What the cliffs near America’s earliest settlements tell us about climate change
Harry J. Dowsett, Marci M. Robinson
2024, Frontiers for Young Minds (12)
Climate change is a big problem for natural habitats, people, and the systems that support society, including roads, water supply, electrical grids, and phone and internet connections. It’s an important theme in politics, economics, and culture. Scientists make computer models to show what the climate might be like in the...
StreamStats—A quarter century of delivering web-based geospatial and hydrologic information to the public, and lessons learned
Kernell G. Ries III, Peter A. Steeves, Peter M. McCarthy
2024, Circular 1514
StreamStats is a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) web application that provides streamflow statistics, such as the 1-percent annual exceedance probability peak flow, the mean flow, and the 7-day, 10-year low flow, to the public through a map-based user interface. These statistics are used in many ways, such as in the...
Database and time series of nearshore waves along the Alaskan coast from the United States-Canada border to the Bering Sea
Anita C. Engelstad, Li H. Erikson, Borja G. Reguero, Ann E. Gibbs, Kees Nederhoff
2024, Open-File Report 2023-1094
Alaska’s Arctic coast has some of the highest coastal erosion rates in the world, primarily driven by permafrost thaw and increasing wave energy. In the Arctic, a warming climate is driving sea ice cover to decrease in space and time. A lack of long-term observational wave data along Alaska’s coast...
How, when and where current mass flows in Martian gullies are driven by CO2 sublimation
Lonneke Roelofs, Susan J. Conway, Tjalling de Haas, Colin M. Dundas, Stephen R. Lewis, Jim McElwaine, Kelly Pasquon, Jan Raack, Matt Sylvest, Manish Patel
2024, Communications Earth and Environment (5)
Martian gullies resemble water-carved gullies on Earth, yet their present-day activity cannot be explained by water-driven processes. The sublimation of CO2 has been proposed as an alternative driver for sediment transport, but how this mechanism works remains unknown. Here we combine laboratory experiments of CO2-driven granular flows under Martian atmospheric pressure...
Quantifying spatiotemporal variation of nearshore forage fish schools with aerial surveys in Prince William Sound, Alaska
Daniel Stephen Donnelly, Mayumi L. Arimitsu, Scott Pegau, John F. Piatt
2024, Marine and Coastal Fisheries: Dynamics, Management, and Ecosystem Science (16)
ObjectiveChanges in abundance and distribution of schooling forage fish, such as the Pacific Sand Lance Ammodytes hexapterus and Pacific Herring Clupea pallasii, can be difficult to document using traditional boat-based methods, especially in the shallow, nearshore habitats frequented by these species. In contrast, nearshore fish schools are easily observed and...
Arsenic and other geogenic contaminants in global groundwater
Abhijit Mukherjee, Poulomee Coomar, Soumyajit Sarkar, Karen H. Johannesson, Alan Fryar, Madeline Schreiber, Kazi M. Ahmed, Mohd. A. Alam, Prosun Bhattacharya, Jochen Bundschuh, William Burgess, Madhumita Chakraborty, Rachel Coyte, Abida Farooqi, Huaming Guo, Julian Ijumulana, Gh Jeelani, Debapriya Mondal, D. Kirk Nordstrom, Joel Podgorski, David Polya, Bridget R. Scanlon, Mohd. Shamsudduha, Joseline Tapia, Avner Vengosh
2024, Nature Reviews Earth & Environment (5) 312-328
Geogenic groundwater contaminants (GGCs) affect drinking-water availability and safety, with up to 60% of groundwater sources in some regions contaminated by more than recommended concentrations. As a result, an estimated 300–500 million people are at risk of severe health impacts and premature mortality. In this Review, we discuss the sources,...
Influence of irrigation water and soil on annual mercury dynamics in Sacramento Valley rice fields
Luke A. Salvato, Mark C. Marvin-DiPasquale, Jacob Fleck, Stephen A. McCord, Bruce A. Linquist
2024, Journal of Environmental Quality (53) 327-339
Methylmercury (MeHg) is a human and environmental toxin produced in flooded soils. Little is known about MeHg in rice (Oryza Sativa L.) fields in Sacramento Valley, California. The objectives of this study were to quantify mercury fractions in irrigation water and within rice fields and to determine their mercury pools in...
Cathodoluminescence differentiates sedimentary organic matter types
Paul C. Hackley, Ryan J. McAleer, Aaron M. Jubb, Brett J. Valentine, Justin E. Birdwell
2024, Scientific Reports (14)
High-resolution scanning electron microscopy (SEM) visualization of sedimentary organic matter is widely utilized in the geosciences for evaluating microscale rock properties relevant to depositional environment, diagenesis, and the processes of fluid generation, transport, and storage. However, despite thousands of studies which have incorporated SEM methods, the inability of SEM to...
