Remnant hardwood forest mapping within the Upper Mississippi River floodplain
Jenny L. Hanson, Rich King, Erin E. Hoy
2020, Open-File Report 2019-1089
Executive SummaryThe primary objective of the project was to locate previously unknown stands of mast-producing hardwood forest trees in the Upper Mississippi River floodplain using existing information. We located and mapped 399 previously unknown hardwood forest stands within the Mississippi River floodplain area of navigation pools 9, 10, and 11....
Field-based method for assessing duration of infectivity for influenza A viruses in the environment
Andrew B. Reeves, Andrew M. Ramey, Joshua C. Koch, Rebecca L. Poulson, David E. Stallknecht
2020, Journal of Virological Methods (277)
Understanding influenza A virus (IAV) persistence in wetlands is limited by a paucity of field studies relating to the maintenance of infectivity over time. The duration of IAV infectivity in water has been assessed under variable laboratory conditions, but results are difficult to translate to more complex field conditions. We...
Petrologic insights into rift zone magmatic interactions from the 2011 eruption of Kīlauea Volcano, Hawaiʻi
Brett H. Walker, Michael O. Garcia, Tim R. Orr
2020, Journal of Petrology (60) 2051-2075
The high frequency of historical eruptions at Kīlauea Volcano presents an exceptional opportunity to address fundamental questions related to the transport, storage, and interaction of magmas within rift zones. The Nāpau Crater area on Kīlauea’s East Rift Zone (ERZ) experienced nine fissure eruptions within 50 years (1961–2011). Most of the magma...
Copper concentrations in the upper Columbia River as a limiting factor in White Sturgeon recruitment and recovery
Holly J. Puglis, Aida Farag, Christopher A. Mebane
2020, Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management (16) 378-391
Currently there is little natural recruitment of white sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus) in the Upper Columbia River located in British Columbia, Canada and Washington, USA. This review of life history, physiology, and behavior of white sturgeon, along with data from recent toxicological studies, suggest that trace metals, especially Cu, affect survival...
Zircon-hosted melt inclusion record of silicic magmatism in the Mesoproterozoic St. Francois Mountains terrane, Missouri: Origin of the Pea Ridge iron oxide-apatite rare earth element deposit and implications for regional crustal pathways of mineralization
Kathryn E. Watts, Celestine N. Mercer
2020, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (272) 54-77
Voluminous silicic magmatism was coeval with iron ore mineralization in the St. Francois Mountains terrane in southeast Missouri, part of the broader Mesoproterozoic Granite-Rhyolite province along the eastern margin of Laurentia. Some of the iron deposits contain extraordinary endowments of critical elements, such as the Pea Ridge iron oxide-apatite (IOA) deposit, which has an...
Introduction to this special section: Geothermal energy
Joern Kaven, Dennise Templeton, Arpita P. Bathija
2020, The Leading Edge (39) 855-856
Geothermal energy is a global renewable resource that has the potential to provide a significant portion of baseload energy in many regions. In the United States, it has the potential to provide 8.5% of the electric generation capacity by the middle of the...
Stand density, drought, and herbivory constrain ponderosa pine regeneration pulse
Thomas E. Kolb, Kelsey Flathers, John B. Bradford, Caitlin M. Andrews, Lance A. Asherin, W. Keith Moser
2020, Canadian Journal of Forest Research (50) 862-871
Trees in dry forests often regenerate in episodic pulses when wet periods coincide with ample seed production. Factors leading to success or failure of regeneration pulses are poorly understood. We investigated the impacts of stand thinning on survival and growth of the 2013 cohort of ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Douglas ex...
