The first part of the project will entail an expenditure of US$140million to carry out 309 geological surveys across the country. The government then plans to spend US$15.2million to improve volcano monitoring; US$14.6million to upgrade flood-detection systems; US$29.4million to modernise the country’s earthquake monitoring system; and US$14.6million to produce better maps for a variety of uses, including emergency operations.

‘These US Geological Survey projects not only stimulate job creation and preservation, but they stimulate the scientific research that must underpin the decisions we make on behalf of the American people as the stewards of the nation’s natural resources,’ said interior secretary Ken Salazar, who believes the work will help ‘meet the imperatives of the nation’s energy and climate change challenges’.

July 2009