Potential fitness benefits of the half-pounder life history in Klamath River steelhead
Brian W. Hodge, Peggy Wilzbach, Walter G. Duffy
2014, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (143) 864-875
Steelhead Oncorhynchus mykiss from several of the world's rivers display the half-pounder life history, a variant characterized by an amphidromous (and, less often, anadromous) return to freshwater in the year of initial ocean entry. We evaluated factors related to expression of the half-pounder life history in wild steelhead from the lower Klamath...
Identifying non-point sources of endocrine active compounds and their biological impacts in freshwater lakes
Beth H. Baker, Dalma Martinovic-Weigelt, Mark L. Ferrey, Larry B. Barber, Jeffrey H. Writer, Donald O. Rosenberry, Richard L. Kiesling, James R. Lundy, Heiko L. Schoenfuss
2014, Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology (67) 374-388
Contaminants of emerging concern, particularly endocrine active compounds (EACs), have been identified as a threat to aquatic wildlife. However, little is known about the impact of EACs on lakes through groundwater from onsite wastewater treatment systems (OWTS). This study aims to identify specific contributions of OWTS to Sullivan Lake, Minnesota,...
Combined global change effects on ecosystem processesin nine U.S. topographically complex areas
Melannie D. Hartman, Jill S. Baron, Holly A. Ewing, Kathleen Weathers
2014, Biogeochemistry (119) 85-108
Concurrent changes in climate, atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition, and increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) affect ecosystems in complex ways. The DayCent-Chem model was used to investigate the combined effects of these human-caused drivers of change over the period 1980–2075 at seven forested montane and two alpine watersheds in...
Continuous water-quality and suspended-sediment transport monitoring in the San Francisco Bay, California, water years 2011–13
Paul A. Buchanan, Maureen A. Downing-Kunz, David H. Schoellhamer, Gregory Shellenbarger, Kurt Weidich
2014, Fact Sheet 2014-3090
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) monitors water quality and suspended-sediment transport in the San Francisco Bay. The San Francisco Bay area is home to millions of people, and the bay teems with both resident and migratory wildlife, plants, and fish. Fresh water mixes with salt water in the bay, which...
Equations for calculating hydrogeochemical reactions of minerals and gases such as CO2 at high pressures and temperatures
C.A.J. Appelo, David L. Parkhurst, V.E.A. Post
2014, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (125) 49-67
Calculating the solubility of gases and minerals at the high pressures of carbon capture and storage in geological reservoirs requires an accurate description of the molar volumes of aqueous species and the fugacity coefficients of gases. Existing methods for calculating the molar volumes of aqueous species are limited to...
Locking horns with Hawai‘i’s non-native ungulate issues
Steve C. Hess
2014, Proceedings of the Vertebrate Pest Conference (26) 21-25
Conservation and management interests for sustained-yield hunting of non-native ungulates in Hawai‘i have conflicted with the conservation of native biota for several decades. Hawaiian ecosystems evolved in the absence of large mammals and all currently hunted animals in Hawai‘i are non-native species. The best-studied aspects of Hawai‘i’s ungulates have dealt...
CyberShake-derived ground-motion prediction models for the Los Angeles region with application to earthquake early warning
Maren Bose, Robert Graves, David Gill, Scott Callaghan, Phillip J. Maechling
2014, Geophysical Journal International (198) 1438-1457
Real-time applications such as earthquake early warning (EEW) typically use empirical ground-motion prediction equations (GMPEs) along with event magnitude and source-to-site distances to estimate expected shaking levels. In this simplified approach, effects due to finite-fault geometry, directivity and site and basin response are often generalized, which may lead to a...
Projecting future grassland productivity to assess thesustainability of potential biofuel feedstock areas in theGreater Platte River Basin
Yingxin Gu, Bruce K. Wylie, Stephen P. Boyte, Khem P. Phuyal
2014, GCB Bioenergy (6) 35-43
This study projects future (e.g., 2050 and 2099) grassland productivities in the Greater Platte River Basin (GPRB) using ecosystem performance (EP, a surrogate for measuring ecosystem productivity) models and future climate projections. The EP models developed from a previous study were based on the satellite vegetation index, site geophysical and...
Understanding the value of imperfect science from national estimates of bird mortality from window collisions
Craig S. Machtans, Wayne E. Thogmartin
2014, Condor (116) 3-7
The publication of a U.S. estimate of bird–window collisions by Loss et al. is an example of the somewhat contentious approach of using extrapolations to obtain large-scale estimates from small-scale studies. We review the approach by Loss et al. and other authors who have published papers on human-induced avian mortality...
Arsenic associated with historical gold mining in the Sierra Nevada foothills: Case study and field trip guide for Empire Mine State Historic Park, California
Charles N. Alpers, Perry A Myers, Daniel Millsap, Tamsen B Regnier
Robert J. Bowell, Charles N. Alpers, Heather E. Jamieson, D. Kirk Nordstrom, Juraj Majzlan, editor(s)
2014, Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry (79) 553-587
The Empire Mine, together with other mines in the Grass Valley mining district, produced at least 21.3 million troy ounces (663 tonnes) of gold (Au) during the 1850s through the 1950s, making it the most productive hardrock Au mining district in California history (Clark 1970). The Empire Mine...
