Minnesota and Landsat
U.S. Geological Survey
2020, Fact Sheet 2020-3059
Landsat land-imaging satellites underpin public and private sector decisions in the Minnesota and across the Nation for effective adaptation to changing landscapes. Those decisions often lead to enhanced agricultural productivity, smart urban development, and sustainable forest management. Landsat also enables more accurate inland lake water-quality monitoring, increased disaster resilience and...
Water resources of Red River Parish, Louisiana
Angela L. Robinson, Vincent E. White
2020, Fact Sheet 2020-3053
Information concerning the availability, use, and quality of water in Red River Parish, Louisiana, is critical for proper water-supply management. The purpose of this fact sheet is to present information that can be used by water managers, parish residents, and others for stewardship of this vital resource. In 2014, about...
Water resources of Bienville Parish, Louisiana
Angela L. Robinson, Vincent E. White
2020, Fact Sheet 2020-3052
Information concerning the availability, use, and quality of water in Bienville Parish, Louisiana, is critical for proper water-supply management. The purpose of this fact sheet is to present information that can be used by water managers, parish residents, and others for stewardship of this vital resource. In 2014, about 13.03...
Optimization assessment of a groundwater-level observation network in the Middle Rio Grande Basin, New Mexico
Andre B. Ritchie, Jeff D. Pepin
2020, Scientific Investigations Report 2020-5007
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority (ABCWUA), measures groundwater levels continuously (hourly) and discretely (semiannually and annually) at a network of wells and piezometers (hereafter called the observation network) within the Middle Rio Grande Basin in central New Mexico. Groundwater levels that...
The Long-term effect of bleeding for Limulus amebocyte lysate on annual survival and recapture of tagged horseshoe crabs
David R. Smith, Joshua Newhard, Conor P. McGowan, C. Alyssa Butler
2020, Frontiers in Marine Science (7)
In the U.S., 525,000 horseshoe crabs (Limulus polyphemus) per year have been captured during 2013–2017, brought to biomedical facilities, and bled to produce Limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL), then mostly released to the area of capture. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission estimates short-term bleeding-induced mortality to be 15% (4% to...
Bathymetric map, surface area, and capacity of Grand Lake O’ the Cherokees, northeastern Oklahoma, 2019
Shelby L. Hunter, A.R. Trevisan, Jennifer Villa, Kevin A. Smith
2020, Scientific Investigations Map 3467
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Grand River Dam Authority, completed a high-resolution multibeam bathymetric survey to compute a new area and capacity table for Grand Lake O’ the Cherokees in northeastern Oklahoma. Area and capacity tables identify the relation between the elevation of the water surface...
Subsea permafrost carbon stocks and climate change sensitivity estimated by expert assessment
Sara Sayedi, B.F. Thornton, Benjamin Abbott, Jennifer M. Frederick, Jorien E. Vonk, Paul Overduin, Christina Schadel, E.A.G. Schuur, A. Bourbonnais, N. Demidova, Anatoly Gavrilov, Shengping He, Gustaf Gustaf Hugelius, Martin Jakobsson, Miriam C. Jones, DoongJoo Joung, Gleb Kraev, Robie W. Macdonald, A. David McGuire, Cuicui Mu, M. O’Regan, Kathryn M. Schreiner, Christian Stranne, Elena Pizhankova, A. Vasiliev, S. Westermann, Jay P. Zarnetske, Tingjun Zhang, M Ghandehari, Sarah Baeumler, Brian C. Brown, Rebecca J. Frei
2020, Environmental Research Letters (15)
The continental shelves of the Arctic Ocean and surrounding seas contain large stocks of organic matter (OM) and methane (CH4), representing a potential ecosystem feedback to climate change not included in international climate agreements. We performed a structured expert assessment with 25 permafrost researchers to combine quantitative...
Building loss in WUI disasters: Evaluating the core components of the wildland-urban interface definition
Michael D. Caggiano, Todd Hawbaker, Benjamin Gannon, Chad Hoffman
2020, Fire (3)
Accurate maps of the wildland–urban interface (WUI) are critical for the development of effective land management policies, conducting risk assessments, and the mitigation of wildfire risk. Most WUI maps identify areas at risk from wildfire by overlaying coarse-scale housing data with land cover or vegetation data. However,...
Gas hydrate quantification in Walker Ridge block 313, Gulf of Mexico, from full-waveform inversion of ocean-bottom seismic data
Jiliang Wang, Priyank Jaiswal, Seth S. Haines, Yihong Yang, Patrick E. Hart
2020, Interpretation (8) T27-T42
The Gulf of Mexico (GOM) Joint Industry Project Leg 2 logging-while-drilling data in Walker Ridge lease block 313 (WR313) in the GOM detected gas hydrate in coarse- and fine-grained sediments at sites WR313-G and WR313-H. The coarse-grained units are thin (<span...
