1.
Town
–
A town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The size definition for what constitutes a town varies considerably in different parts of the world, the word town shares an origin with the German word Zaun, the Dutch word tuin, and the Old Norse tun. The German word Zaun comes closest to the meaning of the word. An early borrowing from Celtic *dunom, in English and Dutch, the meaning of the word took on the sense of the space which these fences enclosed. In England, a town was a community that could not afford or was not allowed to build walls or other larger fortifications. In the Netherlands, this space was a garden, more specifically those of the wealthy, in Old Norse tun means a place between farmhouses, and is still used in a similar meaning in modern Norwegian. If there was any distinction between toun and burgh as claimed by some, it did not last in practice as burghs, for example, Edina Burgh or Edinburgh was built around a fort and eventually came to have a defensive wall. In some cases, town is a name for city or village. Sometimes, the town is short for township. A places population size is not a determinant of urban character. In many areas of the world, as in India at least until recent times, in the United Kingdom, there are historical cities that are far smaller than the larger towns. Some forms of settlement, such as temporary mining locations, may be clearly non-rural. Towns often exist as governmental units, with legally defined borders. In the United States these are referred to as incorporated towns, in other cases the town lacks its own governance and is said to be unincorporated. Note that the existence of a town may be legally set forth through other means. In the case of planned communities, the town exists legally in the form of covenants on the properties within the town. Australian geographer Thomas Griffith Taylor proposed a classification of towns based on their age, although there is no official use of the term for any settlement. In Albanian qytezë means small city or new city, while in ancient times small residential center within the walls of a castle
2.
Virginia
–
Virginia is a state located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, as well as in the historic Southeast. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay, the capital of the Commonwealth is Richmond, Virginia Beach is the most populous city, and Fairfax County is the most populous political subdivision. The Commonwealths estimated population as of 2014 is over 8.3 million, the areas history begins with several indigenous groups, including the Powhatan. In 1607 the London Company established the Colony of Virginia as the first permanent New World English colony, slave labor and the land acquired from displaced Native American tribes each played a significant role in the colonys early politics and plantation economy. Although the Commonwealth was under one-party rule for nearly a century following Reconstruction, the Virginia General Assembly is the oldest continuous law-making body in the New World. The state government was ranked most effective by the Pew Center on the States in both 2005 and 2008 and it is unique in how it treats cities and counties equally, manages local roads, and prohibits its governors from serving consecutive terms. Virginias economy changed from agricultural to industrial during the 1960s and 1970s. Virginia has an area of 42,774.2 square miles, including 3,180.13 square miles of water. Virginias boundary with Maryland and Washington, D. C. extends to the mark of the south shore of the Potomac River. The southern border is defined as the 36° 30′ parallel north, the border with Tennessee was not settled until 1893, when their dispute was brought to the U. S. Supreme Court. The Chesapeake Bay separates the portion of the Commonwealth from the two-county peninsula of Virginias Eastern Shore. The bay was formed from the river valleys of the Susquehanna River. Many of Virginias rivers flow into the Chesapeake Bay, including the Potomac, Rappahannock, York, and James, the Tidewater is a coastal plain between the Atlantic coast and the fall line. It includes the Eastern Shore and major estuaries of Chesapeake Bay, the Piedmont is a series of sedimentary and igneous rock-based foothills east of the mountains which were formed in the Mesozoic era. The region, known for its clay soil, includes the Southwest Mountains around Charlottesville. The Blue Ridge Mountains are a province of the Appalachian Mountains with the highest points in the state. The Ridge and Valley region is west of the mountains and includes the Great Appalachian Valley, the region is carbonate rock based and includes Massanutten Mountain. The Cumberland Plateau and the Cumberland Mountains are in the southwest corner of Virginia, in this region, rivers flow northwest, with a dendritic drainage system, into the Ohio River basin
3.