Sulphide petrology and ore genesis of the stratabound Sheep Creek sediment-hosted Zn–Pb–Ag–Sn prospect, and U–Pb zircon constraints on the timing of magmatism in the northern Alaska Range
Cynthia Dusel-Bacon, John N. Aleinikoff, Suzanne Paradise, John F. Slack
2024, Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences (61) 471-504
The Sheep Creek prospect is a stratabound Zn–Pb–Ag–Sn massive sulfide occurrence in the Bonnifield mining district, northern Alaska Range. The prospect is within a quartz–sericite–graphite–chlorite schist unit associated with Devonian carbonaceous and siliceous metasedimentary rocks. Volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) deposits in the district are hosted in felsic...
Chemistry, growth, and fate of the unique, short-lived (2019–2020) water lake at the summit of Kīlauea Volcano, Hawaii
Patricia A. Nadeau, Shaul Hurwitz, Sara Peek, Allan Lerner, Edward F. Younger, Matthew R. Patrick, David Damby, R. Blaine McCleskey, Peter J. Kelly
2024, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (25)
Less than a year after the 2018 Kīlauea caldera collapse and eruption, water appeared in newly deepened Halemaʻumaʻu crater. The lake—unprecedented in the written record—grew to a depth of ∼50 m before lava from the December 2020 eruption boiled it away. Surface water heightened concerns of potential phreatic...
Trace silicon determination in biological samples by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS): Insight into volatility of silicon species in hydrofluoric acid digests for optimal sample preparation and introduction to ICP-MS
Zikri Arslan, Heather A. Lowers
2024, Minerals (14)
A method for the determination of trace levels of silicon from biological materials by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) has been developed. The volatility of water-soluble silicon species, hexafluorosilicic acid (H2SiF6), and sodium metasilicate (Na2SiO3) was investigated by evaporating respective solutions (50 µg/mL silicon) in nitric acid (HNO3),...
Deep learning for water quality
Wei Zhi, Alison P. Appling, Heather E. Golden, Joel Podgorski, Li Li
2024, Nature Water (2) 228-241
Understanding and predicting the quality of inland waters are challenging, particularly in the context of intensifying climate extremes expected in the future. These challenges arise partly due to complex processes that regulate water quality, and arduous and expensive data collection that exacerbate the issue of data...
Landsat Next
U.S. Geological Survey
2024, Fact Sheet 2024-3005
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Using global remote camera data of a solitary species complex to evaluate the drivers of group formation
Joshua P. Twining, Chris Sutherland, Andrzej Zalewski, Michael V. Cove, Johnny Birks, Oliver R. Wearn, Jessica Haysom, Anna Wereszczuk, Emiliano Manzo, Paola Bartolommei, Alessio Mortelliti, Bryn Evans, Brian D. Gerber, Thomas J. McGreevy Jr., Laken S. Ganoe, Juliana Masseloux, Amy E. Mayer, Izabela Wierzbowska, Jan Loch, Jocelyn Akins, Donovan Drummey, William McShea, Stephanie Manke, Lain Pardo, Andy Boyce, Sheng Li, Roslina Binti Ragai, Ronglarp Sukmasuang, Alvaro Jose Villafane Trujillo, Carlos Lopez-Gonzalez, Nalleli Elvira Lara-Diaz, Olivia Cosby, Cristian N. Waggershauser, Jack Bamber, Frances Stewart, Jason Fisher, Angela K. Fuller, Kelly Perkins, Roger A. Powell
2024, PNAS (121)
The social system of animals involves a complex interplay between physiology, natural history, and the environment. Long relied upon discrete categorizations of “social” and “solitary” inhibit our capacity to understand species and their interactions with the world around them. Here, we use a globally distributed camera trapping dataset to test...
Geologic framework and hydrostratigraphy of the Edwards and Trinity aquifers within parts of Bandera and Kendall Counties, Texas
Allan K. Clark, Robert R. Morris, Alexis P. Lamberts
2024, Scientific Investigations Map 3518
The karstic Edwards and Trinity aquifers are classified as major sources of water in south-central Texas by the Texas Water Development Board. During 2019–23 the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Edwards Aquifer Authority, mapped and described the geology and hydrostratigraphy of the rocks composing the Edwards and Trinity...
Habitat amount and edge effects, not perch proximity, nest exposure, or vegetation diversity affect cowbird parasitism in agricultural landscapes
Matthew D. Stephenson, Kyla L. Yuza, Lisa A. Schulte, Robert W. Klaver
2024, Landscape Ecology (39)
ContextPrior research documented relationships between brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater) brood parasitism and edge effects, proximity of perches, and nest exposure. Those relationships have not been evaluated in agroecosystems containing extremes of fragmentation and vegetation diversity.ObjectivesWe compared three existing hypotheses on how cowbirds locate host nests with...
Growth, survival, and cohort formation of juvenile Lost River (Deltistes luxatus) and shortnose suckers (Chasmistes brevirostris) in Upper Klamath Lake, Oregon, and Clear Lake Reservoir, California—2021–22 monitoring report
Barbara A. Martin, John M. Caldwell, Jacob R. Krause, Alta C. Harris
2024, Open-File Report 2024-1013
Executive SummaryThe work reported in this publication provides updated data and interpretation for sampling years 2015 and 2022 of the juvenile monitoring project. The study objectives, background, study area, species description, and methods remained the same or similar throughout the years, while the executive summary, results, and discussion were updated...
