Migrating whooping crane activity near U.S. Air Force bases and airfields in Oklahoma
David A. Brandt, Aaron T. Pearse
2024, Open-File Report 2024-1056
The Aransas-Wood Buffalo population of Grus americana (Linnaeus, 1758; whooping cranes) migrates through the U.S. Great Plains, encountering places substantially altered by human activity. Using telemetry data from 2017 to 2022, we investigated whooping crane migration behavior around U.S. Air Force bases in Oklahoma. Our study focused on potential collision...
Suspended sediment and trace element transport in the Big River downstream from the Old Lead Belt in southeastern Missouri, 2018–21
Kendra M. Markland, Camille E. Buckley
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5085
Lead Belt, an area of major lead mining from the 1860s until 1972 where more than 8.5 million tons of lead were mined. After active mining ceased, the effects of mining activities persisted in the Big River system because of large mine waste pile erosion, and floodplain sediment and streambank...
Birdwatching preferences reveal synergies and tradeoffs among recreation, carbon, and fisheries ecosystem services in Pacific Northwest estuaries, USA
Kristin B. Byrd, Isa Woo, Laurie Anne Hall, Emily J. Pindilli, Monica Moritsch, Anthony Good, Susan E. W. De La Cruz, Melanie J. Davis, Glynnis Nakai
2024, Ecosystem Services (69)
Coastal ecosystems provide multiple ecosystem services that are valued in diverse ways. The Nisqually River Delta (the Delta), an estuary in Puget Sound, Washington, U.S.A., is co-managed by the Nisqually Indian Tribe and the Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge. In an ecosystem services assessment, we used different service-appropriate...
U.S. Geological Survey climate science plan—Future research directions
Tamara Wilson, Ryan P. Boyles, Nicole DeCrappeo, Judith Z. Drexler, Kevin D. Kroeger, Rachel A. Loehman, John M. Pearce, Mark P. Waldrop, Peter D. Warwick, Anne M. Wein, Sara L. Zeigler, T. Douglas Beard, Jr.
2024, Circular 1526
Executive Summary Climate is the primary driver of environmental change and is a key consideration in defining science priorities conducted across all mission areas in the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Recognizing the importance of climate change to its future research agenda, the USGS’s Climate Science Steering Committee requested the development of...
Chloride concentrations in groundwater from the western part of the Southern Hills regional aquifer system, Louisiana, 2021–22
M.A. Lindaman
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5057
Groundwater is heavily used for public supply and industrial uses in the Baton Rouge, Louisiana, area. Lowered water levels resulting from groundwater withdrawals have induced the movement of saltwater towards wells in East Baton Rouge and West Baton Rouge Parishes. Saltwater intrusion has the potential to affect water supply infrastructure,...
The U.S. Geological Survey Volcano Science Center’s response plan for significant volcanic events
Seth C. Moran, Christina A. Neal, Thomas L. Murray
2024, Circular 1518
This publication describes the U.S. Geological Survey Volcano Science Center (VSC) Response Plan for Significant Volcanic Events (hereinafter referred to as “the plan”) that has been developed for U.S volcano observatories over the past several years in consultation with the lead scientist, or Scientist-in-Charge (SIC), of each of the five...
Aspects of the demography of a relict population of southwestern pond turtles (Actinemys pallida) in a West Mojave Desert stream in California
David Muth, Jeffrey E. Lovich, Rodrigo Macip-Rios, Doug Gomez, Kristy L. Cummings, Michele (Shellie) R. Puffer, Charles Yackulic
2024, Northeastern Naturalist (31) E109-E130
We studied Actinemys pallida (Southwestern Pond Turtle) in Amargosa Creek, near Palmdale, CA, from 1997 to 2023. The population in the upper creek was the focus of a mark–recapture study from 1997 to 2003 during monitoring required by a road-construction project. An estimated 193 (95% CI = 142–256) turtles were present in...
Testing food web theory in a large lake: The role of body size in habitat coupling in Lake Michigan
Bryan M. Maitland, Harvey A. Bootsma, Charles R. Bronte, David Bunnell, Zachary S. Feiner, Kari Fenske, William Fetzer, Carolyn Foley, Brandon Gerig, Austin Happell, Tomas O. Hook, Friedrich W. Keppeler, Matthew Kornis, Ryan F. Lepak, Andrew McNaught, Brian Roth, Ben Turschak, Joel C. Hoffman, Olaf P. Jensen
2024, Ecology
The landscape theory of food web architecture (LTFWA) describes relationships among body size, trophic position, mobility, and energy channels that serve to couple heterogenous habitats, which in turn promotes long-term system stability. However, empirical tests of the LTFWA are rare and support differs among terrestrial, freshwater, and marine systems. Further,...