Louisa County, Virginia
–
Louisa County is a county located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2010 census, the population was 33,153, Louisa County was established in 1742 from Hanover County. The county is named for Princess Louise of Great Britain, youngest daughter of King George II, Patrick Henry lived for some time in Louisa County on Roundabout Creek in 1764. Henry was being mentored at that time by the Louisa County magnate Thomas Johnson the representative of Louisa County in the House of Burgesses, in 1765, Patrick Henry won his first election to represent Louisa County in the House of Burgesses. The Virginia Central Railroad was completed through Louisa County in 1838–1840, during the Civil War, it was an important supply line for the Confederate armies. As a result, several significant cavalry actions took place in the county, the Twin Oaks Community is one of the countrys oldest secular communes, established by its first eight members in 1967. This was part of a movement among numerous young people to get back to the land. Louisa is also home to the Acorn Community, a rural, cooperative, income sharing community on about 80 acres, founded in 1993 by one of the members of Twin Oaks. Another newly forming community as of 2011 is the Living Energy Farm, a neo-Amish farm, Louisa is becoming a hub of cooperative rural communities. Lake Anna, a 13, 000-acre artificial lake, and the associated North Anna Nuclear Generating Station were built by Virginia Power in the 1970s. In recent years the predominantly rural county has grown because of retirees settling near Lake Anna and it is an hours drive or less from Richmond, Fredericksburg and Charlottesville. For a discussion and additional information on Louisa County history, see, the U. S. Geological Survey reported that a magnitude 5.8 earthquake hit Virginia on Tuesday, August 23,2011 at 1,51 PM EST. The quake occurred at a depth of 3.7 miles and was centered in Louisa County,5 miles SSW of Mineral and 38 miles NW of Richmond. According to Associated Press, Shaking was felt at the White House and all over the East Coast, as far south as Charleston, parts of the Pentagon, White House and Capitol were evacuated. It was also felt in parts of Canada, the population density was 52 people per square mile. There were 11,855 housing units at a density of 24 per square mile. 0. 71% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race,22. 10% of all households were made up of individuals and 9. 00% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.56 and the family size was 2.97
4.
ZIP Code
–
ZIP Codes are a system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service since 1963. The term ZIP, an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan, was chosen to suggest that the travels more efficiently, and therefore more quickly. The basic format consists of five numerical digits, an extended ZIP+4 code, introduced in 1983, includes the five digits of the ZIP Code, a hyphen, and four additional digits that determine a more specific location within a given ZIP Code. The term ZIP Code was originally registered as a servicemark by the U. S. Postal Service, USPS style for ZIP is all caps and the c in code is also capitalized, although style sheets for some publications use sentence case or lowercase. The early history and context of postal codes began with postal district/zone numbers, the United States Post Office Department implemented postal zones for numerous large cities in 1943. For example, Mr. John Smith 3256 Epiphenomenal Avenue Minneapolis 16, by the early 1960s a more organized system was needed, and on July 1,1963, non-mandatory five-digit ZIP Codes were introduced nationwide. Three months later, on October 1,1963, the U. S, an earlier list in June had proposed capitalized abbreviations ranging from two to five letters. The abbreviations have remained unchanged, with one exception, according to the historian of the U. S. Robert Moon, an employee of the post office, is considered the father of the ZIP Code, he submitted his proposal in 1944 while working as a postal inspector. The post office gives credit to Moon only for the first three digits of the ZIP Code, which describe the sectional center facility or sec center, an SCF is a central mail processing facility with those three digits. The SCF sorts mail to all post offices with those first three digits in their ZIP Codes, the mail is sorted according to the final two digits of the ZIP Code and sent to the corresponding post offices in the early morning. Sectional centers do not deliver mail and are not open to the public, Mail picked up at post offices is sent to their own SCF in the afternoon, where the mail is sorted overnight. The United States Post Office used a character, which it called Mr. ZIP. He was often depicted with a such as USE ZIP CODE in the selvage of panes of stamps or on labels contained in, or the covers of. In 1983, the U. S. Postal Service introduced an expanded ZIP Code system that it called ZIP+4, often called plus-four codes, add-on codes, or add ons. But initial attempts to promote use of the new format met with public resistance. For Post Office Boxes, the rule is that each box has its own ZIP+4 code. However, there is no rule, so the ZIP+4 Code must be looked up individually for each box. It is common to use add-on code 9998 for mail addressed to the postmaster,9999 for general delivery, for a unique ZIP Code, the add-on code is typically 0001
5.
