Reflections on Higher Education within the Beltway: An Outsider's Point of View.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stage, Frances K.

2002-01-01

Describes one educator's work as a senior fellow at the National Science Foundation, where she learned about the workings of the agency in relation to education and educational research. Presents eight observations to help those in the educational community who interact with colleagues at major federal agencies. (SM)

Sculpture, view looking to pair of lions, positioned at top ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

Sculpture, view looking to pair of lions, positioned at top of stairs leading down into the Glen from DeWitt Circle, just north of the American Bungalow (note: Windmill in background) - National Park Seminary, Bounded by Capitol Beltway (I-495), Linden Lane, Woodstove Avenue, & Smith Drive, Silver Spring, Montgomery County, MD

Leveraging the Security -- Development Nexus in East Africa

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-02-28

THE SECURITY-DEVELOPMENT NEXUS IN EAST AFRICA America is in a state of hypnosis . Many outside the beltway do not know, and/or care, how reckless...invariably, what policy makers are implicitly tasked to do, because America will not come out of its hypnosis at the count of three. Endnotes 1 Susan

An evaluation of I-66 and the improvements to I-395 between the Capital Beltway and the District of Columbia : phase I report.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

1985-01-01

Interstate 66 is a 75-mile highway extending from I-81 at Strasburg in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia to Washington, D.C. The first 65 miles stretching eastward from I-81 were constructed routinely and with few problems. The final 10-mile segment ...

Houston, TX, USA

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1989-01-01

Most of the greater metropolitan Houston, TX (30.0N, 95.0W) region is captured in this single photograph. The continuing progress of construction of the outer beltway system enveloping the majority of the city is very evident. The downtown business district including the new George R. Brown Convention Center, the Astrodome Stadium, Intercontinental Airport and Hobby International Airport as well as Johnson Space Center are all easily seen.

Chesapeake Bay, Potomac River

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1973-01-01

The nation's capital lies astride the Potomac River (38.5N, 77.5W) at the head of the Potomac Estuary. Baltimore, MD, also in the scene, is connected to Washington by the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. The suburbs of both cities tend to cluster around the Washington and Baltimore Beltways. Most of the countryside in the eastern two-thirds of this scene is either heavily forested or is in farming, dairy operations or poultry production.

Defense Acquisition Research Journal. Volume 22, Number 2, Issue 73

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-04-01

and influence post-test outcomes. According to Kim and Wilson (2010), "there can be substantial effects of pretest on posttest , especially when the...demographic groups —_nside versus outside the Beltway, time in billet, etc. The "Increase Return on [nvestmer.t" article examines the use of...demographics to determine whether one group might be better prepared for the advanced concepts course. The DAU faculty compares pre-test data to post-test

Chesapeake Bay, Potomac River

NASA Image and Video Library

1973-06-22

SL2-05-393 (22 June 1973) --- The nation's capital lies astride the Potomac River (38.5N, 77.5W) at the head of the Potomac Estuary. Baltimore, MD, also in the scene, is connected to Washington by the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. The suburbs of both cities tend to cluster around the Washington and Baltimore Beltways. Most of the countryside in the eastern two-thirds of this scene is either heavily forested or is in farming, dairy operations or poultry production. Photo credit: NASA

Earth observations taken by Expedition 38 crewmember

NASA Image and Video Library

2013-12-12

ISS038-E-015162 (12 Dec. 2013) --- One of the Expedition 38 crew members took this brightly lit night picture featuring much of the Houston metropolitan area. The central business district is in the exact center of the photo, with the Galleria area and uptown being in the lower left with Sugar Land being closer to the lower left corner. The 610 Loop and Beltway 8 encircle the city. The southeast sections extend past Hobby Airport to the NASA/Clear Lake area.

