Data-driven, multi-model workflow suggests strong influence from hurricanes on the generation of turbidity currents in the Gulf of Mexico
Courtney K. Harris, Jaia Syvitski, H.G. Arango, E. H. Meiburg, Sagy Cohen, C.J. Jenkins, Justin J. Birchler, E. W. H. Hutton, T. A. Kniskern, S. Radhakrishnan, Guillermo Auad
2020, Journal of Marine Science and Engineering (8)
Turbidity currents deliver sediment rapidly from the continental shelf to the slope and beyond; and can be triggered by processes such as shelf resuspension during oceanic storms; mass failure of slope deposits due to sediment- and wave-pressure loadings; and localized events that grow into sustained currents via self-amplifying ignition. Because...
U.S. Geological Survey—Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center 2018 research activity report
Mark H. Sherfy, editor(s)
2020, Circular 1465
The mission of Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center is to provide scientific information needed to conserve and manage the Nation’s natural capital for current and future generations, with an emphasis on migratory birds, Department of the Interior trust resources, and ecosystems of the Nation’s interior. This report provides an overview...
Evaluation of acute and chronic toxicity of nickel and zinc to 2 sensitive freshwater benthic invertebrates using refined testing methods
Ning Wang, James L. Kunz, Danielle M. Cleveland, Jeffery A. Steevens, Edward J. Hammer, Eric Van Genderen, Adam C. Ryan, Christian E. Schlekat
2020, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (39) 2256-2268
The US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) is reviewing the protectiveness of the national ambient water quality criteria (WQC) for nickel (Ni) and zinc (Zn) and compiling toxicity databases to update the WQC. An amphipod (Hyalella azteca) and a unionid mussel (Lampsilis siliquoidea) have shown high sensitivity to Ni and Zn...
A hybrid approach for predictive soil property mapping using conventional soil survey data
Travis W. Nauman, Michael C. Duniway
2020, Soil Science Society of America Journal (84) 170-1194
Soil property maps are important for land management and earth systems modeling. A new hybrid point-disaggregation predictive soil property mapping strategy improved mapping in the Colorado River Basin, and can be applied to other areas with similar data (e.g. conterminous United States). This new approach increased sample size ~6-fold over...
Evaluation of genetic structuring within GIS‐derived Brook Trout management units
Lucas Nathan, Y. Kanno, Benjamin Letcher, Amy B. Welsh, Andrew R. Whiteley, Jason C. Vokoun
2020, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (149) 681-694
Delineation of management units across broad spatial scales can help to visualize population structuring and identify conservation opportunities. Geographical information system (GIS) approaches can be useful for developing broad‐scale management units, especially when paired with field data that can validate the GIS‐based delineations. Genetic data can be useful for evaluating...
The freshwater mysid Mysis diluviana (Audzijonyte and Väinölä, 2005) (Mysida: Mysidae) consumes detritus in the presence of Daphnia (Cladocera: Daphniidae)
Jessica E. Griffin, Brian O’Malley, Jason D. Stockwell
2020, Journal of Crustacean Biology
Freshwater mysids of the Mysis relicta group are omnivorous macroinvertebrates that form an important link between fishes and lower trophic levels in many north temperate to Arctic lakes, where they exhibit diel vertical migration (DVM) to exploit subsurface food-rich layers at night. Benthic food resources have been assumed to be...
Dynamics of lake trout production in the main basin of Lake Huron
Ji X. He, James R. Bence, Charles P. Madenjian, Randall M. Claramunt
2020, ICES Journal of Marine Science (77) 975-987
To inform lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) fishery management in Lake Huron that has undergone rapid ecosystem changes, we quantified lake trout production dynamics by coupling age-structured stock assessment and fish bioenergetics models. Our approach revealed the connection between piscivore production and prey consumption, included growth compensation to reproduction losses,...
Methods for rapid quality assessment for national-scale land surface change monitoring
Qiang Zhou, Christopher P. Barber, George Z. Xian
2020, Remote Sensing (12)
Providing rapid access to land surface change data and information is a goal of the U.S. Geological Survey. Through the Land Change Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection (LCMAP) initiative, we have initiated a monitoring capability that involves generating a suite of ten annual land cover and land surface change datasets...