National Register of Historic Places
–
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States federal governments official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation. The passage of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966 established the National Register, of the more than one million properties on the National Register,80,000 are listed individually. The remainder are contributing resources within historic districts, each year approximately 30,000 properties are added to the National Register as part of districts or by individual listings. For most of its history the National Register has been administered by the National Park Service and its goals are to help property owners and interest groups, such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation, coordinate, identify, and protect historic sites in the United States. While National Register listings are mostly symbolic, their recognition of significance provides some financial incentive to owners of listed properties, protection of the property is not guaranteed. During the nomination process, the property is evaluated in terms of the four criteria for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, the application of those criteria has been the subject of criticism by academics of history and preservation, as well as the public and politicians. Occasionally, historic sites outside the proper, but associated with the United States are also listed. Properties can be nominated in a variety of forms, including individual properties, historic districts, the Register categorizes general listings into one of five types of properties, district, site, structure, building, or object. National Register Historic Districts are defined geographical areas consisting of contributing and non-contributing properties, some properties are added automatically to the National Register when they become administered by the National Park Service. These include National Historic Landmarks, National Historic Sites, National Historical Parks, National Military Parks/Battlefields, National Memorials, on October 15,1966, the Historic Preservation Act created the National Register of Historic Places and the corresponding State Historic Preservation Offices. Initially, the National Register consisted of the National Historic Landmarks designated before the Registers creation, approval of the act, which was amended in 1980 and 1992, represented the first time the United States had a broad-based historic preservation policy. To administer the newly created National Register of Historic Places, the National Park Service of the U. S. Department of the Interior, hartzog, Jr. established an administrative division named the Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation. Hartzog charged OAHP with creating the National Register program mandated by the 1966 law, ernest Connally was the Offices first director. Within OAHP new divisions were created to deal with the National Register, the first official Keeper of the Register was William J. Murtagh, an architectural historian. During the Registers earliest years in the late 1960s and early 1970s, organization was lax and SHPOs were small, understaffed, and underfunded. A few years later in 1979, the NPS history programs affiliated with both the U. S. National Parks system and the National Register were categorized formally into two Assistant Directorates. Established were the Assistant Directorate for Archeology and Historic Preservation and the Assistant Directorate for Park Historic Preservation, from 1978 until 1981, the main agency for the National Register was the Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service of the United States Department of the Interior. In February 1983, the two assistant directorates were merged to promote efficiency and recognize the interdependency of their programs, jerry L. Rogers was selected to direct this newly merged associate directorate
6.
Marriage
–
The definition of marriage varies according to different cultures, but it is principally an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually sexual, are acknowledged. In some cultures, marriage is recommended or considered to be compulsory before pursuing any sexual activity, when defined broadly, marriage is considered a cultural universal. Individuals may marry for several reasons, including legal, social, libidinal, emotional, financial, spiritual, whom they marry may be influenced by socially determined rules of incest, prescriptive marriage rules, parental choice and individual desire. In some areas of the world, arranged marriage, child marriage, polygamy, conversely, such practices may be outlawed and penalized in parts of the world out of concerns for womens rights and because of international law. These trends coincide with the human rights movement. Marriage can be recognized by a state, an organization, an authority, a tribal group. It is often viewed as a contract, Marriages can be performed in a secular civil ceremony or in a religious setting via a wedding ceremony. The act of marriage usually creates normative or legal obligations between the individuals involved, and any offspring they may produce, some cultures allow the dissolution of marriage through divorce or annulment. In some areas, child marriages and polygamy may occur in spite of laws against the practice. For example, the number of marriages in Europe decreased by 30% from 1975 to 2005 and these changes have occurred primarily in Western countries. The word marriage derives from Middle English mariage, which first appears in 1250–1300 CE and this in turn is derived from Old French, marier, and ultimately Latin, marītāre, meaning to provide with a husband or wife and marītāri meaning to get married. The adjective marīt-us -a, -um meaning matrimonial or nuptial could also be used in the form as a noun for husband. Anthropologists have proposed several competing definitions of marriage in an attempt to encompass the wide variety of marital practices observed across cultures, even within Western culture, definitions of marriage have careened from one extreme to another and everywhere in between. The anthropological handbook Notes and Queries defined marriage as a union between a man and a such that children born to the woman are the recognized legitimate offspring of both partners. In recognition of a practice by the Nuer people of Sudan allowing women to act as a husband in certain circumstances, Kathleen Gough suggested modifying this to a woman, none of these men had legal rights to the womans child. Economic anthropologist Duran Bell has criticized the definition on the basis that some societies do not require marriage for legitimacy. He argued that a definition of marriage is circular in societies where illegitimacy has no other legal or social implications for a child other than the mother being unmarried. In 1955 article in Man, Leach argued that no one definition of marriage applied to all cultures and he offered a list of ten rights associated with marriage, including sexual monopoly and rights with respect to children, with specific rights differing across cultures
7.