Earth observations taken by Expedition 38 crewmember

NASA Image and Video Library

2013-12-12

ISS038-E-015160 (12 Dec. 2013) --- One of the Expedition 38 crew members took this brightly lit night picture featuring much of the Houston metropolitan area. The central business district is in the exact center of the photo, with the Galleria area and uptown being in the lower left with Sugar Land being closer to the lower left corner. The 610 Loop and Beltway 8 encircle the city. The southeast sections extend past Hobby Airport to the NASA/Clear Lake area.

a National Blog as a Medium for Student Engagement

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bentley, C.

2011-12-01

Though it began as an outreach tool specifically aimed at his community college students, the author's online geology blog ("Mountain Beltway") has developed into a national-scale platform for disseminating geological information, and is now hosted by the American Geophysical Union. Survey and interview data will be presented highlighting the relationship students have with the blog, and how it influences their perception of geology as a field of study. To some students, the blog is a pathway for recruitment and engagement of a participatory or "silent observer" sort. For others the blog is extraneous to the class or an outright turn-off. Which students engage with the blog depends on online preferences, personal views on the nature of science and religion, and pre-existing interest in geology.

Earth observations taken during STS-98 mission

NASA Image and Video Library

2001-02-07

STS098-819-038 (17 February 2001) --- Much of Metropolitan Houston appears in this nearly vertical image photographed with a handheld 70mm camera onboard the Earth-orbiting Space Shuttle Atlantis. Interstate 45 and Highways 146 and 6 can be traced from lower right in Galveston County as they head into different directions toward a wide range of points in the city and its suburbs. NASA's Johnson Space Center can be easily pin-pointed just above the center point in the frame. Other points of interest in the area can be located by tracking over the various U.S., state and interstate highways---10, 51, 610 loop, Beltway 8 and others. Downtown Houston is at left center, but the so-called Uptown area is just out of frame at left. Galveston Bay takes up most of the upper right quadrant. Lake Houston is at upper left. A small piece of the Gulf of Mexico is in lower right.

The NSF and the geosciences community: Rotating program officers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Batiza, Rodey; Rea, David K.; Rumble, Douglas, III

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is a federal agency charged with the care and feeding of basic scientific research in U.S. colleges and universities. NSF is a major contributor toward the support of research in Earth, ocean, and atmospheric sciences, disciplines of great importance to AGU members.NSF makes a regular practice of employing scientists from universities, nonprofit research organizations, industry, and state or local governments as temporary program officers (“rotators”) with terms of service from 1 to 2 years. There are several reasons for the use of rotators: It brings to NSF people who have firsthand, recent knowledge of "what it is really like" beyond the Washington, D.C. beltway. Knowledge of new ideas, recent graduates, and a fresh look at the system are worth considerably more than the problems that arise owing to inexperienced program officers.It sheds some sunshine on internal NSF procedures when the rotator returns with his tales to his home institution.It provides NSF management with considerable flexibility in coping with changing staff requirements.

Understanding Washington: a nephrologist's perspective from inside the Beltway.

PubMed

Rubin, Robert J

2013-12-01

The major principles that drive U.S. federal health policy-making are: (1) fixed or reduced costs, (2) ensured outcomes (or no evidence of undertreatment), (3) streamlined administration, and (4) political viability. A corollary is that providers are uniquely sensitive to financial incentives. Understanding these principles is vital to understanding federal health policy. Critically, these principles are nonpartisan and have been supported and used by all administrations since President Reagan. This article examines the end-stage renal disease (ESRD) prospective payment system, colloquially called "The Bundle," in the context of these major principles. Successful health policy, successful legislation, and successful regulation building all require executive leadership, mutual trust, and compromise. This is demonstrated by the events surrounding the passage of the Medicare inpatient prospective payment system, which governs hospital reimbursement for Medicare beneficiaries, including those not covered in the ESRD program. Given that the ESRD benefit consumes 6.3% of the Medicare budget for approximately 2% of Medicare beneficiaries, if nephrology is to experience future success, we must change how both policymakers and the wider field of medicine perceive our specialty. Understanding the major principles behind health care policy may facilitate this goal. Copyright © 2013 National Kidney Foundation, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

NASA's Van Allen Probes RBSP-ECT Data Products and Access to Them: An Insider's Outlook on the Inner and Outer Belts (and We Don't Mean the Nation's Beltway...)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Smith, S. S.; Friedel, R. H. W.; Henderson, M. G.; Larsen, B.; Reeves, G. D.; Spence, H. E.