An open source database for the synthesis of soil radiocarbon data: ISRaD version 1.0
Corey R. Lawrence, Jeffrey Beem-Miller, Alison Hoyt, Grey Monroe, Carlos Sierra, Shane Stoner, Katherine Heckman, Joseph Blankinship, Susan Crow, Gavin McNichol, Susan Trumbore, Paul Levine, Olga Vinduskova, Katherine Todd-Brown, Craig Rasmussen, Caitlin Hicks Pries, Christina Schadel, Karis McFarlane, Sebastian Doetterl, Christine Hatte, Yujie He, Claire C. Treat, Jennifer W. Harden, Margaret S. Torn, Cristian Estop-Aragonés, Asmeret A. Berhe, Marco Keiluweit, Agatha Della Rosa Kuhnen, Erika Marin-Spiotta, Alain F. Plante, Aaron Thompson, Zheng Shi, Joshua P. Schimel, Lydia J.S. Vaughn, Sophie F. von Fromm, Rota Wagai
2020, Earth System Science Data (12) 61-76
Radiocarbon is a critical constraint on our estimates of the timescales of soil carbon cycling that can aid in identifying mechanisms of carbon stabilization and destabilization and improve the forecast of soil carbon response to management or environmental change. Despite the wealth of soil radiocarbon data that have been reported...
Economic impacts of Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative Conservation projects in Wyoming
Christopher Huber, Matthew Flyr, Catherine Cullinane Thomas
2020, Open-File Report 2019-1135
Executive SummaryThis report estimates the economic impacts on the Wyoming economy from investments made by the Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative (WLCI) on conservation and restoration projects. The WLCI has been working in southwestern Wyoming since 2007 to coordinate science and management decisions among government and private entities that invest in...
Sustaining Environmental Capital Initiative summary report
Christopher Huber, James Meldrum, Rudy Schuster, Zachary H. Ancona, Kenneth J. Bagstad, Scott M. Beck, Daren M. Carlisle, Peter R. Claggett, Fabiano Franco, Heather S. Galbraith, Michelle Haefele, Kristin R Hoelting, Dianna M. Hogan, Kristina G. Hopkins, Tim Kern, Collin B. Lawrence, Stacy Lischka, John B. Loomis, Julie M. Mueller, Gregory E. Noe, Emily Pindilli, Brian Quay, Darius J. Semmens, Wilson Sinclair, Daniel E. Spooner, Brian Voigt, Barabara St. John White
2020, Open-File Report 2019-1117
Federal agencies need credible scientific information to determine the production and value of ecosystem services in an efficient and timely manner. The U.S. Geological Survey addresses this scientific information need through the Sustaining Environmental Capital Initiative project. The project has relied on U.S. Geological Survey expertise related to water, fisheries,...
Inundation exposure assessment for Majuro Atoll, Republic of the Marshall Islands using a high-accuracy digital elevation model
Dean B. Gesch, Monica Palaseanu-Lovejoy, Jeffrey J. Danielson, Charles Fletcher, Maria Kottermair, Matthew Barbee, Andrea Jalandoni
2020, Remote Sensing (12)
Majuro Atoll in the central Pacific has high coastal vulnerability due to low-lying islands, rising sea level, high wave events, eroding shorelines, a dense population center, and limited freshwater resources. Land elevation is the primary geophysical variable that determines exposure to inundation in coastal settings. Accordingly, coastal elevation data (with...
Nest site selection influences cinnamon teal nest survival in Colorado
William L. Kendall, Casey M. Setash, David Olson
2020, Journal of Wildlife Management (84) 542-552
Nest survival of ducks is partially a function of the spatiotemporal characteristics of the site at which a bird chooses to nest. Nest survival is also a fundamental component of population growth in waterfowl but is relatively unstudied for cinnamon teal (Spatula cyanoptera). We investigated cinnamon teal nest survival in...