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
–
The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads begun in the 19th century. Led by industrialist Collis P. Huntington, it reached from Virginias capital city of Richmond to the Ohio River by 1873, where the railroad town of Huntington, West Virginia was named for him. Tapping the coal reserves of West Virginia, the C&Os Peninsula Extension to new coal piers on the harbor of Hampton Roads resulted in the creation of the new City of Newport News. Coal revenues also led the forging of a link to the Midwest, eventually reaching Columbus, Cincinnati and Toledo in Ohio and Chicago. By the early 1960s the C&O was headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1972, under the leadership of Cyrus Eaton, it became part of the Chessie System, along with the Baltimore and Ohio and Western Maryland Railway. A substantial portion of Conrail was added in 1999, C&Os passenger services ended in 1971 with the formation of Amtrak. Today Amtraks tri-weekly Cardinal passenger train follows the historic and scenic route of the C&O through the New River Gorge in one of the more rugged sections of the Mountain State. At the end of 1970 C&O operated 5067 miles of road on 10219 miles of track, not including WM or B&O and its subsidiaries. The Chesapeake & Ohio Railway traced its origin to the Louisa Railroad of Louisa County, Virginia, begun in 1836, the first train ran on December 20,1837. It also expanded west, reaching Charlottesville, in keeping with its new and larger vision, it was renamed the Virginia Central Railroad. However, plans to cross the Blue Ridge Mountains, the first mountain barrier to the west and this company completed important grading work on the Alleghany grade and did considerable work on numerous tunnels over the mountains and in the west. It also did a deal of roadway work around Charleston on the Kanawha River. Then the American Civil War intervened, and work was stopped on the westward expansion and it had an important connection with the Orange and Alexandria Railroad at Gordonsville, Virginia. On more than one occasion, the Virginia Central was used in tactical operations. But, it was a target for Federal armies, and by the end of the war had only about five miles of track still in operation. Finally they succeeded in interesting Collis P. Huntington of New York, Huntington had been one of the Big Four involved in building the Central Pacific portion of the Transcontinental Railroad, which was just reaching completion. Huntington supplied the Virginians with the money needed to complete the line to the Ohio River, the old Covington & Ohios properties were conveyed to them in keeping with its new mission of linking the Tidewater coast of Virginia with the Western Waters. This was the old dream of the Great Connection which had been current in Virginia since Colonial times, on July 1,1867, the C&O was completed nine miles from Jacksons River Station to the town of Covington, county seat of Alleghany County
8.