2014-12-01

In this poster, we present a summary of access to the data products of the Radiation Belt Storm Probes - Energetic Particle Composition, and Thermal plasma (RBSP-ECT) suite of NASA's Van Allen Probes mission. The RBSP-ECT science investigation (http://rbsp-ect.sr.unh.edu) measures comprehensively the near-Earth charged particle environment in order to understand the processes that control the acceleration, global distribution, and variability of radiation belt electrons and ions. RBSP-ECT data products derive from the three instrument elements that comprise the suite, which collectively covers the broad energies that define the source and seed populations, the core radiation belts, and also their highest energy ultra-relativistic extensions. These RBSP-ECT instruments include, from lowest to highest energies: the Helium, Oxygen, Proton, and Electron (HOPE) sensor, the Magnetic Electron and Ion Spectrometer (MagEIS), and the Relativistic Electron and Proton Telescope (REPT). We provide a brief overview of their principles of operation, as well as a description of the Level 1-3 data products that the HOPE, MagEIS, and REPT instruments produce, both separately and together. We provide a summary of how to access these RBSP-ECT data products at our Science Operation Center and Science Data Center (http://www.rbsp-ect.lanl.gov/rbsp_ect.php ) as well as caveats for their use. Finally, in the spirit of efficiently and effectively promoting and encouraging new collaborations, we present a summary of past publications, current studies, and opportunities for your future participation in RBSP-ECT science analyses.

Hospital admissions in Iran for cardiovascular and respiratory diseases attributed to the Middle Eastern Dust storms.

PubMed

Khaniabadi, Yuef Omidi; Fanelli, Roberto; De Marco, Alessandra; Daryanoosh, Seyed Mohammad; Kloog, Itai; Hopke, Philip K; Conti, Gea Oliveri; Ferrante, Margherita; Mohammadi, Mohammad Javad; Babaei, Ali Akbar; Basiri, Hassan; Goudarzi, Gholamreza

2017-07-01

The main objective of this study was to assess the possible effects of airborne particulate matter less than 10 μm in diameter (PM 10 ) from the Middle Eastern Dust (MED) events on human health in Khorramabad (Iran) in terms of estimated hospital admissions (morbidity) for cardiovascular diseases (HACD) and for respiratory diseases (HARD) during the period of 2015 to 2016. The AirQ program developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) was used to estimate the potential health impacts to daily PM 10 exposures. The numbers of excess cases for cardiovascular/respiratory morbidity were 20/51, 72/185, and 20/53 on normal, dusty, and MED event days, respectively. The highest number of hospital admissions was estimated for PM 10 concentrations in the range of 40 to 49 μg/m 3 , i.e, lower than the daily (50 μg/m 3 ) limit value established by WHO. The results also showed that 4.7% (95% CI 3.2-6.7%) and 4.2% (95% CI 2.6-5.8%) of HARD and HACD, respectively, were attributed to PM 10 concentrations above 10 μg/m 3 . The study demonstrates a significant impact of air pollution on people, which is manifested primarily as respiratory and cardiovascular problems. To reduce these effects, several immediate actions should be taken by the local authorities to control the impacts of dust storms on residents' health, e.g., developing a green beltway along the Iran-Iraq border and management of water such as irrigation of dry areas that would be effective as mitigation strategies.

