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Media Advisory: Event Celebrates Contribution of 100-year-old Streamgage to Nebraska


Media Advisory: Event Celebrates Contribution of 100-year-old Streamgage to Nebraska

The Platte River near Duncan streamgage, just upstream from the Platte’s confluence with the Loup River, began operating on June 4, 1895. For more than a century of operation, this U.S. Geological Survey streamgage has contributed abundant information about water levels to farmers, decision makers, scientists, planners, and the public by helping assure future water supplies, sound water-resources management, safe infrastructure design, and proper flood zoning.

“The value and utility of the data from long-term streamgages such as this one is difficult to overstate,” said Robert Swanson, Director of the USGS Nebraska Water Science Center.

During the 1990s, however, many such long-term streamgages were discontinued due to lack of funding. On average, each year of the decade saw a net loss of about 70 of these vital, often life-saving instruments that are located beside a river and measure water levels.

Who: Representatives from the Offices of Senator Ben Nelson, Senator Mike Johanns,
and U.S. Congressman Adrian Smith
Robert Swanson, Director, USGS Nebraska Water Science Center

What: Re-dedication ceremony of USGS Platte River streamgage

Where: The streamgage on the Platte River bridge, 0.5 mi. south of Duncan on Main/287 Ave. From Lincoln and Omaha.

When: Tuesday June 5, 2012, 10 a.m.

Note: Duration about one hour, including a 15-minute re-dedication presentation, streamgage-house tour, and data-collection demonstrations.

More information on Platte River at Duncan, including historical photos:

USGS Newsroom


More information

Parameter Value Description
Magnitude mb The magnitude for the event.
Longitude ° East Decimal degrees longitude. Negative values for western longitudes.
Latitude ° North Decimal degrees latitude. Negative values for southern latitudes.
Depth km Depth of the event in kilometers.
Place Textual description of named geographic region near to the event. This may be a city name, or a Flinn-Engdahl Region name.
Time 1970-01-01 00:00:00 Time when the event occurred. UTC/GMT
Updated 1970-01-01 00:00:00 Time when the event was most recently updated. UTC/GMT
Timezone offset Timezone offset from UTC in minutes at the event epicenter.
Felt The total number of felt reports
CDI The maximum reported intensity for the event.
MMI The maximum estimated instrumental intensity for the event.
Alert Level The alert level from the PAGER earthquake impact scale. Green, Yellow, Orange or Red.
Review Status Indicates whether the event has been reviewed by a human.
Tsunami This flag is set to "1" for large events in oceanic regions and "0" otherwise. The existence or value of this flag does not indicate if a tsunami actually did or will exist.
SIG A number describing how significant the event is. Larger numbers indicate a more significant event.
Network The ID of a data contributor. Identifies the network considered to be the preferred source of information for this event.
Sources A comma-separated list of network contributors.
Number of Stations Used The total number of Number of seismic stations which reported P- and S-arrival times for this earthquake.
Horizontal Distance Horizontal distance from the epicenter to the nearest station (in degrees).
Root Mean Square sec The root-mean-square (RMS) travel time residual, in sec, using all weights.
Azimuthal Gap The largest azimuthal gap between azimuthally adjacent stations (in degrees).
Magnitude Type The method or algorithm used to calculate the preferred magnitude for the event.
Event Type Type of seismic event.
Event ID Id of event.
Event Code An identifying code assigned by, and unique from, the corresponding source for the event.
Event IDS A comma-separated list of event ids that are associated to an event.

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