Characterization of a Y-specific duplication/insertion of the anti-Mullerian hormone type II receptor gene based on a chromosome-scale genome assembly of yellow perch, Perca flavescens
Romain Feron, Margot Zahm, Cédric Cabau, Christophe Klopp, Céline Roques, Olivier Bouchez, Camille Eché, Sophie Valière, Cecile Donnadieu, Pierrick Haffray, Anastasia Bestin, Romain Morvezen, Herve Acoloque, Peter T. Euclide, Ming Wen, Elodie Jouano, Manfred Schartl, John Postlethwait, Claire Schraidt, Mark R. Christie, Wesley Larson, Amaury Herpin, Yann Guiguen
2020, Molecular Ecology Resources (20) 531-543
Yellow perch, Perca flavescens, is an ecologically and economically important species native to a large portion of the northern United States and southern Canada and is also a promising candidate species for aquaculture. However, no yellow perch reference genome has been available to facilitate improvements in both fisheries and aquaculture management...
Mariana serpentinite mud volcanism exhumes subducted seamount materials: Implications for the origin of life
Patricia Fryer, C. Geoffrey Wheat, Trevor Williams, Kevin Johnson, Christopher Kelley, Elmar Albers, Walter Kurz, John W. Shervais, Jeffrey Ryan, Barbara A. Bekins, Baptiste Debret, Jianghong Deng, Yanhui Dong, Philip Eickenbusch, Emanuelle Frery, Yuji Ichiyama, Raymond Johnston, Richard Kevorkian, Vitor Magalhaes, Simone Mantovanelli, Walter Menapace, Catriona D. Menzies, Katsuyoshi Michibayashi, Craig Moyer, Kelli Mullane, Jung-Woo Park, Roy Price, Olivier Sissmann, Shino Suzuki, Ken Takai, Bastien Walter, Rui Zhang, Diva Amon, Deborah Glickson, Shirley Pomponi
2020, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences (378)
The subduction of seamounts and ridge features at convergent plate boundaries plays an important role in the deformation of the overriding plate and influences geochemical cycling and associated biological processes. Active serpentinization of forearc mantle and serpentinite mud volcanism on the Mariana forearc (between the trench and active volcanic arc)...
Seismic character and progression of explosive activity during the 2016-2017 eruption of Bogoslof volcano, Alaska
Cheryl Searcy, John Power
2020, Bulletin of Volcanology (82)
Bogoslof volcano, in the central Aleutian arc, experienced a major eruption between December 2016 and August 2017 that was characterized by explosive activity (VEI 2 to 3) and the extrusion of lava domes. The Alaska Volcano Observatory tracked the activity in real-time using seismicity observed on distant stations as...
Using conceptual models to relate multiparameter satellite data to subsurface volcanic processes in Latin America
Kevin Reath, Matthew Pritchard, Juliet Biggs, Ben Andrews, Susi Ebmeier, Marco Bagnardi, Tarsilo Girona, Paul Lundgren, Taryn Lopez, Michael P. Poland
2020, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (21)
Satellite data have been extensively used to identify volcanic behavior. However, the physical subsurface processes causing any individual manifestation of activity can be ambiguous. We propose a classification scheme for the cause of unrest that simultaneously considers three multiparameter satellite observations. The scheme is based on...
Integrating side-scan sonar and acoustic telemetry to estimate the annual spawning run size of Atlantic sturgeon in the Hudson River
David C. Kazyak, Amy M Flowers, Nathan J. Hostetter, John A Madsen, Matthew W. Breece, Amanda Higgs, Lori M. Brown, Andy Royle, Dewayne A. Fox
2020, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (77) 1038-1048
There is considerable interest in evaluating the status and trends of sturgeon populations, yet many traditional approaches to estimating the abundance of fishes are intractable due to their biology and rarity. Side-scan sonar has recently emerged as an effective tool for censusing sturgeon in rivers, yet challenges remain for censusing...
Turbidite stratigraphy in proglacial lakes: Deciphering trigger mechanisms using a statistical approach
Nore Praet, Maarten Van Daele, Tim Collart, J. Moernaut, Elke Vandekerkhove, P. Kempf, Peter J. Haeussler, M. De Batist
2020, Sedimentology (67) 2332-2359
Turbidites embedded in lacustrine sediment sequences are commonly used to reconstruct regional flood or earthquake histories. A critical step for this method to be successful is that turbidites and their trigger mechanisms are determined unambiguously. The latter is particularly challenging for prehistoric proglacial lake records in high-seismicity settings where both...