Earth Observations taken by the Expedition 22 Crew

NASA Image and Video Library

2010-02-28

ISS022-E-078463 (28 Feb. 2010) ---The Houston metropolitan area at night is featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 22 crew member on the International Space Station. Houston, Texas has been called the ?energy capital of the world? due to its role as a major hub of the petroleum and other energy resource industries. The image is oriented with north toward the top. The Houston metropolitan area covers almost 2,331,000 hectares (approximately 9,000 square miles) along the southeast Texas coastline, with an average elevation of 13 meters (approximately 43 feet) above sea level and a population of over 5 million (2006 US Census estimate). The Houston metropolitan area is also noteworthy as being the largest in the US without formal zoning restrictions. This has lead to a highly diverse pattern of land use at the neighborhood scale; nevertheless, more general spatial patterns of land use can be recognized in remotely sensed data. This is particularly evident in night time photography of the urban area taken by crew members onboard the space station. The image depicts the roughly 100 kilometers (approximately 62 miles) east-west extent of the Houston metropolitan area. Houston proper is at center, indicated by a ?bull?s-eye? of elliptical white to orange-lighted beltways and brightly lit white freeways radiating outwards from the central downtown area. Suburban and primarily residential urban land use is indicated by both reddish-brown and gray-green lighted regions that reflect a higher proportion of tree cover and lower light density. Petroleum refineries along the Houston Ship Channel are recognized by densely lit areas of golden yellow light. Rural and undeveloped land circles the metropolitan area, and Galveston Bay to the southeast (lower right) provides access to the Gulf of Mexico. Both types of non-urban surface appear dark in the image.

Washington, D.C. and the Baltimore, Maryland area

NASA Image and Video Library

1973-08-15

SL3-83-166 (July-September 1973) --- A vertical view of the Washington D.C. and the Baltimore, Maryland area is seen in the Skylab 3 Earth Resources Experiments Package S190-B (five-inch Earth terrain camera) photograph taken from the Skylab space station in Earth orbit. The Chesapeake Bay is on the right (east) side of the picture. The Potomac River flows through the Washington area in the lower left (southwest) corner of the photograph. Several transportation routes and major highways stand out very distinctly. Especially conspicuous are the beltways around the cities, Interstate 95 between Baltimore and the nation?s capitol and Interstate 70N leading west from Baltimore. The tunnel and harbor facilities in Baltimore show clearly, also. Identifiable features in the Washington area include the Capitol Building, the Mall area, Robert F. Kennedy Stadium (white circle), the five bridges across the Potomac, Andrews Air Force Base (on east loop), and the smaller Anacostia River. The extent of the urbanization in this area is dramatically illustrated in this picture. The photograph has sufficient resolution that the housing patterns for individual suburban areas are clearly defined with the houses shown as pink gray, wooded areas as dark green and cleared areas light green. Chesapeake Bay circulation patterns are indicated by contrast of dark and light blue. Sediment plumes (red) are seen entering the bay north and east of Baltimore. The bay bridge stands out white against the blue water. The detailed information contained in this one photograph will be of direct use to several EREP investigator teams in land use analysis, sedimentation and circulation patterns in the bay, and resource surveys of Maryland. All EREP photography is available to the public through the Department of Interior?s Earth Resources Observations Systems Data Center, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, 57198. Photo credit: NASA

Social Movements Against Racist Police Brutality and Department of Justice Intervention in Prince George's County, Maryland.