Three-dimensional geologic framework model of the Rio San Jose groundwater basin and adjacent areas, New Mexico
Donald S. Sweetkind, Amy E. Galanter
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2023-5038
As part of a U.S. Geological Survey study in cooperation with the Bureau of Reclamation and the Pueblo of Acoma, New Mexico, and the Pueblo of Laguna, New Mexico, a digital three-dimensional geologic framework model was constructed for the Rio San Jose and its surface-water drainage basin in west-central New...
Water-quality monitoring strategy for Mount Hope Bay and the Taunton River Estuary, southeastern Massachusetts
David S. Armstrong
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5049
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP), began a study in 2018 to develop a water-quality monitoring strategy (WQMS) for Mount Hope Bay and the Taunton River Estuary in southeastern Massachusetts. MassDEP is interested in water-quality data in Mount Hope Bay and the...
A novel surface energy balance method for thermal inertia studies of terrestrial analogs
Ari Koeppel, Christopher S. Edwards, Lauren A. Edgar, Scott A Nowicki, Kristen A. Bennett, Amber Gullikson, Sylvain Piqueux, Helen A. Eifert, Daphne Chapline, A. Deanne Rogers
2024, Earth and Space Science (11)
Surface thermal inertia derived from satellite imagery offers a valuable tool for remotely mapping the physical structure and water content of planetary regolith. Efforts to quantify thermal inertia using surface temperatures on Earth, however, have consistently yielded large uncertainties and suffered from a lack of reproducibility. Unlike dry or airless...
New U-Pb geochronology and geochemistry of Paleozoic metaigneous rocks from western Yukon and eastern Alaska, cross-border synthesis, and implications for tectonic models
Cynthia Dusel-Bacon, James K. Mortensen
2024, Professional Paper 1888
The tectonic evolution of and relation between the Yukon-Tanana terrane and the Lake George assemblage, as well as other associated tectonic assemblages in western Yukon and eastern Alaska, have been debated for decades. The Yukon-Tanana terrane is widely considered to be an allochthonous rifted fragment derived from the Laurentian continental...
Chronic effects of metal releases from historical mining on threatened crayfish in Madison County Missouri, USA
Ann Allert, Danielle M. Cleveland, Robert J. DiStefano, Mark L. Wildhaber, Leslie K. Lueckenhoff
2024, Ecotoxicology
The Little St. Francis River and its tributaries drain metals-contaminated areas of the Madison County Mines National Priority List Superfund site (MCM) which was designated in 2003 to facilitate remediation of metals contamination within the MCM. One concern for natural resource trustees in the MCM is the potential effects of...
Flooding and dam operations facilitate rapid upstream migrations of native and invasive fish species on a regulated large river
Mark W. Fritts, Daniel Gibson-Reinemer, Douglas Appel, Katharine Lieder, Cody Henderson, Amanda S. Milde, Marybeth K. Brey, James T. Lamer, Dominque Turney, Zachary Witzel, Emily Szott, Grace Loppnow, Joel Stiras, Kayla Zankle, Devon Oliver, John Hoxmeier, Andrea K. Fritts
2024, Scientific Reports (14)
Dams commonly restrict fish movements in large rivers but can also help curtail the spread of invasive species, such as invasive bigheaded carps (Hypophthalmichthys spp). To determine how dams in the upper Mississippi River (UMR) affect large-scale invasive and native fish migrations, we tracked American paddlefish (Polyodon spathula) and bigheaded carp...
Streamflow timing and magnitude during snow drought depend on snow drought type and regional hydroclimate
John C. Hammond, Annie L. Putman, Theodore B. Barnhart, Graham A. Sexstone, Gregory J. McCabe, David M. Wolock, Aaron Joseph Heldmyer, Stephanie K. Kampf
2024, Hydrological Sciences Journal
Communities around the world rely on snowmelt to meet water demands, and periods of lower than normal snow accumulation, snow droughts, can decrease water supplies. Leveraging 172 minimally disturbed and seasonally snow-covered watersheds, we developed an approach to examine the effects of cool & dry, warm & dry,...
Predicting future grizzly bear habitat use in the Bitterroot Ecosystem under recolonization and reintroduction scenarios
Sarah Nelson Sells, Cecily M. Costello
2024, PLoS ONE (19)
Many conservation actions must be implemented with limited data. This is especially true when planning recovery efforts for extirpated populations, such as grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) within the Bitterroot Ecosystem (BE), where strategies for reestablishing a resident population are being evaluated. Here, we applied individual-based movement...