Generalized models to estimate carbon and nitrogen stocks of organic soil horizons in Interior Alaska
Kristen L. Manies, Mark Waldrop, Jennifer W. Harden
2020, Earth System Science Data (ESSD) (12) 1745-1757
Boreal ecosystems comprise one tenth of the world’s land surface and contain over 20 % of the global soil carbon (C) stocks. Boreal soils are unique in that its mineral soil is covered by what can be quite thick layers of organic soil. These organic soil layers, or horizons, can...
Steps taken for calculating estimated ultimate recoveries of wells in the Eagle Ford Group and associated Cenomanian–Turonian strata, U.S. Gulf Coast, Texas, 2018
Heidi M. Leathers-Miller
2020, Scientific Investigations Report 2020-5077
In 2018, the U.S. Geological Survey published an assessment of technically recoverable continuous oil and gas resources of the Eagle Ford Group and associated Cenomanian–Turonian strata in the U.S. Gulf Coast of Texas. Estimated ultimate recoveries (EURs) were calculated with production data from IHS MarkitTM using DeclinePlus software in the...
Winter versus summer habitat selection in a threatened ground squirrel
Amanda R. Goldberg, Courtney J. Conway, Diane Evans Mack, Greg S. Burak
2020, The Wildlife Professional (84) 1548-1559
Hibernation is a strategy many species employ to survive periods of thermal stress or resource shortage (e.g., harsh thermal conditions, food limitations) and habitat requirements of hibernating species may differ between summer (the active season) and winter (during hibernation). Accounting for seasonal differences in habitat affinities will...
Detection of SARS-CoV-2 by RNAscope® in situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry techniques
Mariano Carossino, Hon S. Ip, Jurgen a. Richt, Kendra Schultz, Kimberly Harper, Alan T. Loynachan, Fabio Del Piero, Udeni B.R. Balasuriya
2020, Archives of Virology (165) 2373-2377
In situ hybridization (ISH) and immunohistochemistry (IHC) are essential tools to characterize SARS-CoV-2 infection and tropism in naturally and experimentally infected animals and also for diagnostic purposes. Here, we describe three RNAscope®-based ISH assays targeting...
Understanding the uncertainty in global forest carbon turnover
Thomas A. M. Pugh, Tim Tito Rademacher, Sarah Shafer, Jorg Steinkamp, Jonathan Barichivich, Brian Beckage, Vanessa Haverd, Anna Harper, Jens Heinke, Kazuya Nishina, Anja Rammig, Hisashi Sato, Almut Arneth, Stijn Hantson, Thomas Hickler, Markus Kautz, Benjamin Quesada, Benjamin Smith, Kirsten Thonicke
2020, Biogeosciences (17) 3961-3989
The length of time that carbon remains in forest biomass is one of the largest uncertainties in the global carbon cycle, with both recent historical baselines and future responses to environmental change poorly constrained by available observations. In the absence of large-scale observations, models used for global assessments tend to...
The catastrophic decline of tortoises at a fenced natural area
Kristin H. Berry, Julie L. Yee, Timothy A. Shields, Laura Stockton
2020, Wildlife Monographs (205) 1-53
Agassiz’s desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii), a threatened species of the southwestern United States, has severely declined to the point where 76% of populations in critical habitat (Tortoise Conservation Areas) are below viability. The potential for rapid recovery of wild populations is low because females require 12–20 years to reach reproductive...
Channel cross-section analysis for automated stream head identification
Ethan J. Shavers, Larry Stanislawski
2020, Environmental Modelling & Software (132)
Headwater streams account for more than half of the streams in the United States by length. The substantial occurrence and susceptibility to change of headwater streams makes regular updating of related maps vital to the accuracy of associated analysis and display....