PubMed

Hutto, Jonathan W; Green, Rodney D

2016-04-01

Racist police brutality has been systemic in Prince George's County, Maryland. The victims include African Americans, the mentally challenged, and immigrant populations, creating a complex and uneven public health impact. Three threads characterize the social movements and intervention since 1970. First, a significant demographic shift occurred as African Americans became the majority population in the late 1980s when the first Black county executive was elected in 1994. Despite the change in political leadership, police brutality remained rampant. Lower-income households located close to the District of Columbia and "inside the beltway" experienced the most police brutality. In 2001, The Washington Post revealed that between 1990 and 2000, Prince George's police shot and killed more citizens per officer than any of the 50 largest city and county law enforcement agencies in the country, 84 % of whom were black. Of the 147 persons shot during the 1990s, 12 were mentally and/or emotionally disturbed; 6 of these shootings were fatal. Second, resistance to police brutality emerged in a variety of political formations throughout the period, especially in the late 1990s. Sustained community pressure prompted the Department of Justice (DOJ) to open a civil rights investigation of the police department in November 2000. To avoid a potential federal lawsuit, the county leadership negotiated a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the DOJ to enact policy reforms, part of which called for supplementing the departmental mobile crisis team, comprised of mental health care professionals, to respond to all cases involving mentally challenged citizens. Third, the incomplete process of change subsequent to the ending of DOJ oversight suggests a continued challenge to social movements opposing police brutality. This study focuses on the effectiveness of the MOA along with the activism of the People's Coalition for Police Accountability (PCPA) in reforming a culture of police brutality. The intensive oversight by the DOJ, combined with engaged resident activism, reduced the incidences of police brutality during the period 2004-2013. Since the termination of DOJ oversight, disturbing developments suggest the need for continued and sustained activism. Since 2010, county police officers have fatally shot 21 people, several in questionable circumstances. At the same time, the Prince George's Police Department has received more tactical military weaponry than any other jurisdiction in the state of Maryland under the 1033 program of the National Defense Authorization Act.

Ambient noise tomography for characterize the subsoil structure below a collapsed mine. Integration with 3D models of electric resistivity tomography and micro-gravity data inversion

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cárdenas-Soto, M.; Tejero, A.; Nava-Flores, M.; Zenil, D. E.; Vidal-Garcia, M.; Garcia-Serrano, A.

2016-12-01

In this work we build 3D Vs models using seismic tomography of ambient noise. The goal is to characterize the subsurface structure in order to explore the causes of a sudden mine collapse in the 2nd section of Chapultepec park, Mexico City, near to a recreation lake whose subsoil is composed of vulcano-sedimentary materials that were economically exploited in the mid-20th century, leaving a series of underground mines that were rehabilitated for the construction of the Park. In this site we record ambient noise continuously at a 250 Hz sampling rate by intervals of 30 min in three arrays of quadrangular shape with 64 - 4.5 Hz vertical geophones separated 2m. In order to confront the seismic interferometry results, we also obtain 3D models derivated from Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT), and inverted surface micro-gravity data. The correlograms show a well defined pulse for those pairs of receivers whose backazimut is perpendicular to the beltway, which is the main source that generates ambient noise. We show that pulses had a dispersive character due to that define a dispersion curve (fundamental mode of Rayleigh wave) whose velocity values are close to 700 m/s at a frequency of 5 Hz, and tend to average values of 380 m/s in frequencies close to 16 Hz. Then, we build tomography images from the maximum time of the envelope pulse filtering in 18 center frequencies between 4 to 16 Hz. Through the relationship f=Vs/4z we create a 3D model in function of the seudo-depth (z). This model allows to distinguish the irregularity of the subsoil around the mine colapse (5m depth), which underlies a competent structure (Vs>450 m/s) surrounded by vulcano sedimentary material with low Vs values (200 m/s). ERT model show that the low velocity zones are associated with saturation areas, result that is corroborated by low-density values derived from micro-gravity model. The results indicate that the collapse was produced by the hydrostatic imbalance of the competent materials, which are the artificial filling that covers the different mined areas.