Potomac tributary report: A summary of trends in tidal water quality and associated factors
Jennifer L. Keisman, Rebecca Murphy, Olivia H. Devereux, J. Harcum, R. Karrh, M. Lane, E. Perry, James S. Webber, Zhaoying Wei, Qian Zhang, Meghan Nicole Petenbrink
2020, Report
The Potomac Tributary Report summarizes change over time in a suite of monitored tidal water quality parameters and associated potential drivers of those trends for the time period 1985 – 2018, and provides a brief description of the current state of knowledge explaining these observed changes. Water quality parameters described...
Estimating the invasion extent of Asian swamp eel (Monopterus: Synbranchidae) in an altered river of the south-eastern United States
J. R. Johnson, A. T. Taylor, James M. Long
2020, Marine and Freshwater Research (72) 811-822
The first reported invasion of Asian swamp eels (Monopterus albus, ASE) in the continental United States was in the state of Georgia in 1994. This population was first discovered within several ponds on a private nature centre, but the ponds drained via an outflow pipe into marsh habitats...
Fish out of water: Insights from a case study of a highly social animal that failed the mirror self-recognition test
Shannon Barber-Meyer, Lori J. Schmidt
2020, International Journal of Comparative Psychology (33)
Mirror self-recognition (MSR) tests have been conducted with a variety of species with the aim of examining whether subject animals have the capacity for self-awareness. To date, the majority of animals that have convincingly passed are highly social mammals whose wild...
Editorial: Plant-soil interactions under changing climate
Sanna Sevanto, Charlotte Grossiord, Tamir Klein, Sasha C. Reed
2020, Frontiers in Plant Science (11)
The health and well-being of plants and soil is crucial for all life on Earth. It is well-known that vegetation cover follows climatic zones, and plants respond to climatic drivers such as temperature and precipitation (Seddon et al., 2016; Kattge et al., 2020). It is also well-known that plant health...
Geologic map and borehole stratigraphy of Hinkley Valley and vicinity, San Bernardino County, California
David M. Miller, Victoria E. Langenheim, Elizabeth K. Haddon
2020, Scientific Investigations Map 3458
Hinkley Valley, in the central to western Mojave Desert of southeastern California, has a long historical record owing to its position as a crossroads for rail and road traffic and its position adjacent to the Mojave River. Subflow in the Mojave River provided groundwater recharge that maintained water consumption and...
Permafrost mapping with electrical resistivity tomography in two wetland systems north of the Tanana River, Interior Alaska
Christopher H. Conaway, Cordell Johnson, Thomas Lorenson, Merritt R. Turetsky, Eugénie S. Euskirchen, Mark Waldrop, Peter W. Swarzenski
2020, Journal of Environmental & Engineering Geophysics (2) 199-209
Surface-based 2D electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) surveys were used to characterize permafrost distribution at wetland sites on the alluvial plain north of the Tanana River, 20 km southwest of Fairbanks, Alaska, in June and September 2014. The sites were part of an ecologically-sensitive research area characterizing biogeochemical response of this...
Reestablishing a stepping-stone population of the threatened elkhorn coral Acropora palmata to aid regional recovery
Ilsa B. Kuffner, Anastasios Stathakopoulos, Lauren Toth, Lucy Bartlett
2020, Endangered Species Research (43) 461-473
Recovery of the elkhorn coral Acropora palmata is critical to reversing coral reef ecosystem collapse in the western Atlantic, but the species is severely threatened. To gauge potential for the species’ restoration in Florida, USA, we conducted an assisted migration experiment where 50 coral fragments of 5 nursery-raised genetic strains (genets)...
Diet and bathymetric distribution of juvenile Lake Trout Salvelinus namaycush in Lake Huron
Edward F. Roseman, Stephen Riley, Taaja Tucker, Steve A. Farha, Scott Jackson, Dustin Bowser
2020, Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Management (23) 350-365
Rehabilitation efforts for Lake Trout Salvelinus namaycush in Lake Huron have resulted in increased capture of young wild Lake Trout in annual bottom trawl surveys conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey. To better understand the ecology of juvenile (<400mm) Lake Trout, we summarized the spatial distribution of their capture in...