Latest Pleistocene to present geology of Mount Baker Volcano, northern Cascade Range, Washington
Kevin M. Scott, David S. Tucker, Jon L. Riedel, Cynthia A. Gardner, John P. McGeehin
2020, Professional Paper 1865
Mount Baker is the prominent andesitic stratocone that forms the youngest volcanic center in the Mount Baker volcanic field. Its heavily glaciated cone, rising to 3,286 meters, is an international landmark, dominating the skyline of Vancouver, British Columbia, even though the volcano is located 25 kilometers south of the international...
Water-level data for the Albuquerque Basin and adjacent areas, central New Mexico, period of record through September 30, 2019
Joseph E. Beman
2020, Data Series 1129
The Albuquerque Basin, located in central New Mexico, is about 100 miles long and 25–40 miles wide. The basin is hydrologically defined as the extent of consolidated and unconsolidated deposits of Tertiary and Quaternary age that encompasses the structural Rio Grande Rift between San Acacia to the south and Cochiti...
Applications of deep convolutional neural networks to predict length, circumference, and weight from mostly dewatered images of fish
Nicholas Bravata, Dylan Kelly, Jesse Eickholt, Janine Bryan, Scott M. Miehls, Daniel Zielinski
2020, Ecology and Evolution (10) 9313-9325
Simple biometric data of fish aid fishery management tasks such as monitoring the structure of fish populations and regulating recreational harvest. While these data are foundational to fishery research and management, the collection of length and weight data through physical handling of the fish is challenging as it is time...
Adjusted geomagnetic data—Theoretical basis and validation
E. Joshua Rigler, Abram E. Claycomb
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1053
Adjusted geomagnetic data are magnetometer measurements with provisional correction factors applied such that vector quantities are oriented in a local Cartesian frame in which the X axis points north, the Y axis points east, and the Z axis points down. These correction factors are determined from so-called absolute measurements, which...
Laboratory electrical conductivity of marine gas hydrate
Steven Constable, Ryan Lu, Laura A. Stern, Wyatt L. Du Frane, Jeffery J. Roberts
2020, Geophysical Research Letters (47)
Methane hydrate was synthesized from pure water ice and flash frozen seawater, with varying amounts of sand or silt added. Electrical conductivity was determined by impedance spectroscopy, using equivalent circuit modeling to separate the effects of electrodes and to gain insight into conduction mechanisms. Silt and sand...
Fate and behavior tools related to inland spill response—Workshop on the U.S. Geological Survey’s role in Federal science support
Daniel J. Sullivan, Faith A. Fitzpatrick
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1063
Executive SummaryThere is a growing body of tools available for science support for determining the fate and behavior of industrial and agricultural chemicals that are rapidly injected (“spilled”) into aquatic environments. A 2-day roundtable-style workshop was held by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Middleton, Wisconsin, in December 2017 to...
Macroinvertebrate oviposition habitat selectivity and egg-mass desiccation tolerances: Implications for population dynamics in large regulated rivers
Scott W. Miller, Matt Schroer, Jesse R. Fleri, Theodore A. Kennedy
2020, Freshwater Science (39) 584-599
Aquatic insects exhibit complex life cycles that include egg, larval, adult, and, in some instances, pupal stages. Disturbances at any of these life stages can affect overall population dynamics. Yet, efforts to understand the effects of disturbances, such as hydrologic alterations, overwhelmingly focus on the larval life stage of aquatic...
Water resources of Evangeline Parish, Louisiana
Chid J. Murphy, Vincent E. White
2020, Fact Sheet 2020-3020
Information concerning the availability, use, and quality of water in Evangeline 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 282.66...
Water resources of Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana
Vincent E. White
2020, Fact Sheet 2020-3011
Information concerning the availability, use, and quality of water in Avoyelles 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 70...
Passive acoustic monitoring effectively detects Northern Spotted Owls and Barred Owls over a range of forest conditions
Leila S. Duchac, Damon B. Lesmeister, Katie M. Dugger, Zachary J. Ruff, Raymond J. Davis
2020, Condor (122)
Passive acoustic monitoring using autonomous recording units (ARUs) is a fast-growing area of wildlife research especially for rare, cryptic species that vocalize. Northern Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) populations have been monitored since the mid-1980s using mark–recapture methods. To evaluate an alternative survey method, we used ARUs to detect calls...
