Habitat use patterns of the invasive red lionfish Pterois volitans: a comparison between mangrove and reef systems in San Salvador, Bahamas
Catalina Pimiento, James C. Nifong, Margaret E. Hunter, Eric Monaco, Brian R. Silliman
2015, Marine Ecology Progress Series (36) 28-37
The Indo-Pacific red lionfish Pterois volitans is widespread both in its native and its non-native habitats. The rapid invasion of this top predator has had a marked negative effect on fish populations in the Western Atlantic and the Caribbean. It is now well documented that lionfish are invading many tropical and sub-tropical...
Geochemical and mineralogical sampling of the Devonian shales in the Broadtop synclinorium, Appalachian basin, in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania
Catherine B. Enomoto, James L. Coleman Jr., Christopher S. Swezey, Patrick W. Niemeyer, Frank T. Dulong
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1061
Reconnaissance field mapping and outcrop sampling for geochemical and mineralogical analyses indicate that the Middle Devonian Marcellus Shale in the Broadtop synclinorium and nearby areas from southeastern West Virginia to south-central Pennsylvania has an organic content sufficiently high and a thermal maturity sufficiently moderate to be considered for a shale...
Indian National Gas Hydrate Program Expedition 01 report
Timothy S. Collett, M. Riedel, R. Boswell, J. Presley, P. Kumar, A. Sathe, A. Sethi, M.V. Lall, NGHP Expedition Scientists
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5054
Gas hydrate is a naturally occurring “ice-like” combination of natural gas and water that has the potential to serve as an immense resource of natural gas from the world’s oceans and polar regions. However, gas-hydrate recovery is both a scientific and a technical challenge and much remains to be learned...
Historic and forecasted population and land-cover change in eastern North Carolina, 1992-2030
Peter R. Claggett, Hearn Jr., David I. Donato
2015, Open-File Report 2014-1125
The Southeast Regional Partnership for Planning and Sustainability (SERPPAS) was formed in 2005 as a partnership between the Department of Defense (DOD) and State and Federal agencies to promote better collaboration in making resource-use decisions. In support of this goal, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) conducted a study to evaluate...
Size distribution of rare earth elements in coal ash
Clint Scott, Amrika Deonarine, Allan Kolker, Monique Adams, James Holland
2015, Conference Paper
Rare earth elements (REEs) are utilized in various applications that are vital to the automotive, petrochemical, medical, and information technology industries. As world demand for REEs increases, critical shortages are expected. Due to the retention of REEs during coal combustion, coal fly ash is increasingly considered a potential resource. Previous...
Temporal and basin-specific population trends of quagga mussels on soft sediment of a multi-basin reservoir
Timothy J Caldwell, Michael R. Rosen, Sudeep Chandra, Kumud Acharya, Andrea M Caires, Clinton J. Davis, Melissa Thaw, Daniel M. Webster
2015, Book chapter, Biology and management of invasive Quagga and Zebra Mussels in the western United States
Invasive quagga (Dreissena bugnesis) and zebra (Dreissena ploymorpha) mussels have rapidly spread throughout North America. Understanding the relationships between environmental variables and quagga mussels during the early stages of invasion will help management strategies and allow researchers to predict patterns of future invasions. Quagga mussels were detected in Lake Mead,...
Peak flow regression equations For small, ungaged streams in Maine: Comparing map-based to field-based variables
Pamela J. Lombard, Glenn A. Hodgkins
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5049
Regression equations to estimate peak streamflows with 1- to 500-year recurrence intervals (annual exceedance probabilities from 99 to 0.2 percent, respectively) were developed for small, ungaged streams in Maine. Equations presented here are the best available equations for estimating peak flows at ungaged basins in Maine with drainage areas from...
Summary of oceanographic and water-quality measurements in Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge, Wells, Maine, in 2013
Ellyn T. Montgomery, Neil K. Ganju, Patrick J. Dickhudt, Jonathan Borden, Marinna A. Martini, Sandra M. Brosnahan
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1072
Suspended-sediment transport is a critical element controlling the geomorphology of tidal wetland complexes. Wetlands rely on organic material and inorganic sediment deposition to maintain their elevation relative to sea level. The U.S. Geological Survey performed observational deployments to measure suspended-sediment concentration and water flow rates in the tidal channels of...