Assessing contributions of cold-water refuges to reproductive migration corridor conditions for adult salmon and steelhead trout in the Columbia River, USA
Marcia N. Snyder, Nathan H. Schumaker, Jason B. Dunham, Matthew Keefer, Peter Leinenbach, Allen Brookes, John Palmer, Jennifer Wu, Druscilla M Keenan, Joseph L. Ebersole
2020, Journal of Ecohydraulics
Diadromous fish populations face multiple challenges along their migratory routes. These challenges include suboptimal water quality, harvest, and barriers to longitudinal and lateral connectivity. Interactions among factors influencing migration success make it challenging to assess management options for improving migratory fish conditions along riverine migration corridors. We describe a spatially...
Comparing husbandry techniques for optimal head-starting of the Mojave desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii)
P. A. McGovern, K. A. Buhlmann, B. D. Todd, Clinton T. Moore, J. M. Peaden, J. Hepinstall-Cymerman, J. A. Daly, T. D. Tuberville
2020, Herpetological Conservation and Biology (15) 626-641
Mojave Desert Tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) populations continue to decline throughout their range. Head-starting—the captive rearing of offspring to a size where they are presumably more likely to survive post-release—is being explored as a potential recovery tool. Previous Desert Tortoise head-starting programs have reared neonates exclusively outdoors. Here, we explore using...
Stony coral tissue loss disease in Florida is associated with disruption of host–zooxanthellae physiology
Jan Landsberg, Yasu Kiryu, Esther Peters, Patrick Wilson, Yvonne Waters, Kerry Maxwell, Lindsay Huebner, Thierry M. Work
2020, Frontiers in Marine Science (7)
Samples from eight species of corals (Colpophyllia natans, Dendrogyra cylindrus, Diploria labyrinthiformis, Meandrina meandrites, Montastraea cavernosa, Orbicella faveolata, Pseudodiploria strigosa, and Siderastrea siderea) that exhibited gross clinical signs of acute, subacute, or chronic tissue loss attributed to stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) were collected from the Florida Reef Tract during 2016–2018 and examined histopathologically. The...
Simulation of groundwater flow in the regional aquifer system on Long Island, New York, for pumping and recharge conditions in 2005–15
Donald A. Walter, John P. Masterson, Jason S. Finkelstein, Monti, Paul E. Misut, Michael N. Fienen
2020, Scientific Investigations Report 2020-5091
A three-dimensional groundwater-flow model was developed for the aquifer system of Long Island, New York, to evaluate (1) responses of the hydrologic system to changes in natural and anthropogenic hydraulic stresses, (2) the subsurface distribution of groundwater age, and (3) the regional-scale distribution of groundwater travel times and the source...
Environmental contamination and unusual snake mortality in an urban national wildlife refuge
Kimberly A. Terrell, Anne Ballmann, Ashli Brown, Christina Childers, Susan Knowles, Ashley Meredith, Darrell Sparks
2020, Herpetological Conservation and Biology (15) 652-665
The National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) System protects ~150 million acres of land and water in the United States and provides habitat for >2,000 native vertebrates species. Although legally protected, wildlife populations within these refuges can be threatened by anthropogenic activities. The lack of knowledge about such threats has the potential...
Cordilleran subduction initiation: Retro-arc timing and basinal response in the Inyo Mountains, eastern California
Emma Lodes, Nancy R. Riggs, Michael E. Smith, Paul Stone
2020, Lithosphere (2020)
Subduction zones drive plate tectonics on Earth, yet subduction initiation and the related upper plate depositional and structural kinematics remain poorly understood because upper plate records are rare and often strongly overprinted by magmatism and deformation. During the late Paleozoic time, Laurentia’s western margin was...
Probabilistic application of an integrated catchment-estuary-coastal system model to assess the evolution of inlet-interrupted coasts over the 21st century
J. Bamunawala, Ali Dastgheib, Roshanka Ranasinghe, Ad van der Spek, Shreedhar Maskey, A. Brad Murray, Patrick L. Barnard, Trang Minh Duong, T.A.J.G. Sirisena
2020, Frontiers in Applied Mathematics and Statistics (7)
Inlet-interrupted sandy coasts are dynamic and complex coastal systems with continuously evolving geomorphological behaviors under the influences of both climate change and human activities. These coastal systems are of great importance to society (e.g., providing habitats, navigation, and recreational activities) and are affected by both oceanic and terrestrial...
Volcanic hazard assessment for an eruption hiatus, or post-eruption unrest context: Modeling continued dome collapse hazards for Soufrière Hills Volcano
E.T. Spiller, R.L. Wolpert, Sarah E. Ogburn, E.S. Calder, J.O. Berger, A.K. Patra, E.B. Pitman
2020, Frontiers in Earth Science (8)
Effective volcanic hazard management in regions where populations live in close proximity to persistent volcanic activity involves understanding the dynamic nature of hazards, and associated risk. Emphasis until now has been placed on identification and forecasting of the escalation phase of activity, in order to provide adequate warning...