Classifying plant communities in the North American Coastal Plain with PRISMA spaceborne hyperspectral imagery and the spectral mixture residual
Jennifer A. Rogers, Kevin M. Robertson, Todd Hawbaker, Daniel J. Sousa
2024, JGR Biogeosciences (129)
The effort to map terrestrial biodiversity, in recent years limited mostly to the use of broadband multispectral remote sensing at decameter scales, can be greatly enhanced by harnessing hyperspectral imagery. Interpretation of hyperspectral imagery may be aided by the Mixture Residual (MR) spectral preprocessing transformation. MR integrates the benefits of...
Ranking of 10 global one-arc-second DEMs reveals limitations in terrain morphology representation
Peter L. Guth, Sebastiano Trevisani, Carlos H. Grohmann, John Lindsay, Dean B. Gesch, Laurence Hawker, Conrad Bielski
2024, Remote Sensing (16)
At least 10 global digital elevation models (DEMs) at one-arc-second resolution now cover Earth. Comparing derived grids, like slope or curvature, preserves surface spatial relationships, and can be more important than just elevation values. Such comparisons provide more nuanced DEM rankings than just elevation root mean square error (RMSE)...
Challenging ring-current models of the Carrington storm
Jeffrey J. Love, Kalevi Mursula
2024, Journal of Geophysical Research Space Physics (129)
A detailed analysis is made of horizontal-component geomagnetic-disturbance data acquired at the Colaba observatory in India recording the Carrington magnetic storm of September 1859. Prior to attaining its maximum absolute value, disturbance at Colaba increased with an e-folding timescale of 0.46 hr (28 min). Following its maximum, absolute disturbance at...
Modelling effects of flow withdrawal scenarios on riverine and riparian features of the Yampa River in Dinosaur National Monument
Rebecca Diehl, J. M. Friedman
2024, Science Report NPS/SR-2024-178
The National Park Service (NPS) is charged with maintaining natural riverine resources and processes in its parks along the Yampa River and downstream along the Green River. This mission requires information on how proposed water withdrawals would affect resources. We present a methodology that quantifies the impact on natural riverine...
RegionGrow3D: A deterministic analysis for characterizing discrete three-dimensional landslide source areas on a regional scale
Nicolas Wahde Mathews, Ben Leshchinksy, Benjamin B. Mirus, Michael J. Olsen, Adam M. Booth
2024, Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface (129)
Regional-scale characterization of shallow landslide hazards is important for reducing their destructive impact on society. These hazards are commonly characterized by (a) their location and likelihood using susceptibility maps, (b) landslide size and frequency using geomorphic scaling laws, and (c) the magnitude of disturbance required to cause...
Shifting sands: The influence of coral reefs on shoreline erosion from short-term storm protection to long-term disequilibrium
Stephan Bitterwolf, Borja Reguero, Curt Storlazzi, Michael W. Beck
2024, Nature-Based Solutions (6)
Climate change is exacerbating shoreline erosion and flooding, posing significant risks to coastal communities. Although traditional coastal defenses such as seawalls, dykes, and breakwaters offer protection from these hazards, their high environmental and economic costs are driving interest in cost-competitive nature-based solutions. Coral reef restoration is a nature-based solution that...
Learning from a high-severity fire event—Conditions following the 2018 Carr Fire at Whiskeytown National Recreation Area
Phillip J. van Mantgem, Micah C. Wright, Karen M. Thorne, Jill Beckmann, Kevin Buffington, Lyndsay L. Rankin, Audrey Colley, Eamon A. Engber
2024, Open-File Report 2023-1053
The 2018 Carr Fire burned more than 90 percent of Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, with much of the park burning at high severity. California yellow pine and mixed conifer forests are not well adapted to large, high-severity fires, and forest recovery after these events may be problematic. Large, high-severity fire...
June 2022 floods in the Upper Yellowstone River Basin
Katherine J. Chase, DeAnn Dutton, William B. Hamilton, Seth A. Siefken, Cassidy Vander Voort, Aroscott Whiteman
2024, Fact Sheet 2024-3035
Extraordinary floods surged down the Yellowstone River and its tributaries in northwestern Wyoming and south-central Montana on June 13–15, 2022. During the flood, U.S. Geological Survey staff worked to maintain real-time data from streamgages by making field measurements of streamflow and repairing damaged equipment while communicating the latest streamflow information...
Projected sea-level rise and high tide flooding at Biscayne National Park, Florida
Hana R. Thurman, Nicholas M. Enwright, Michael J. Osland, Davina L. Passeri, Richard H. Day, Bethanie M. Simons, Jeffrey J. Danielson, W. Matthew Cushing
2024, Fact Sheet 2024-3024
IntroductionNational parks and preserves in the South Atlantic-Gulf Region contain valuable coastal habitats such as tidal wetlands and mangrove forests, as well as irreplaceable historic buildings and archeological sites located in low-lying areas. These natural and cultural resources are vulnerable to accelerated sea-level rise and escalating high tide flooding events....