Genetic Engineering Workshop Report, 2010

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Allen, J; Slezak, T

2010-11-03

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) Bioinformatics group has recently taken on a role in DTRA's Transformation Medical Technologies (TMT) program. The high-level goal of TMT is to accelerate the development of broad-spectrum countermeasures. To achieve this goal, there is a need to assess the genetic engineering (GE) approaches, potential application as well as detection and mitigation strategies. LLNL was tasked to coordinate a workshop to determine the scope of investments that DTRA should make to stay current with the rapid advances in genetic engineering technologies, so that accidental or malicious uses of GE technologies could be adequately detected andmore » characterized. Attachment A is an earlier report produced by LLNL for TMT that provides some relevant background on Genetic Engineering detection. A workshop was held on September 23-24, 2010 in Springfield, Virginia. It was attended by a total of 55 people (see Attachment B). Twenty four (44%) of the attendees were academic researchers involved in GE or bioinformatics technology, 6 (11%) were from DTRA or the TMT program management, 7 (13%) were current TMT performers (including Jonathan Allen and Tom Slezak of LLNL who hosted the workshop), 11 (20%) were from other Federal agencies, and 7 (13%) were from industries that are involved in genetic engineering. Several attendees could be placed in multiple categories. There were 26 attendees (47%) who were from out of the DC area and received travel assistance through Invitational Travel Orders (ITOs). We note that this workshop could not have been as successful without the ability to invite experts from outside of the Beltway region. This workshop was an unclassified discussion of the science behind current genetic engineering capabilities. US citizenship was not required for attendance. While this may have limited some discussions concerning risk, we felt that it was more important for this first workshop to focus on the scientific state of the art. We also consciously chose to not dwell on matters of policy (for example, screening of commercial gene or oligo synthesis orders), as multiple other forums for policy discussion have taken place in recent years. We acknowledge that other workshops on topics relevant to genetic engineering should be held, some of which may need to take place at higher classification levels. The workshop moderators would like to acknowledge the enthusiastic participation of the attendees in the discussions. Special thanks are given to Sofi Ibrahim, for his extensive assistance on helping this report reach its final form. The genetic engineering workshop brought together a diverse mix of genetic engineering pioneers and experts, Federal agency representatives concerned with abuses of genetic engineering, TMT performers, bioinformatics experts, and representatives from industry involved with large-scale genetic engineering and synthetic biology. Several talks established the current range of genetic engineering capabilities and the relative difficulties of identifying and characterizing the results of their use. Extensive discussions established a number of recommendations to DTRA of how to direct future research investments so that any mis-use of genetic engineering techniques can be promptly identified and characterized.« less

