Aftershock forecasting
Jeanne L. Hardebeck, Andrea L. Llenos, Andrew J. Michael, Morgan T. Page, Max Schneider, Nicholas van der Elst
2024, Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences (52) 61-84
Aftershocks can compound the impacts of a major earthquake, disrupting recovery efforts and potentially further damaging weakened buildings and infrastructure. Forecasts of the probability of aftershocks can therefore aid decision-making during earthquake response and recovery. Several countries issue authoritative aftershock forecasts. Most aftershock forecasts are based on...
The 3D Elevation Program—Supporting Michigan’s economy
Cynthia M. Rachol
2024, Fact Sheet 2024-3031
High-quality elevation data are proving to be a resource of value in addressing many important economic issues in Michigan. The expanding statewide availability of current and accurate high-resolution elevation data can help support agriculture and precision farming, natural resource conservation, flood risk management, and geologic resource assessment and hazard mitigation....
Restoration of common loon (Gavia immer) in Minnesota—2023 annual report
William S. Beatty, Kelly Amoth, Katelyn Bergstrom, Luke J. Fara, Brian R. Gray, Steven C. Houdek, Jayden Jech, Kevin P. Kenow, Robert Rabasco, Spencer Rettler, Michael Wellik, Steven Yang
2024, Open-File Report 2024-1044
The Deepwater Horizon mobile drilling platform exploded on April 20, 2010. The resulting massive oil spill injured natural resources in the Gulf of Mexico, including wintering common loons (Gavia immer). We report on activities completed under the “Restoration of Common Loons in Minnesota” project in calendar year 2023, which was...
Assessment of undiscovered conventional oil and gas resources of offshore East Africa and the Seychelles, 2022
Christopher J. Schenk, Tracey J. Mercier, Cheryl A. Woodall, Phuong A. Le, Andrea D. Cicero, Ronald M. Drake II, Geoffrey S. Ellis, Thomas M. Finn, Michael H. Gardner, Sarah E. Gelman, Jane S. Hearon, Benjamin G. Johnson, Jenny H. Lagesse, Heidi M. Leathers-Miller, Kristen R. Marra, Kira K. Timm, Scott S. Young
2024, Fact Sheet 2024-3010
Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean resources of 5.1 billion barrels of oil and 79.1 trillion cubic feet of gas in offshore East Africa and the Seychelles....
Mercury concentrations in Seaside Sparrows and Marsh Rice Rats differ across the Mississippi River Estuary
Andrea Bonisoli-Alquati, Allyson K. Jackson, Collin Eagles-Smith, Sydney Moyo, Anna A. Pérez-Umphre, Michael J. Polito, Allison M. Snider, S. Tyler Williams, Stefan Woltmann, Philip C. Stouffer, Sabrina S. Taylor
2024, Ecotoxicology
Mercury (Hg) concentrations and their associated toxicological effects in terrestrial ecosystems of the Gulf of Mexico are largely unknown. Compounding this uncertainty, a large input of organic matter from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill may have altered Hg cycling and bioaccumulation dynamics. To test this...
NASA Champions 2024: Data strategies for when to use cloud, coding strategies for parallelization, & first examples of big science in the Cloud
Michele Thornton, Catalina Taglialatela, Luis Lopez, Matt Fisher, Alexis Hunzinger, Mahsa Jami, Brianna M. Lind, Cassie Nickles, Andy Teucher, Aronne Merrelli, Erin Robinson, Julie Lowndes
2024, Report
From April-May 2024, the NASA Mentors who span eleven Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) co-led the third Champions Cohort with the NASA Openscapes project team, this year focusing on, teaching lessons they adapted for geospatial and cloud analysis. The Cohort included nine international research teams from academia and government that...
The Native American Research Assistantship Program—Building capacity for Indigenous water-resources monitoring
Electa Hare-Red Corn, Robert F. Breault, Jason R. Sorenson
2024, Fact Sheet 2024-3026
Intertribal networks for collecting and analyzing hydrologic and environmental data are growing. The U.S. Geological Survey can be a key partner with Tribal Nations in the further development of network capacity. A first step is the internship opportunity available through the partnership between the USGS and The Wildlife Society: The...
Delineating draft inventory analysis units for National Scenic and Historic Trails inventory, assessment, and monitoring programs
Sarah M. Lindley, Emily J. Wilkins, Carin Farley, Karla Rogers, Rudy Schuster
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5060
As of 2024, there are 32 National Scenic and Historic Trails (NSHTs) in the system administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), National Park Service, and U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service. The BLM administers, manages, and protects 19 of these trails as part of its system of national...