Climate-induced tree-mortality pulses are obscured by broad-scale and long-term greening
Yuchao Yan, Shilong Piao, William M. Hammond, Anping Chen, Songbai Hong, Xu Hao, Seth M. Munson, Ranga B. Myneni, Craig D. Allen
2024, Nature Ecology & Evolution (8) 912-923
Vegetation greening has been suggested to be a dominant trend over recent decades, but severe pulses of tree mortality in forests after droughts and heatwaves have also been extensively reported. These observations raise the question of to what extent the observed severe pulses of tree mortality...
Too simple, too complex, or just right? Advantages, challenges, and guidance for indicators of genetic diversity
Sean M. Hoban, Jessica M. da Silva, Alice C. Hughes, Margaret Hunter, Belma Kalamujic Stroil, Linda Laikre, Alicia Mastretta-Yanes, Katie L Millette, Ivan Paz-Vinas, Lucia Ruiz Bustos, Robyn E. Shaw, Cristiano Vernesi, the Coalition for Conservation Genetics
2024, BioScience
Measuring genetic diversity of wild species using DNA-based data remains resource intensive and time consuming for nearly all species. However, genetic assessments are needed for global conservation commitments, including the Convention on Biological Diversity, and for governments and managers to evaluate conservation progress, as well as prioritizing species and...
The decision maker’s lament: If I only had some science!
Gustavo A. Bisbal
2024, Ambio (53) 898-906
Environmental decision makers lament instances in which the lack of actionable science limits confident decision-making. Their reaction when the needed scientific information is of poor quality, uninformative, unintelligible, or altogether absent is often to criticize scientists, their work, or science in general. The considerations offered here...
Demographic patterns of walleye (Sander vitreus) reproductive success in a Wisconsin population
Robert P. Davis, Levi M. Simmons, Stephanie L. Shaw, Greg G. Sass, Nicholas M. Sard, Daniel A. Isermann, Wesley A. Larson, Jared Joseph Homola
2024, Evolutionary Applications (17)
Harvest in walleye Sander vitreus fisheries is size-selective and could influence phenotypic traits of spawners; however, contributions of individual spawners to recruitment are unknown. We used parentage analyses using single nucleotide polymorphisms to test whether parental traits were related to the probability of offspring survival in Escanaba Lake, Wisconsin. From 2017 to...
Characterization of the structural–stratigraphic and reservoir controls on the occurrence of gas hydrates in the Eileen Gas Hydrate Trend, Alaska North Slope
Margarita Zyrianova, Timothy Collett, Ray Boswell
2024, Journal of Marine Science Engineering (12)
One of the most studied permafrost-associated gas hydrate accumulations in Arctic Alaska is the Eileen Gas Hydrate Trend. This study provides a detailed re-examination of the Eileen Gas Hydrate Trend with a focus on the gas hydrate accumulation in the western part of the Prudhoe Bay Unit. This integrated...
Paleogene mid-crustal intrusions in the Ruby Mountains–East Humboldt Range metamorphic core complex, northeastern Nevada, USA
A.W. Snoke, C.B. Barnes, Keith A. Howard, A. Romanoski, Wayne R. Premo, C. Hetherington, A. Strike, C. Frost, P. Copeland, S-Y Lee
2024, Geosphere (20) 577-620
Middle Eocene to early Oligocene intrusions, widespread in the Ruby Mountains–East Humboldt Range metamorphic core complex, Nevada, USA, provide insights into a major Paleogene magmatic episode and its relation to tectonism in the northeastern Great Basin. These intrusions, well-exposed in upper Lamoille Canyon, range in composition from gabbro to leucomonzogranite....
Modern coral range expansion off southeast Florida falls short of Late Holocene baseline
Peter Alexander Bacon Modys, Lauren Toth, William F. Precht, Anton E. Oleinik, Richard A. Mortlock
2024, Nature Communications Earth and Environment (5)
As thermal stress and disease outbreaks decimate coral reefs throughout the tropics, there is growing evidence that higher latitude marine environments may provide crucial refuges for many at-risk, temperature-sensitive coral species. However, our understanding of how coral populations expand into new areas and sustain themselves over time...
Summary of data collected during field efficacy trials of florfenicol and oxytetracycline dihydrate in controlling mortality in walleye (Sander vitreus) because of motile Aeromonad infections
Christopher M. Merkes, Maren T. Tuttle-Lau, Susan M. Schleis, Aaron R. Cupp
2024, Open-File Report 2023-1056
Motile Aeromonad septicemia is a substantial concern during fish propagation and can be catastrophic for fish hatcheries. We tested the efficacy of two different drugs (florfenicol and oxytetracycline) offered with feed as possible treatment options to control mortality because of motile Aeromonad infection. We offered top-coated medicated feeds to hatchery-reared...
