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/Kids/ to see close-up images of Mars, including Valles Marineris: The Grand Canyon of Mars. Call Heather Friesen at 703-648-4469.

Browse Mother Earth's Family Album: Just as families collect photos of times gone by and of special events, the U.S. Geological Survey has a massive collection of photographs of the land mass of the planet. Housed at the USGS facility in Sioux Falls, S.D., the EROS Data Center is the National Archive of civilian aerial photos of U.S. locations (over 12 million frames, dating back to the 1930's and as current as two months ago) and over 4 million satellite photos worldwide. Want to see an aerial photo of St Louis taken in 1939? A satellite image of a Soviet base in 1961? The smoke and debris plume above the World Trade Center on September 12, 2001? Check the Archive through http://edc.usgs.gov. Access to the Archive is available to anyone. Prints or data files are available for the cost of processing and can be used without restriction. Arrangements are available for media outlets. For more information, call Dennis Hood at 605-594-6547.