Global variability of the composition and temperature at the 410-km discontinuity from receiver function analysis of dense arrays
Margaret Elizabeth Glasgow, Hankui K. Zhang, Brandon Schmandt, Wen-Yi Zhou, Jinchi Zhang
2024, Earth and Planetary Science Letters (643)
Seismic boundaries caused by phase transitions between olivine polymorphs in Earth's mantle provide thermal and compositional markers that inform mantle dynamics. Seismic studies of the mantle transition zone often use either global averaging with sparse arrays or regional sampling from a single dense array. The intermediate approach of this study...
Isotopic evidence against North Pacific Deep Water formation during late Pliocene warmth
Joseph Novak, Rocio Caballero-Gill, Rebecca Rose, Timothy D. Herbert, Harry J. Dowsett
2024, Nature Geoscience
Several modelling and observational studies suggest deep water formation in the subpolar North Pacific as a possible alternative mode of thermohaline circulation that occurred in the warm Pliocene, a time when global atmospheric partial pressure of carbon dioxide was like the modern atmosphere (~400 ppm). We...
Multi-decadal vegetation transformations of a New Mexico ponderosa pine landscape after severe fires and aerial seeding
Andreas Paul Wion, Jens T. Stevens, Kay Beeley, Rebecca Oertel, Ellis Margolis, Craig D. Allen
2024, Ecological Applications
Wildfires and climate change are having transformative effects on vegetation composition and structure, and post-fire management may have long-lasting impacts on ecosystem reorganization. Post-fire aerial seeding treatments are commonly used to reduce runoff and soil erosion, but little is known about how seeding treatments affect native vegetation recovery over long...
Post-fire sediment yield from a central California watershed: Field measurements and validation of the WEPP model
Amy E. East, Joshua B. Logan, Helen Willemien Dow, Douglas P. Smith, Pat Iampietro, Jonathan Warrick, Thomas Lorenson, Leticia Hallas, Benjamin Kozlowicz
2024, Earth and Space Science (11)
In a warming climate, an intensifying fire regime and higher likelihood of extreme rain are expected to increase watershed sediment yield in many regions. Understanding regional variability in landscape response to fire and post-fire rainfall is essential for managing water resources and infrastructure. We measured sediment yield...
The influence of vesicularity on grain morphology in basaltic pyroclasts from Mauna Loa and Kīlauea volcanoes
Kira van Helden, Johanne Schmith, Drew T. Downs
2024, Journal of Applied Volcanology (13)
Vesicularity of individual pyroclasts from airfall tephra deposits is an important parameter that is commonly measured at basaltic volcanoes. Conventional methods used to determine pyroclast vesicularity on a large number of clasts has the potential to be time consuming, particularly when rapid analysis is required. Here...
Integrating depth measurements from gaging stations with image archives for spectrally based remote sensing of river bathymetry
Carl J. Legleiter, Brandon Overstreet, Paul J. Kinzel
2024, Water Resources Research (60)
Remote sensing can be an effective tool for mapping river bathymetry, but the need for direct measurements to calibrate image-derived depth estimates impedes broader application of this approach. One way to circumvent the need for field campaigns dedicated to calibration is to capitalize upon existing data. In...
A predictive analysis of water use for Providence, Rhode Island
Catherine A. Chamberlin
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5052
To explain the drivers of historical water use in the public water systems (PWSs) that serve populations in Providence, Rhode Island, and surrounding areas, and to forecast future water use, a machine-learning model (cubist regression) was developed by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with Providence Water to model daily...
A global assessment of SAOCOM-1 L-band stripmap data for InSAR characterization of volcanic, tectonic, cryospheric, and anthropogenic deformation
Francisco Delgado, Tara Shreve, Sven Borgstrom, Pablo Le´on-Ibanez, Joaqu´ın Castillo, Michael P. Poland
2024, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing (62)
SAOCOM-1 is an L-band (23.5 cm) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) constellation made up of two satellites launched in 2018 and 2020 by Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE, Argentina). In this contribution, we present a global summary of interferometric SAR (InSAR) observations of ground deformation with SAOCOM-1 stripmap data for...
Connecting conservation practices to local stream health in the Chesapeake Bay watershed
Gregory Noe, Paul L. Angermeier, Larry B. Barber, Joe Buckwalter, Matthew Joseph Cashman, Olivia Devereux, Thomas Rossiter Doody, Sally Entrekin, Rosemary Margaret Fanelli, Nathaniel Hitt, Molly Elizabeth Huber, Jeramy Roland Jasmann, Kelly O. Maloney, Tristan Gregory Mohs, Sergio Sabat-Bonilla, Kelly Smalling, Tyler Wagner, John C. Wolf, Kenneth E. Hyer
2024, Fact Sheet 2024-3030
The Chesapeake Bay Partnership is implementing conservation practices (CPs) throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed to reduce nutrient and sediment delivery to the Bay. This study intends to provide an integrated and detailed understanding of how local streams respond to these CP-driven management efforts.Key issue: To what extent do CPs positively...