NASA's Hubble Sees Martian Moon Orbiting the Red Planet

NASA Image and Video Library

2017-07-20

The sharp eye of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured the tiny moon Phobos during its orbital trek around Mars. Because the moon is so small, it appears star-like in the Hubble pictures. Over the course of 22 minutes, Hubble took 13 separate exposures, allowing astronomers to create a time-lapse video showing the diminutive moon's orbital path. The Hubble observations were intended to photograph Mars, and the moon's cameo appearance was a bonus. A football-shaped object just 16.5 miles by 13.5 miles by 11 miles, Phobos is one of the smallest moons in the solar system. It is so tiny that it would fit comfortably inside the Washington, D.C. Beltway. The little moon completes an orbit in just 7 hours and 39 minutes, which is faster than Mars rotates. Rising in the Martian west, it runs three laps around the Red Planet in the course of one Martian day, which is about 24 hours and 40 minutes. It is the only natural satellite in the solar system that circles its planet in a time shorter than the parent planet's day. About two weeks after the Apollo 11 manned lunar landing on July 20, 1969, NASA's Mariner 7 flew by the Red Planet and took the first crude close-up snapshot of Phobos. On July 20, 1976 NASA's Viking 1 lander touched down on the Martian surface. A year later, its parent craft, the Viking 1 orbiter, took the first detailed photograph of Phobos, revealing a gaping crater from an impact that nearly shattered the moon. Phobos was discovered by Asaph Hall on August 17, 1877 at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., six days after he found the smaller, outer moon, named Deimos. Hall was deliberately searching for Martian moons. Both moons are named after the sons of Ares, the Greek god of war, who was known as Mars in Roman mythology. Phobos (panic or fear) and Deimos (terror or dread) accompanied their father into battle. Close-up photos from Mars-orbiting spacecraft reveal that Phobos is apparently being torn apart by the gravitational pull of Mars. The moon is marred by long, shallow grooves that are probably caused by tidal interactions with its parent planet. Phobos draws nearer to Mars by about 6.5 feet every hundred years. Scientists predict that within 30 to 50 million years, it either will crash into the Red Planet or be torn to pieces and scattered as a ring around Mars. Orbiting 3,700 miles above the Martian surface, Phobos is closer to its parent planet than any other moon in the solar system. Despite its proximity, observers on Mars would see Phobos at just one-third the width of the full moon as seen from Earth. Conversely, someone standing on Phobos would see Mars dominating the horizon, enveloping a quarter of the sky. From the surface of Mars, Phobos can be seen eclipsing the sun. However, it is so tiny that it doesn't completely cover our host star. Transits of Phobos across the sun have been photographed by several Mars-faring spacecraft. The origin of Phobos and Deimos is still being debated. Scientists concluded that the two moons were made of the same material as asteroids. This composition and their irregular shapes led some astrophysicists to theorize that the Martian moons came from the asteroid belt. However, because of their stable, nearly circular orbits, other scientists doubt that the moons were born as asteroids. Such orbits are rare for captured objects, which tend to move erratically. An atmosphere could have slowed down Phobos and Deimos and settled them into their current orbits, but the Martian atmosphere is too thin to have circularized the orbits. Also, the moons are not as dense as members of the asteroid belt. Phobos may be a pile of rubble that is held together by a thin crust. It may have formed as dust and rocks encircling Mars were drawn together by gravity. Or, it may have experienced a more violent birth, where a large body smashing into Mars flung pieces skyward, and those pieces were brought together by gravity. Perhaps an existing moon was destroyed, reduced to the rubble that would become Phobos. Hubble took the images of Phobos orbiting the Red Planet on May 12, 2016, when Mars was 50 million miles from Earth. This was just a few days before the planet passed closer to Earth in its orbit than it had in the past 11 years. A time-lapse video captures a portion of the path that tiny Phobos takes around Mars. Over the course of 22 minutes, Hubble snapped 13 separate exposures of the little Martian moon. The video can be viewed at https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21837

Geologic map of the Washington West 30’ × 60’ quadrangle, Maryland, Virginia, and Washington D.C.

USGS Publications Warehouse

Lyttle, Peter T.; Aleinikoff, John N.; Burton, William C.; Crider, E. Allen; Drake, Avery A.; Froelich, Albert J.; Horton, J. Wright; Kasselas, Gregorios; Mixon, Robert B.; McCartan, Lucy; Nelson, Arthur E.; Newell, Wayne L.; Pavlides, Louis; Powars, David S.; Southworth, C. Scott; Weems, Robert E.

