South Lahontan

Geology and ground water of Amargosa Desert, Nevada-California: Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Water Resources—Reconnaissance Series Report 14

State of Nevada | March 1st, 1963

Global climate mode resonance due to rapidly intensifying El Niño-Southern Oscillation

Publisher not available | October 16th, 2025

Increasing ENSO amplitude and teleconnection patterns imply that remote extratropical precipitation responses, such as in Southern California and the Iberian Peninsula (F

Increasing ENSO amplitude and teleconnection patterns imply that remote extratropical precipitation responses, such as in Southern California and the Iberian Peninsula (Fig. 5), will also become stronger between alternating El Niño and La Niña events. Even though the recurrence of these events may become more predictable due to the increased regularity/periodicity and amplitude (Fig. 1)44, future ENSO teleconnections might generate enhanced whiplash effects on hydroclimate, which requires additional planning and management strategies to minimize the costs of climate damage. While similar increases in ENSO regularity and amplitude can be found in some CMIP6 model projections (Fig. 2), future work needs to assess the detailed dynamics across these models and assess the likelihood of the ENSO regime changes seen in AWI-CM3.

Gold Extraction Processes

Scientific American | October 31st, 1896

FROM very early times the ancients were attracted the beautiful color, the brilliant luster and the indestructibility of gold, and spared no pains in the endeavor to acqu

FROM very early times the ancients were attracted the beautiful color, the brilliant luster and the indestructibility of gold, and spared no pains in the endeavor to acquire it. In the code of Menes, who reigned in Egypt some 2,000 years before the time of Moses, the ratio of value between gold and silver is mentioned, one part of gold being declared equal in value to two and a half parts of silver, and it is, therefore, clear that the extraction of both metals from the deposits containing them must have been carried on before that time. It is indeed probable that gold was the first metal observed and collected, since it occurs in fragments of all sizes in loose sand, and the operations of collecting the larger pieces and melting them together are so simple. Among the rock carvings of Upper Egypt there are several illustrative of the art of washing auriferous sands by stirring and working them up by the hand in hollowed-out stone basins, and subsequently melting the gold in simple furnaces with the aid of mouth blowpipes. The earliest of these carvings is supposed to date back to about 2,500 B.C. However, in ancient times, gold appears to have been mainly derived from India, and that country continued to supply most of the gold used in Europe until the discovery of America by Columbus.

Governing Nature: Bambi Law in a Wall-E World

Social Science Research Network (SSRN) | January 28th, 2021

Humanity has disrupted many of the fundamental processes that shape nature worldwide. Virtually no places remain unchanged. Many ecosystems have moved far from their hist

Humanity has disrupted many of the fundamental processes that shape nature worldwide. Virtually no places remain unchanged. Many ecosystems have moved far from their historic conditions and no longer support native species or traditional human uses. In the Anthropocene, a new geologic era dominated by the human impact on Earth, these problems will continue to get worse. In response, humans are intervening in ecosystems at a massive scale. This Article argues that, even as humanity engages in an unprecedented level of ecosystem management, existing environmental governance structures are ill suited to manage this new nature. Ecologists who focus on restoring ecosystems have begun to abandon efforts to recreate idealized historical ecosystems, recognizing that such efforts will fail. Instead, they embrace new approaches that acknowledge continuing human impacts and seek to shape impacted habitats in a way that benefits both human and other life. This Article examines the new ecological approaches, using their migration of purpose and approach to illuminate ecosystem management in the Anthropocene and the new obligations it places on environmental law. To sharpen this focus, the Article considers three case studies of managed ecosystems, detailing the extent to which humans are controlling nature. The case studies suggest that the existing literature seriously underestimates the magnitude of the questions society will soon face. The Article concludes that although we face the daunting prospect of reshaping the very fabric of nature, we lack the governance structures to decide what shape it should take. Society will need environmental law governance that can answer fundamental questions about humanity’s role in managing nature at all scales. This Article proposes several starting principles to encourage legal scholars to address this need.

Governor's Commission to Review California Water Rights Law Summary Final Report

State of California | December 1st, 1978

Ground Water Flow in a Desert Basin: Challenges of Simulating Transport of Dissolved Chromium

National Groundwater Association (NGWA) | December 13th, 2005

A large chromium plume that evolved from chromium releases in a valley near the Mojave River was studied to understand the processes controlling fate and migration of chr

A large chromium plume that evolved from chromium releases in a valley near the Mojave River was studied to understand the processes controlling fate and migration of chromium in ground water and used as a tracer to study the dynamics of a basin and range ground water system. The valley that was studied is naturally arid with high evapotranspiration such that essentially no precipitation infiltrates to the water table. The dominant natural hydrogeologic processes are recharge to the ground water system from the Mojave River during the infrequent episodes when there is flow in the river, and ground water flow toward a playa lake where the ground water evaporates. Agricultural pumping in the valley from the mid‐1930s to the 1970s significantly altered ground water flow conditions by decreasing water levels in the valley by more than 20 m. This pumping declined significantly as a result of dewatering of the aquifer, and water levels have since recovered modestly. The ground water system was modeled using MODFLOW, and chromium transport was simulated using MT3D. Several innovative modifications were made to these modeling programs to simulate important processes in this ground water system. Modifications to MODFLOW include developing a new well package that estimates pumping rates from irrigation wells at each time step based on available drawdown. MT3D was modified to account for mass trapped above the water table when the water table declines beneath nonirrigated areas and to redistribute mass to the system when water levels rise.

Ground water in Pahrump, Mesquite, and Ivanpah Valleys, Nevada and California

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) | July 1st, 1921

Ground-Water Conditions in Amargosa Desert, Nevada-California, 1952-87

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) | July 1st, 1991

Ground-water discharge determined from estimates of evapotranspiration, Death Valley regional flow system, Nevada and California

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) | July 1st, 2001

Ground-water flow to Death Valley, as inferred from the chemistry and geohydrology of selected springs in Death Valley National Park, California and Nevada

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) | July 1st, 2001