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
–
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design is one of the most popular green building certification programs used worldwide. Developed by the non-profit U. S. LEED also has grown from six volunteers on one committee to 119,924 staff, volunteers, LEED standards have been applied to approximately 83,452 registered and certified LEED projects worldwide, covering around 13.8 billion square feet. Many U. S. federal agencies and states and local governments require or reward LEED certification, however, four states have effectively banned the use of LEED in new public buildings, preferring other industry standards that the USGBC considers too lax. Proposals to modify the LEED standards are offered and publicly reviewed by USGBCs member organizations, GBCI also certifies projects pursuing LEED. LEED has evolved since 1998 to more accurately represent and incorporate emerging green building technologies, the pilot version, LEED New Construction v1.0, led to LEED NCv2.0, LEED NCv2.2 in 2005, and LEED2009 in 2009. LEED v4 was introduced in November,2013, until October 31,2016, new projects may choose between LEED2009 and LEED v4. New projects registering after October 31,2016 must use LEED v4, LEED2009 encompasses ten rating systems for the design, construction and operation of buildings, homes and neighborhoods. Five overarching categories correspond to the available under the LEED professional program. Up to 10 additional points may be earned, four points may be received for Regional Priority Credits. Its owner must share data on the energy and water use for five years after occupancy or date of certification. Each of the categories also have mandatory measures in each category. The weighting process has three steps, A collection of buildings are used to estimate the environmental impacts of any building seeking LEED certification in a designated rating scheme. NIST weightings are used to judge the importance of these impacts in each category. Data regarding actual impacts on environmental and human health are used to assign points to individual categories and measures and this system results in a weighted average for each rating scheme based upon actual impacts and the relative importance of those impacts to human health and environmental quality. The LEED council also appears to have assigned credit and measure weighting based upon the market implications of point allocation, in 2003, the Canada Green Building Council received permission to create LEED Canada-NC v1.0, which was based upon LEED-NC2.0. Many buildings in Canada are LEED certified in part due to their Rainwater harvesting practices, LEED certification is granted by the Green Building Certification Institute, which handles the third-party verification of a projects compliance with the LEED requirements. The certification process for design teams is made up of two applications, one including design credits, and one including construction credits. All of the LEED credits in each rating system are assigned to either the design application or the construction application, the design credits include those that are the purview of the architect and the engineer, and are documented in the official construction drawings
9.
2011 Virginia earthquake
–
The 2011 Virginia earthquake occurred on August 23 at 1,51,04 p. m. local time in the Piedmont region of the US state of Virginia. The epicenter, in Louisa County, was 61 km northwest of Richmond and 8 km south-southwest of the town of Mineral and it was an intraplate earthquake with a magnitude of 5.8 and a maximum perceived intensity of VII on the Mercalli intensity scale. Several aftershocks, ranging up to 4.5 Mw in magnitude, with an estimated magnitude of 5.8. The quake was felt more than a dozen U. S. states and in several Canadian provinces. No deaths and only minor injuries were reported, minor and moderate damage to buildings was widespread and was estimated by one risk-modeling company at $200 million to $300 million, of which about $100 million was insured. Previous studies of worldwide earthquakes indicated that landslides occurred no farther than 36 miles from the epicenter of a magnitude 5.8 earthquake, the Virginia earthquake study suggested that the added information about East Coast earthquakes may prompt a revision of equations that predict ground shaking. The earthquake occurred in the Virginia Seismic Zone, located in the Piedmont region, the reverse faults formed during the various orogenies were partly reactivated as normal faults in extension during the Mesozoic Era as the supercontinent Pangaea broke apart. During the Cenozoic Era, compression from the opening and spreading of the Atlantic has caused some of these structures to be reactivated in a reverse sense, the earthquakes focal mechanism shows reverse slip faulting on a north to northeast striking fault plane. The spatial distribution of aftershocks show that the causative fault dips to the southeast at 50–55°, there was no surface faulting associated with the earthquake. The size of the rupture is as yet uncalculated, but similar quakes have been caused by slippage along fault segments that are 5 to 15 km long. After the earthquake, several websites speculated about whether hydraulic fracturing for gas production could have caused or contributed to the quake. There were not any fracking operations in Virginia at the time of the quake, the nearest fracking was occurring in the Marcellus shale in West Virginia. Numerous aftershocks occurred after the main tremor, the first four occurred within 12 hours of the main shock. USGS scientists found that the Virginia earthquake caused landslides at distances four times farther—, USGS Director Marcia McNutt said, Scientists are confirming with empirical data what more than 50 million people in the eastern U. S. experienced firsthand, this was one powerful earthquake. Calibrating the distance over which landslides occur may also help us back into the geologic record to look for evidence of past major earthquakes from the Virginia seismic zone. The USGS found that the farthest landslide from the 2011 Virginia earthquake was 150 miles from the epicenter and this is by far the greatest landslide distance recorded from any other earthquake of similar magnitude. Previous studies of worldwide earthquakes indicated that landslides occurred no farther than 36 miles from the epicenter of a magnitude 5.8 earthquake, the study suggested that the added information about East Coast earthquakes may prompt a revision of equations that predict ground shaking. What makes this new study so unique is that it provides direct evidence from the largest earthquake to occur in more than 100 years in the eastern U. S
10.