Coupled interactions between volatile activity and Fe oxidation state during arc crustal processes
Madeleine C.S. Humphreys, R Brooker, D.C. Fraser, A Burgisser, Margaret T. Mangan, C McCammon
2015, Journal of Petrology 1-20
Arc magmas erupted at the Earth’s surface are commonly more oxidized than those produced at mid-ocean ridges. Possible explanations for this high oxidation state are that the transfer of fluids during the subduction process results in direct oxidation of the sub-arc mantle wedge, or that oxidation is caused by the...
A pheromone outweighs temperature in influencing migration of sea lamprey
Cory O. Brant, Ke Li, Nicholas S. Johnson, Weiming Li
2015, Royal Society Open Science (2) 1-7
Organisms continuously acquire and process information from surrounding cues. While some cues complement one another in delivering more reliable information, others may provide conflicting information. How organisms extract and use reliable information from a multitude of cues is largely unknown. We examined movement decisions of sea lampreys (Petromyzon marinus L.) exposed...
A field investigation of the basaltic ring structures of the Channeled Scabland and the relevance to Mars
Laszlo P. Keszthelyi, Windy L. Jaeger
2015, Geomorphology (240) 34-43
The basaltic ring structure (BRS) is a class of peculiar features only reported in the Channeled Scabland of eastern Washington State. They have been suggested to be good analogs, however, for some circular features on Mars. BRSs are found where Pleistocene floods scoured the Columbia River Basin, stripping off the...
Geospatial compilation and digital map of centerpivot irrigated areas in the mid-Atlantic region, United States
Jason S. Finkelstein, Mark R. Nardi
2015, Data Series 932
To evaluate water availability within the Northern Atlantic Coastal Plain, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the University of Delaware Agricultural Extension, created a dataset that maps the number of acres under center-pivot irrigation in the Northern Atlantic Coastal Plain study area. For this study, the extent of the...
Estimated abundance of wild burros surveyed on Bureau of Land Management Lands in 2014
Paul C. Griffin
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1084
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) requires accurate estimates of the numbers of wild horses (Equus ferus caballus) and burros (Equus asinus) living on the lands it manages. For over ten years, BLM in Arizona has used the simultaneous double-observer method of recording wild burros during aerial surveys and has...
Water quality of the Little Arkansas River and Equus Beds Aquifer before and concurrent with large-scale artificial recharge, south-central Kansas, 1995-2012
Daniel J. Tappa, Jennifer L. Lanning-Rush, Brian J. Klager, Cristi V. Hansen, Andrew C. Ziegler
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5023
The city of Wichita artificially recharged about 1 billion gallons of water into the Equus Beds aquifer during 2007–2012 as part of Phase I recharge of the Artificial Storage and Recovery project. This report, prepared in cooperation by the U.S. Geological Survey and the city of Wichita, Kansas, summarizes Little Arkansas River...
Water quality of the Little Arkansas River and Equus Beds Aquifer before and concurrent with large-scale artificial recharge, south-central Kansas, 1995-2012
Daniel J. Tappa, Jennifer L. Lanning-Rush, Andrew C. Ziegler
2015, Fact Sheet 2015-3010
This fact sheet describes baseline water quality of the Equus Beds aquifer and Little Arkansas River and water-quality effects of artificial recharge by the city of Wichita associated with Phase I (2007–present) of the Aquifer Storage and Recovery project. During 1995 through 2012, more than 8,800 surface water and groundwater water-quality samples...
Hydrology of the middle San Pedro area, southeastern Arizona
Jeffrey T. Cordova, Jesse E. Dickinson, Kimberly R. Beisner, Candice B. Hopkins, Jeffrey R. Kennedy, Donald R. Pool, Edward P. Glenn, Pamela L. Nagler, Blakemore E. Thomas
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5040
In the middle San Pedro Watershed in southeastern Arizona, groundwater is the primary source of water supply for municipal, domestic, industrial, and agricultural use. The watershed comprises two smaller subareas, the Benson subarea and the Narrows-Redington subarea. Early 21st century projections for heavy population growth in the watershed have not...
