Remote sensing of physiographic soil units of Bennett County, South Dakota

A study was conducted in Bennett County, South Dakota, to establish a rangeland test site for evaluating the usefulness of ERTS data for mapping soil resources in rangeland areas. Photographic imagery obtained in October, 1970, was analyzed to determine which type of imagery is best for mapping drainage and land use patterns. Imagery of scales ranging from 1:1,000,000 to 1.20,000 was used to delineate soil-vegetative physiographic units. The photo characteristics used to define physiographic units were texture, drainage pattern, tone pattern, land use pattern and tone. These units will be used as test data for evaluating ERTS data. The physiographic units were categorized into a land classification system. The various categories which were delineated at the different scales of imagery were designed to be useful for different levels of land use planning. The land systems are adequate only for planning of large areas for general uses. The lowest category separated was the facet. The facets have a definite soil composition and represent different soil landscapes. These units are thought to be useful for providing natural resource information needed for local planning

Effective use of ERTS multisensor data in the Northern Great Plains

The author has identified the following significant results. ERTS imagery was used as a tool in the identification and refinement of soil association areas; to classify land use patterns between crop and fallow fields; to identify corn, soybeans, and oats; and to identify broad generalized range ecosystems. Various data handling techniques were developed and applied to accomplish these tasks. A map outlining soil associations and relative land values was completed on a base mosaic of ERTS imagery and is included as an appendix to the report

Tunneling through Weak Interactions: Comparison of Through-Space-, H-Bond-, and Through-Bond-Mediated Tunneling

Results from ab initio electronic structure theory calculations on model systems allow for the detailed comparison of tunneling through covalently bonded contacts, hydrogen bonds, and van der Waals contacts. Considerable geometrical sensitivity as well as an exponential distance dependence of the tunneling is observed for tunneling through various nonbonded contacts. However, the fundamental result from the present study is that at most a modest difference is observed between tunneling mediated by H-bonds and tunneling mediated by van der Waals contacts at typical distances for each type of interaction. These results are considered in relation to the pathways model of Beratan and Onuchic, and implications for understanding long-range tunneling in biological systems are discussed

Soil Survey and Land Valuation for Tax Purposes

The responsibility of assessing farm real estate for taxation purposes falls to the tax assessor. Even though most assessors have a sincere desire to achieve an equitable relationship between individual farms, justifiable criticism has been directed against the present taxation procedure for many years. Too often determination of the assessed value of rural property has been based upon average values for an area and upon the management of land rather than on such basic factors as types of soils, location and accessibility. Some farmers have decided against making improvements to the farmstead, such as a needed paint job or repair of buildings because well-kept buildings invite further taxes. However, it is difficult for a good farmer not to keep his fields in good condition and appearance. Good management often can make poor land appear better than good land under poor management. It is in cases of this sort that the assessor may tax the better management

South Dakota Soils : A Generalized Soils Map of the West River Area of South Dakota

This publication provides a description of soil forming factors: climate, vegetation, parent material, relief, and time, as well as a map of soil types west of the Missouri River in South Dakota

South Dakota Soils : A Generalized Soils Map of the East River Area of South Dakota

This publication provides a description of soil forming factors: climate, vegetation, parent material, relief, and time, as well as a map of soil types east of the Missouri River in South Dakota

The Homogeneity of Interstellar Oxygen in the Galactic Disk

We present an analysis of high resolution HST Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) observations of O I 1356 and H I Lyman-alpha absorption in 36 sight lines that probe a variety of Galactic disk environments and include paths that range over nearly 4 orders of magnitude in f(H_2), over 2 orders of magnitude in mean sight line density, and that extend up to 6.5 kpc in length. Consequently, we have undertaken the study of gas-phase O/H abundance ratio homogeneity using the current sample and previously published Goddard High-Resolution Spectrograph (GHRS) results. Two distinct trends are identified in the 56 sight line sample: an apparent decrease in gas-phase oxygen abundance with increasing mean sight line density and a gap between the mean O/H ratio for sight lines shorter and longer than about 800 pc. The first effect is a smooth transition between two depletion levels associated with large mean density intervals; it is centered near a density of 1.5 cm^-3 and is similar to trends evident in gas-phase abundances of other elements. Paths less dense than the central value exhibit a mean O/H ratio of log_10 (O/H) = -3.41+/-0.01 (or 390+/-10 ppm), which is consistent with averages determined for several long, low-density paths observed by STIS (Andre et al. 2003) and short low-density paths observed by FUSE (Moos et al. 2002). Sight lines of higher mean density exhibit an average O/H value of log_10 (O/H) = -3.55+/-0.02 (284+/-12 ppm). The datapoints for low-density paths are scattered more widely than those for denser sight lines, due to O/H ratios for paths shorter than 800 pc that are generally about 0.10 dex lower than the values for longer ones.Comment: 33 pages, including 8 figures and 4 tables; accepted for publication in ApJ, tentatively in Oct 200

