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Citizen science lets government agencies partner with the public on problem solving, data collection and monitoring. Volunteers get directly involved in local research, advancing science while building public interest; programs already span fields such as ecology, hydrology and tectonics.
The project
Since 2017 the U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service have worked with private nonprofit partners to inventory, survey and restore springs in Clark County, Nevada. USGS, which runs the public National Water Information System (NWIS) database, wanted to use citizen science to add geochemical data from these springs.
From 2021 to 2023 USGS worked with partners including the Springs Stewardship Institute and Friends of Nevada Wilderness. USGS staff trained the volunteers and supplied them, and as they hiked to remote springs to survey and restore them, they also collected samples for stable isotopes and tritium. USGS laboratories analyzed the samples, and the results went into NWIS.
Southern Nevada springs sampled by citizen scientists, 2021–2023. USGS.
What the samples show
Springs are fed by groundwater, so they are natural windows into how water moves underground.
- Isotopes are forms of the same element with different numbers of neutrons, and so different atomic weights. Stable isotopes of oxygen (oxygen-18, oxygen-16) and hydrogen (hydrogen-2, hydrogen-1) don't decay; differences in their ratios help identify where groundwater came from. More depleted (more negative) ratios generally mean the water was recharged at higher elevation or in a colder climate.
- Tritium (hydrogen-3) is radioactive and decays to helium-3. Mid-20th-century nuclear weapons tests spiked tritium in the water cycle far above natural levels, so knowing past atmospheric tritium and its decay rate, the tritium in a sample helps date groundwater and trace its source. Higher tritium generally means younger water from more recent precipitation.
| Spring | Tritium (TU) | δ²H (‰) | δ¹⁸O (‰) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ash Creek Spring | — | −88.4 | −11.87 |
| Bitter Spring | 0.33 | −76.58 | −10.34 |
| Blake Spring | 2.20 | −100.77 | −13.75 |
| Bootleg Spring | 3.76 | −87.79 | −12.10 |
| Cow Spring | — | −67 | −8.34 |
| Gann Spring | 1.79 | −78.6 | −10.29 |
| Lazy Cow Spring | 0.10 | −75.58 | −9.55 |
| Moonshine Spring | 0.31 | −92.12 | −12.25 |
| Ora Hanna Spring | — | −71.4 | −8.94 |
| Pine Creek Spring | — | −79.8 | −11.05 |
| Rye Patch | 1.61 | — | — |
| Upper Rattlesnake Spring | 0.71 | −76.81 | −10.54 |
| West Mud Spring | — | −100.2 | −13.61 |
A dash means no data. The data are available through NWIS via the Water Quality Portal.
Hydrogen against oxygen isotope ratios for the springs (red), with the global meteoric water line (blue) and the local meteoric water line (green). USGS.
Getting involved
USGS partners with the public on many water and ecology projects. The spring work was funded by the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act through an agreement with the Bureau of Land Management, with support from an Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education internship.
Sources
Rewritten from the U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 2024–3042, "Using citizen scientists to collect oxygen and hydrogen isotope data in southern Nevada" (public domain), in hubnx's own words.
Licencia: CC0 1.0 (dominio público) · Adaptado de pubs.usgs.gov
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