Capitol Hill
–
It is one of the oldest residential neighborhoods in Washington, D. C. and with roughly 35,000 people in just under 2 square miles, it is also one of the most densely populated. As a geographic feature, Capitol Hill rises near the center of the District of Columbia, the Capitol Hill neighborhood today straddles two quadrants of the city, Southeast and Northeast, and a large portion of it is now designated as the Capitol Hill Historic District. The name Capitol Hill is often used to refer to both the district and to the larger neighborhood around it. Since 1800 the building known as the Capitol has been the home of the Congress of the United States, the Capitol is located inside the Capitol Hill historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but it is also listed separately on the NRHP. It was Thomas Jefferson who came up with the name Capitol Hill, consciously invoking the famous Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline Hill, the connection between the two is not, however, crystal clear. The location of the Capitol was chosen by Pierre LEnfant in his design for the District of Columbia, LEnfant referred to the hill chosen as the site of the future Congress House as Jenkins Hill or Jenkins Heights. However, the tract of land had for many years belonged to the Carroll family and was noted in their records of ownership as New Troy. The neighborhood that is now called Capitol Hill started to develop when the government began work at two locations, the Capitol and the Washington Navy Yard and it became a distinct community between 1799 and 1810 as the federal government became a major employer. The first stage in its history was that of a boarding house community developed for members of Congress. In the early years of the Republic, few Congressmen wished to establish permanent residence in the city, instead, most preferred to live in boarding houses within walking distance of the Capitol. In 1799, the Washington Navy Yard was established on the banks of the Anacostia River, and provided jobs to craftsmen who built and repaired ships. Many of the craftsmen who were employed both at the Navy Yard and in the construction of the Capitol chose to live within walking distance, to the east of the Capitol and they became the original residential population of the neighborhood. In 1801, President Thomas Jefferson selected the location of the Marine Barracks, by 1810, shops, goldsmiths, blacksmiths, and churches were flourishing in the area. The Civil War resulted in construction in the Capitol Hill area. Construction of new houses continued in the 1870s and 1880s, the neighborhood began to divide along racial and economic class lines. Electricity, piped water, and plumbing were introduced in the 1890s, there was a real estate development boom between 1890 and 1910 as the Capitol Hill area became one of the first neighborhoods having these modern conveniences. In 1976, the Capitol Hill Historic District was placed on the National Register of Historic Places and it is one of the largest historic districts in the United States. It includes buildings from the Federal period through 1919, but most of the buildings are late Victorian, Capitol Hill has remained a fairly stable middle-class neighborhood throughout its existence
11.