Dermal denticle assemblages in coral reef sediments correlate with conventional shark surveys
Erin M. Dillon, Kevin D. Lafferty, Douglas J. McCauley, Darcy Bradley, Richard D. Norris, Jennifer E. Caselle, Graziella V. DiRenzo, Jonathan P.A. Gardner, Aaron O’Dea
2020, Methods in Ecology and Evolution (11) 362-375
1. It is challenging to assess long-term trends in mobile, long-lived, and relatively rare species such as sharks. Despite ongoing declines in many coastal shark populations, conventional surveys might be too fleeting and too recent to describe population trends over decades to millennia. Placing recent shark declines into historical context...
Wetland water-management may influence mercury bioaccumulation in songbirds and ducks at a mercury hotspot
Virginia L. Winder, Michael J. Anteau, Mark R Fisher, Mary Kate Wilcox, Lawrence Igl, Josh T. Ackerman
2020, Ecotoxicology (29) 1229-1239
Mercury is a persistent, biomagnifying contaminant that can cause negative behavioral, immunological, and reproductive effects in wildlife and human populations. We examined the role of wetland water-management on mercury bioaccumulation in songbirds and ducks at Kellys Slough National Wildlife Refuge Complex, near Grand Forks, North Dakota...
Trends of litter decomposition and soil organic matter stocks across forested swamp environments of the southeastern US
Beth A. Middleton
2020, PLoS ONE (15)
A common idea in the discussion of soil carbon processes is that litter decomposition rates and soil carbon stocks are inversely related. To test this overall hypothesis, simultaneous studies were conducted of the relationship of environmental gradients to leaf and wood decomposition, buried cloth decomposition and percent soil organic matter...
Formation and prevention of pipe scale from acid mine drainage at Iron Mountain and Leviathan Mines, California, USA
Kate M. Campbell, Charles N. Alpers, D. Kirk Nordstrom
2020, Applied Geochemistry (115)
Pipelines carrying acid mine drainage (AMD) to treatment plants commonly form pipe scale, an Fe(III)-rich precipitate that forms inside the pipelines and requires periodic and costly cleanout and maintenance. Pipelines at Iron Mountain Mine (IMM) and Leviathan Mine (LM) in California carry acidic water from mine sources to a...
Estimating bedload from suspended load and water discharge in sand bed rivers
T.C. Ashley, B. McElroy, D. Buscombe, Paul E. Grams, M. Kaplinski
2020, Water Resources Research (56)
Estimates of fluvial sediment discharge from in situ instruments are an important component of large‐scale sediment budgets that track long‐term geomorphic change. Suspended sediment load can be reliably estimated using acoustic or physical sampling techniques; however, bedload is difficult to measure directly and can consequently be one of the largest...
U.S. Geological Survey Earthquake Science Center
Stephen H. Hickman
2020, Fact Sheet 2019-3067
The mission of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earthquake Science Center is to collect a wide range of data on earthquakes, faults, and crustal deformation; conduct research to increase our understanding of earthquake source processes, occurrence, and effects; and synthesize this knowledge into probabilistic seismic hazard assessments, aftershock forecasts, and...
A model for the growth and development of wave-dominated deltas fed by small mountainous rivers: Insights from the Elwha River delta, Washington
Julie Zurbuchen, Alexander R. Simms, Jonathan A. Warrick, Ian M. Miller, Andrew C. Ritchie
2020, Sedimentology (67) 2310-2331
Observations from ground-penetrating radar, sediment cores, elevation surveys and aerial imagery are used to understand the development of the Elwha River delta in north-western Washington, USA, which prograded as a result of two dam removals in late 2011. Swash-bar, foreshore and swale depositional elements are recognized within ground-penetrating radar profiles...