Quantification of shoreline change along Hatteras Island, North Carolina: Oregon Inlet to Cape Hatteras, 1978-2002, and associated vector shoreline data
Cheryl J. Hapke, Rachel E. Henderson
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1002
Shoreline change spanning twenty-four years was assessed along the coastline of Cape Hatteras National Seashore, at Hatteras Island, North Carolina. The shorelines used in the analysis were generated from georeferenced historical aerial imagery and are used to develop shoreline change rates for Hatteras Island, from Oregon Inlet to Cape Hatteras....
Wind River subbasin restoration: Annual report of U.S. Geological Survey activities January 2014 through December 2014
Ian G. Jezorek, Patrick J. Connolly
2015, Report
Executive Summary The Wind River subbasin in southwest Washington State provides habitat for a population of wild Lower Columbia River steelhead Oncorhynchus mykiss, which are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. No hatchery steelhead have been planted in the Wind River subbasin since 1994, and hatchery adults are estimated...
Potential metal recovery from waste streams
Kathleen S. Smith, Philip L. Hageman, Geoffrey S. Plumlee, James R. Budahn, Donald I. Bleiwas
2015, Conference Paper
‘Waste stream’ is a general term that describes the total flow of waste from homes, businesses, industrial facilities, and institutions that are recycled, burned or isolated from the environment in landfills or other types of storage, or dissipated into the environment. The recovery and reuse of chemical elements from waste...
A Systems Thinking approach to post-disaster restoration of maritime transportation systems
Lizzette Perez Lespier, Suzanna K. Long, Thomas G. Shoberg
2015, Conference Paper
A Systems Thinking approach is used to examine elements of a maritime transportation system that are most likely to be impacted by an extreme event. The majority of the literature uses a high-level view that can fail to capture the damage at...
Storm tide monitoring during the blizzard of January 26-28, 2015, in eastern Massachusetts
Andrew J. Massey, Richard J. Verdi
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1081
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) deployed a temporary monitoring network of six storm surge sensors and four barometric pressure sensors along the Atlantic coast in eastern Massachusetts, from Plymouth to Newburyport, before the blizzard of January 26–28, 2015 (Blizzard of January 2015), to record the timing and magnitude of storm...
Moment tensors and other source parameters of mining‐induced earthquakes in TauTona Mine, South Africa
Margaret S. Boettcher, Deborah L. Kane, Arthur F. McGarr, Malcolm J. S. Johnston, Ze’ev Reches
2015, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (105) 1576-1593
Induced seismicity exhibits diverse source mechanisms that are often difficult to constrain for small events. Here, we use data from the in‐mine seismic network, the Natural Earthquake Laboratory in South African Mines network, and a temporary Program for the Array Seismic Studies of the Continental Lithosphere deployment in TauTona Mine,...
Toxicity reference values for chlorophacinone and their application for assessing anticoagulant rodenticide risk to raptors
Barnett A. Rattner, Katherine E. Horak, Rebecca S. Lazarus, Sandra L. Schultz, Susan Knowles, Benjamin G. Abbo, Steven F. Volker
2015, Ecotoxicology (24) 720-734
Despite widespread use and benefit, there are growing concerns regarding hazards of second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides to non-target wildlife which may result in expanded use of first-generation compounds, including chlorophacinone (CPN). The toxicity of CPN over a 7-day exposure period was investigated in American kestrels (Falco sparverius) fed...
Thiaminase activity in native freshwater mussels
Carrie J. Blakeslee, Stephanie Sweet, Heather S. Galbraith, Dale C. Honeyfield
2015, Journal of Great Lakes Research (41) 516-519
Thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency in the Great Lakes has been attributed to elevated levels of thiaminase I enzyme activity in invasive prey species; however, few studies have investigated thiaminase activity in native prey species. Some of the highest levels of thiaminase activity have been measured in invasive dreissenid mussels with...
Atypical pit craters on Mars: new insights from THEMIS, CTX and HiRISE observations
Glen Cushing, Chris H. Okubo, Timothy N. Titus
2015, Journal of Geophysical Research (120) 1023-1043
More than 100 pit craters in the Tharsis region of Mars exhibit morphologies, diameters and thermal behaviors that diverge from the much larger bowl-shaped pit craters that occur in most regions across Mars. These Atypical Pit Craters (APCs) generally have sharp and distinct rims, vertical or overhanging walls that extend...