United States Geological Survey
–
The United States Geological Survey is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its resources. The organization has four science disciplines, concerning biology, geography, geology. The USGS is a research organization with no regulatory responsibility. The USGS is a bureau of the United States Department of the Interior, the USGS employs approximately 8,670 people and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia. The USGS also has major offices near Lakewood, Colorado, at the Denver Federal Center, the current motto of the USGS, in use since August 1997, is science for a changing world. The agencys previous slogan, adopted on the occasion of its anniversary, was Earth Science in the Public Service. Prompted by a report from the National Academy of Sciences, the USGS was created, by a last-minute amendment and it was charged with the classification of the public lands, and examination of the geological structure, mineral resources, and products of the national domain. This task was driven by the need to inventory the vast lands added to the United States by the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the legislation also provided that the Hayden, Powell, and Wheeler surveys be discontinued as of June 30,1879. Clarence King, the first director of USGS, assembled the new organization from disparate regional survey agencies, after a short tenure, King was succeeded in the directors chair by John Wesley Powell. Administratively, it is divided into a Headquarters unit and six Regional Units, Other specific programs include, Earthquake Hazards Program monitors earthquake activity worldwide. The National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado on the campus of the Colorado School of Mines detects the location, the USGS also runs or supports several regional monitoring networks in the United States under the umbrella of the Advanced National Seismic System. The USGS informs authorities, emergency responders, the media, and it also maintains long-term archives of earthquake data for scientific and engineering research. It also conducts and supports research on long-term seismic hazards, USGS has released the UCERF California earthquake forecast. The USGS National Geomagnetism Program monitors the magnetic field at magnetic observatories and distributes magnetometer data in real time, the USGS operates the streamgaging network for the United States, with over 7400 streamgages. Real-time streamflow data are available online, since 1962, the Astrogeology Research Program has been involved in global, lunar, and planetary exploration and mapping. USGS operates a number of related programs, notably the National Streamflow Information Program. USGS Water data is available from their National Water Information System database
12.
Buckingham Branch Railroad
–
Buckingham Branch Railroad is a Class III short-line railroad operating over 200 miles of historic and strategic trackage in Central Virginia. Sharing overhead traffic with CSX and Amtrak, the headquarters are in Dillwyn, Virginia in the former Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad station. The railroad was featured in the January 2012 issue of Trains Magazine, the tracks in the heart of Central Virginia which are now operated by the Buckingham Branch Railroad in the 21st century were mostly laid out in the 19th century by several railroad companies. These include the Louisa Railroad, the Virginia Central Railroad, the state-owned Blue Ridge Railroad, in the 1880s, Major James H. Dooleys Richmond and Allegheny Railroad was built along the James River along the former right-of-way of the James River and Kanawha Canal. Diverging from the line at JD Cabin just east of Clifton Forge. As major railroads merged and consolidated in the late 20th century, many lines with low traffic were abandoned, spun off into short-line railroads. The Buckingham Branch was founded in 1989 by retired CSX railroader Robert E. Bryant, the company began with the acquisition of a 16-mile long branch from the CSX Transportations James River subdivision line near Bremo Bluff on the James River south to Dillwyn in Buckingham County. The interchange with CSX is at Strathmore yard, near the junction of the former Virginia Air Line Railway, serving small industries and quarries, the BBRR began with one locomotive, a caboose, and was staffed by Bryants family. For a number of years, the Buckingham Branch operated the Shenandoah Valley Railroad under contract and that short-line extends from Staunton through Augusta County north to Pleasant Valley outside Harrisonburg in Rockingham County. In 2002, the contract was lost to another Virginia-based short-line road. Today, the Shenandoah Valley Railroad, operated by the Durbin and Greenbrier Valley Railroad, in December 2004, Buckingham Branch entered into a 20-year lease with CSX Transportation to operate 200 miles of track in Virginia on the latters Piedmont, Washington, North Mountain subdivisions. Each were originally parts of the Virginia Central Railroads line, and extend from Richmond through Doswell, Orange to Charlottesville, from there, the line extends through the Blue Ridge Tunnel complex to Waynesboro, and Staunton to reconnect with CSX lines at Clifton Forge. Unlike the original branch in Buckingham County, the new section is leased for a 20-year period, Buckingham Branch train crews must contend with this fact by continually dodging the CSX westbounds, as well as the Amtrak trains, by going into the various sidings along the lines. This new section of the expanded Buckingham Branch was dispatched by CSX from Jacksonville, Florida for the first two years, now it is dispatched by the BB out of Staunton