Discovery of giant and conventional magnetofossils bookending Cretaceous Oceanic Anoxic Event 2
Courtney L. Wagner, Ioan Lascu, Jean Self-Trail, Tim Gooding, Kenneth J.T. Livi, Gianna Greger, Kristina Frank Gardner, Jody Brae Wycech, Mark F. Dreier, Tom Oliver
2024, Communications Earth & Environment (5)
Conventional magnetofossils are the remains of magnetotactic bacteria and giant magnetofossils are the remains of iron biomineralizing organisms that have not yet been identified. We report the oldest robust conventional and giant magnetofossil records, ~97 Ma, from marine sediments drilled in Holland Park, Virginia, USA. The Holland...
Biodiversity promotes urban ecosystem functioning
Sarah R. Weiskopf, Susannah B. Lerman, Forest Isbell, Toni Lyn Morelli
2024, Ecography
The proportion of people living in urban areas is growing globally. Understanding how to manage urban biodiversity, ecosystem functions, and ecosystem services is becoming more important. Biodiversity can increase ecosystem functioning in non-urban systems. However, few studies have reviewed the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem...
Guidelines for the use of automatic samplers in collecting surface-water quality and sediment data
Timothy P. Wilson, Cherie V. Miller, Evan A. Lechner
2024, Techniques and Methods 1-D12
The importance of fluvial systems in the transport of sediment, dissolved and suspended contaminants, nutrients, and bacteria through the environment is well established. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) identifies sediment as the single most widespread water contaminant affecting the beneficial uses of the Nation’s rivers and streams. The evaluation...
Smallmouth buffalo (Ictiobus bubalus Rafinesque) population trends and demographics in the Upper Mississippi River System
Kristopher A. Maxson, Levi E. Solomon, Taylor A. Bookout, Steven A. DeLain, Andrew Bartels, Melvin C. Bowler, Eric J. Gittinger, Eric N. Ratcliff, John L. West, Seth A. Love, Jason A. DeBoer, Andrya L. Whitten-Harris, Michael J. Spear, Brian Ickes, Andrew F. Casper, James T. Lamer
2024, Environmental Biology of Fishes
Smallmouth buffalo (Ictiobus bubalus Rafinesque) are a large-bodied fish highly valued and commercially exploited across most of their range. Despite this, relatively little is known of their population demographics compared to other exploited species. To fill these knowledge gaps, we analyzed two independent long-term datasets (30 and...
The dynamic feasibility of resisting (R), accepting (A), or directing (D) ecological change
Amanda E. Cravens, Katherine R. Clifford, Corrine N. Knapp, William Travis
2024, Conservation Biology
Ecological transformations are occurring as a result of climate change, challenging traditional approaches to land management decision-making. The resist–accept–direct (RAD) framework helps managers consider how to respond to this challenge. We examined how the feasibility of the choices to resist, accept, and direct shifts in...
Report of the River Master of the Delaware River for the period December 1, 2015 - November 30, 2016
Kendra L. Russell, William J. Andrews, Vincent J. DiFrenna, J. Michael Norris, Robert R. Mason, Jr.
2024, Open-File Report 2024-1012
Executive SummaryA Decree of the Supreme Court of the United States, entered June 7, 1954 (New Jersey v. New York, 347 U.S. 995), established the position of Delaware River Master within the U.S. Geological Survey. In addition, the Decree authorizes the diversion of water from the Delaware River Basin and...
The 3D Elevation Program—Supporting Mississippi's economy
George Heleine
2024, Fact Sheet 2024-3027
IntroductionMississippi has a dispersed population of nearly three million residents in an area of approximately 48,400 square miles and has a favorable climate for agriculture, with abundant precipitation and minimal extreme temperatures. The topography consists mostly of low hills and lowland plains, with the highest elevation about 800 feet above...
Modeling the potential habitat gained by planting sagebrush in burned landscapes
Julie A. Heinrichs, Michael O'Donnell, Elizabeth Kari Orning, David A. Pyke, Mark A. Ricca, Peter S. Coates, Cameron L. Aldridge
2024, Conservation (4) 364-377
Many revegetation projects are intended to benefit wildlife species. Yet, there are few a priori evaluations that assess the potential efficiency of restoration actions in recovering wildlife habitats. We developed a spatial vegetation–habitat recovery model to gauge the degree to which field planting strategies could be expected to recover...