2018-01-02

The Washington West 30’ × 60’ quadrangle covers an area of approximately 4,884 square kilometers (1,343 square miles) in and west of the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. The eastern part of the area is highly urbanized, and more rural areas to the west are rapidly being developed. The area lies entirely within the Chesapeake Bay drainage basin and mostly within the Potomac River watershed. It contains part of the Nation's main north-south transportation corridor east of the Blue Ridge Mountains, consisting of Interstate Highway 95, U.S. Highway 1, and railroads, as well as parts of the Capital Beltway and Interstate Highway 66. Extensive Federal land holdings in addition to those in Washington, D.C., include the Marine Corps Development and Education Command at Quantico, Fort Belvoir, Vint Hill Farms Station, the Naval Ordnance Station at Indian Head, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historic Park, Great Falls Park, and Manassas National Battlefield Park. The quadrangle contains most of Washington, D.C.; part or all of Arlington, Culpeper, Fairfax, Fauquier, Loudoun, Prince William, Rappahannock, and Stafford Counties in northern Virginia; and parts of Charles, Montgomery, and Prince Georges Counties in Maryland.The Washington West quadrangle spans four geologic provinces. From west to east these provinces are the Blue Ridge province, the early Mesozoic Culpeper basin, the Piedmont province, and the Coastal Plain province. There is some overlap in ages of rocks in the Blue Ridge and Piedmont provinces. The Blue Ridge province, which occupies the western part of the quadrangle, contains metamorphic and igneous rocks of Mesoproterozoic to Early Cambrian age. Mesoproterozoic (Grenville-age) rocks are mostly granitic gneisses, although older metaigneous rocks are found as xenoliths. Small areas of Neoproterozoic metasedimentary rocks nonconformably overlie Mesoproterozoic rocks. Neoproterozoic granitic rocks of the Robertson River Igneous Suite intruded the Mesoproterozoic rocks. The Mesoproterozoic rocks are nonconformably overlain by Neoproterozoic metasedimentary rocks of the Fauquier and Lynchburg Groups, which in turn are overlain by metabasalt of the Catoctin Formation. The Catoctin Formation is overlain by Lower Cambrian clastic metasedimentary rocks of the Chilhowee Group. The Piedmont province is exposed in the east-central part of the map area, between overlapping sedimentary units of the Culpeper basin on the west and those of the Coastal Plain province on the east. In this area, the Piedmont province contains Neoproterozoic and lower Paleozoic metamorphosed sedimentary, volcanic, and plutonic rocks. Allochthonous mélange complexes on the western side of the Piedmont are bordered on the east by metavolcanic and metasedimentary rocks of the Chopawamsic Formation, which has been interpreted as part of volcanic arc. The mélange complexes are unconformably overlain by metasedimentary rocks of the Popes Head Formation. The Silurian and Ordovician Quantico Formation is the youngest metasedimentary unit in this part of the Piedmont. Igneous rocks include the Garrisonville Mafic Complex, transported ultramafic and mafic inclusions in mélanges, monzogranite of the Dale City pluton, and Ordovician tonalitic and granitic plutons. Jurassic diabase dikes are the youngest intrusions. The fault boundary between rocks of the Blue Ridge and Piedmont provinces is concealed beneath the Culpeper basin in this area but is exposed farther south. Early Mesozoic rocks of the Culpeper basin unconformably overlie those of the Piedmont and Blue Ridge provinces in the central part of the quadrangle. The north-northeast-trending extensional basin contains Upper Triassic to Lower Jurassic nonmarine sedimentary rocks. Lower Jurassic sedimentary strata are interbedded with basalt flows, and both Upper Triassic and Lower Jurassic strata are intruded by diabase of Early Jurassic age. The Bull Run Mountain fault, a major Mesozoic normal fault characterized by down-to-the-east displacement, separates rocks of the Culpeper basin from those of the Blue Ridge province on the west. On the east, the contact between rocks of the Culpeper basin and those of the Piedmont province is an unconformity, which has been locally disrupted by normal faults. Sediments of the Coastal Plain province unconformably overlie rocks of the Piedmont province along the Fall Zone and occupy the eastern part of the quadrangle. Lower Cretaceous deposits of the Potomac Formation consist of fluvial-deltaic gravels, sands, silts, and clays. Discontinuous fluvial and estuarine terrace deposits of Pleistocene and middle- to late-Tertiary age flank the modern Potomac River valley unconformable capping these Cretaceous strata and the crystalline basement where the Cretaceous has been removed by erosion. East of the Potomac River, the Potomac Formation is onlapped and unconformably overlain by a westward thinning wedge of marine sedimentary deposits of Late Cretaceous and early- and late-Tertiary age. Basement rooted Coastal Plain faults of Tertiary to Quaternary age occur along the Fall Zone and this part of the inner Coastal Plain. These Coastal Plain faults have geomorphic expression that appear to influence river drainage patterns.The geologic map of the Washington West quadrangle is intended to serve as a foundation for applying geologic information to problems involving land use decisions, groundwater availability and quality, earth resources such as natural aggregate for construction, assessment of natural hazards, and engineering and environmental studies for waste disposal sites and construction projects. This 1:100,000-scale map is mainly based on more detailed geologic mapping at a scale of 1:24,000.