As part of the Administrative Division's efforts to replace paper flows with data flows, the Field Entry of Accounting Data (FEAD) system was implemented in 1987. By allowing data entry to the bureau financial management system from field locations, FEAD speeds the payment of Blanket Purchase Agreement charges and increases quality control

assurance.

The Department chose the USGS to lead the acquisition effort because of its own existing centralized financial management system, its expertise in telecommunications, its experience with servicing widely varying requirements over geographically dispersed operations, and its proven track record in major ADP procurements and automation of administrative activities. USGS staff were deeply involved in the Department's review of its existing systems, assisting in the basic data collection and subsequent analysis of findings and consultants' recommendations. The Survey was also instrumental in developing and evaluating alternative approaches once the decision was made to improve financial operations on a department-wide basis. Choices ranged from modifying an existing bureau system, to starting a new and major inhouse systems development effort, to turning to the private sector. The recommendation of the Survey-led team of bureau representatives was to investigate the availability of commercially available software designed for Federal Government accounting and payment operations. This team also developed detailed operating characteristics and requirements for a departmental system that could meet the

give valuable aid to scientists and administrators. Other community members volunteer their time and talents because of their interest in public service and in the earthscience mission of the USGS. The Volunteer for Science Program is a companion program to the national Take Pride in America public awareness campaign that encourages citizens to help take care of the public resources through volunteer efforts. After a modest beginning in 1986 with 55 volunteers, the program, by 1987, had quadrupled in size.

The program is of mutual benefit to the USGS and to the volunteers. Some volunteers welcome access to the equipment and technology and the opportunity for field work because they love earth science. Students have been able to develop USGS work projects in cooperation with academic institutions that have provided college credit in their pursuit of a degree. The benefits derived by the USGS are even more obvious. The volunteers have been involved in such major USGS projects as the Mineral Resources Appraisal Project, the Glacier National Park Project, the radon project, and the Arctic Alaska Project. They have also performed project support assignments involving such duties as recording rainfall measurements, field mapping, constructing streamflow gaging stations, and preparing scientific reports.

In the first annual special volunteer awards ceremony at the National Center in August 1987, the Director presented Special Award Certificates to 60 volunteers

who have worked on project assignments at the national headquarters of the USGS. Similar ceremonies of recognition will be held in major USGS field locations.

Pleased with the results of the program so far, the USGS has plans not only to increase the number of volunteers but also to broaden the scope of their activities wherever possible. The U.S. Geological Survey is convinced that a quality corps of volunteers can make significant contributions to the earth sciences, while giving the volunteers the satisfaction of serving the public and being part of the Take Pride in America campaign.

Unit Award for
Excellence of Service

Each year the Department of the Interior presents the Unit Award for Excellence of Service to those bureaus and (or) offices that have either met or exceeded all of its business and economic development program goals. The award for fiscal year 1986 was presented to the Director, U.S. Geological Survey, by Secretary of the Interior Don Hodel in April 1987, for the introduction of new and innovative ideas and techniques in areas related to increased staff training, concerted management attention, and special outreach efforts that resulted in significant progress in contracts awarded to small, disadvantagedand women-owned business concerns.

Highlights

The 1986 Gas Disaster

at Lake Nyos, Cameroon, West Africa

By Michele L. Tuttle, John P. Lockwood, and William C. Evans

were accompanied by a medical team and, later, by a team of environmental specialists.

At 9:30 p.m. on Thursday, August 21, rumbling sounds that lasted 15-20 seconds were heard from Lake Nyos. In a valley below the lake, people in the Nyos village suddenly became unconscious. Only four of the 1,000 people in the village ever awakened. Survivors in areas beyond Nyos village who came out of their homes later reported they felt a warm sensation, smelled the odor of rotten eggs or gunpowder, and then fell unconscious. When they awakened, weak and confused, 6 to 36 hours later, they found family members and their animals dead. Deaths were reported as many as 11 miles north of the lake. Bird and insect life virtually disappeared for at least 48 hours but plant life remained largely unaffected.

Before the gas release, there were no apparent changes in Lake Nyos that might

have forewarned of the event. Afterward, however, the lake level was noted to have dropped about 3 feet, and there was also evidence that water had surged up along the southern lake shore ripping up or flattening vegetation to a height of 80 feet. Water had apparently splashed over a 260foot-high rock promontory on the southwestern side of the lake, and a small volume of water went over a spillway at the northern end of the lake.

By Saturday morning, the lake was calm but was rusty red in color due to a thin surface layer containing iron hydroxide; mats of vegetation that had been ripped up by the wave were floating on the surface (fig. 2). No seismic activity had been recorded at a seismic station 137 miles southwest of the lake. Household goods in the homes surrounding the lake were undisturbed, and rocks remained perched precariously on the cliffs above the lake.

It soon became apparent from field observations that the geologic setting of Lake Nyos held important clues to what had set the stage for the disaster. Lake Nyos occupies a shallow volcanic crater-a "maar" that formed along a volcanic zone that bisects northwestern Cameroon. This "Cameroon Volcanic Line," a northeasttrending zone of crustal weakness, extends

Figure 2. Lake Nyos 1 week after the disaster showing floating mats of vegetation and the rusty-red color of the

ferric-hydroxide surface layer. The lake is 6,316 feet in maximum length (elongated NW-SE), and 3,870 feet in maximum width. It is shallow at the southern end but drops off steeply to a large, flat plain at a depth of 682 feet. The spillway is on the northern end of the lake.