LANDSAT-1 data, its use in a soil survey program

The following applications of LANDSAT imagery were investigated: assistance in recognizing soil survey boundaries, low intensity soil surveys, and preparation of a base map for publishing thematic soils maps. The following characteristics of LANDSAT imagery were tested as they apply to the recognition of soil boundaries in South Dakota and western Minnesota: synoptic views due to the large areas covered, near-orthography and lack of distortion, flexibility of selecting the proper season, data recording in four parts of the spectrum, and the use of computer compatible tapes. A low intensity soil survey of Pennington County, South Dakota was completed in 1974. Low intensity inexpensive soil surveys can provide the data needed to evaluate agricultural land for the remaining counties until detailed soil surveys are completed. In using LANDSAT imagery as a base map for publishing thematic soil maps, the first step was to prepare a mosaic with 20 LANDSAT scenes from several late spring passes in 1973

Identification and analysis of large paleo-landslides at Mount Burnaby, British Columbia

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Geological Society of America via the DOI in this recordThis paper presents a multi-scale and multidisciplinary study of large, late Pleistocene or early Holocene slumps in Eocene sedimentary rocks at Mount Burnaby, just east of Vancouver, British Columbia (BC). Airborne LiDAR and field data were integrated into a GIS to understand the origin, kinematics, and subsequent history of the landslides. Products derived from the bare-earth LiDAR data include an engineering geomorphology map, shaded relief maps, and several LiDAR slope profiles. To understand the landslides better, we analyzed discontinuities and structural lineaments. The structure of the Eocene rocks underlying Mount Burnaby was compared with trends of local lineaments, and the shape of the coastline of Burrard Inlet and Indian Arm, and trends of regional faults and lineaments identified by previous researchers working in southwest BC. Two main joint systems likely played a key role in conditioning the north slope of Mount Burnaby for failure. The landslides probably happened during or soon after deglaciation of the area at the end of the Pleistocene on the steep north face of Mount Burnaby after a 200-m fall in relative sea level caused by glacio-isostatic uplift of the crust.We are grateful to BGC Engineering for its support of our research, and in particular acknowledge Alex Baumgard, who helped us secure LiDAR imagery and funding that allowed us to undertake the project. The research was supported with grants provided by Kinder Morgan Canada and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC Discovery Grants to ds and jjc)

Time course of striatal DeltaFosB-like immunoreactivity and prodynorphin mRNA levels after discontinuation of chronic dopaminomimetic treatment.

DFosB-like proteins are particularly stable transcription factors that accumulate in the brain in response to chronic perturbations. In this study we have compared the time-course of striatal FosB/DFosB-like immunoreactivity and prodynorphin mRNA expression after discontinuation of chronic cocaine treatment to intact rats and chronic L-DOPA treatment to unilaterally 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) lesioned rats. The animals were killed between 3 h and 16 days after the last drug injection. In both treatment paradigms, the druginduced FosB/DFosB immunoreactivity remained significantly elevated in the caudate putamen even at the longest withdrawal period examined. The concomitant upregulation of prodynorphin mRNA, a target of DFosB, paralleled the time-course of DFosB-like immunoreactivity in the 6-OHDA-lesion/L-DOPA model, but was more transient in animals treated with cocaine. These results suggest that DFosB-like proteins have exceptional in vivo stability. In the dopamine-denervated striatum, these proteins may exert sustained effects on the expression of their target genes long after discontinuation of L-DOPA pharmacotherapy