Post-breeding migration of Dutch-breeding black-tailed godwits: timing, routes, use of stopovers, and nonbreeding destinations
Jos C. E. W. Hooijmeijer, Nathan R. Senner, T. Lee Tibbitts, Robert E. Gill Jr., David C. Douglas, Leo W. Bruinzeel, Eddy Wymenga, Theunis Piersma
2014, Ardea (101) 141-152
Conservation of long-distance migratory shorebirds is complex because these species use habitats spread across continents and hemispheres, making identification of critical habitats and potential bottlenecks in the annual cycle especially difficult. The population of Black-tailed Godwits that breeds in Western Europe, Limosa limosa limosa, has declined precipitously over the past...
Landscapes of Santa Rosa Island, Channel Islands National Park, California
R. Randall Schumann, Scott A. Minor, Daniel R. Muhs, Jeffery S. Pigati
2014, Book chapter, Monographs of the Western North American Naturalist
Santa Rosa Island (SRI) is the second-largest of the California Channel Islands. It is one of 4 east–west aligned islands forming the northern Channel Islands chain, and one of the 5 islands in Channel Islands National Park. The landforms, and collections of landforms called landscapes, of Santa Rosa Island have...
Transcriptomic effects-based monitoring for endocrine active chemicals: Assessing relative contribution of treated wastewater to downstream pollution
Dalma Martinovic-Weigelt, Alvine C. Mehinto, Gerald T. Ankley, Nancy D. Denslow, Larry B. Barber, Kathy Lee, Ryan J. King, Heiko L. Schoenfuss, Anthony L. Schroeder, Daniel L. Villeneuve
2014, Environmental Science & Technology (48) 2385-2394
The present study investigated whether a combination of targeted analytical chemistry information with unsupervised, data-rich biological methodology (i.e., transcriptomics) could be utilized to evaluate relative contributions of wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluents to biological effects. The effects of WWTP effluents on fish exposed to ambient, receiving waters were studied at...
Bacterial pathogen gene abundance and relation to recreational water quality at seven Great Lakes beaches
Ryan J. Oster, Rasanthi U. Wijesinghe, Lisa Reynolds Fogarty, Sheridan K. Haack, Lisa R. Fogarty, Taaja R. Tucker, Stephen Riley
2014, Environmental Science & Technology (48) 14148-14157
Quantitative assessment of bacterial pathogens, their geographic variability, and distribution in various matrices at Great Lakes beaches are limited. Quantitative PCR (qPCR) was used to test for genes from E. coli O157:H7 (eaeO157), shiga-toxin producing E. coli (stx2), Campylobacter jejuni (mapA), Shigella spp. (ipaH), and a Salmonella enterica-specific (SE) DNA sequence at seven Great Lakes beaches, in algae, water,...
Mammoth Mountain and its mafic periphery—A late Quaternary volcanic field in eastern California
Wes Hildreth, Judith Fierstein, Duane E. Champion, Andrew T. Calvert
2014, Geosphere (10) 1315-1365
The trachydacite complex of Mammoth Mountain and an array of contemporaneous mafic volcanoes in its periphery together form a discrete late Pleistocene magmatic system that is thermally and compositionally independent of the adjacent subalkaline Long Valley system (California, USA). The Mammoth system first erupted ca. 230 ka, last erupted ca....
Fine-grained linings of leveed channels facilitate runout of granular flows
B.P. Kokelaar, R. L. Graham, J.M.N.T. Gray, James W. Vallance
2014, Earth and Planetary Science Letters (385) 172-180
Catastrophic dense granular flows, such as occur in rock avalanches, debris flows and pyroclastic flows, move as fully shearing mixtures that have approximately 60 vol.% solids and tend to segregate to form coarse-grained fronts and leveed channels. Levees restrict spreading of unconfined flows and form as coarse particles that become...
Earthquake mechanism and seafloor deformation for tsunami generation
Eric L. Geist, David D. Oglesby
Michael Beer, Ioannis A. Kougioumtzoglou, Edoardo Patelli, Ivan Siu-Kui Au, editor(s)
2014, Book chapter, Encyclopedia of earthquake engineering
Tsunamis are generated in the ocean by rapidly displacing the entire water column over a significant area. The potential energy resulting from this disturbance is balanced with the kinetic energy of the waves during propagation. Only a handful of submarine geologic phenomena can generate tsunamis: large-magnitude earthquakes, large landslides, and...
How much Is enough? Minimal responses of water quality and stream biota to partial retrofit stormwater management in a suburban neighborhood
Allison H. Roy, Lee K. Rhea, Audrey L. Mayer, William D. Shuster, Jake J. Beaulieu, Matthew E. Hopton, Matthew A. Morrison, Ann E. St. Amand
2014, PLoS ONE (9) 1-14
Decentralized stormwater management approaches (e.g., biofiltration swales, pervious pavement, green roofs, rain gardens) that capture, detain, infiltrate, and filter runoff are now commonly used to minimize the impacts of stormwater runoff from impervious surfaces on aquatic ecosystems. However, there is little research on the effectiveness of retrofit, parcel-scale stormwater management...
Climate Change 2014: Technical Summary
Chrisopher B. Field, Vicente Barros, Katherine Mach, Michael Mastrandrea, Maarten van Aalst, Niel Adger, Douglas J Arent, Jonathan Barnett, Richard Betts, Eren Bilir, Joern Birkmann, Joann Carmin, Dave Chadee, Andrew Challinor, Monalisa Chaterjee, Wolfgang Cramer, Debra Davidson, Yuka Estrada, Jean-Pierre Gatusso, Yasuakai Hijioka, Gary Yohe, Margaret Hiza, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, He-Qing Huang, Gregory Insarov, Roger Jones, Sari Kovats, Patricia Romero Lankao, Joan Nymand Larsen, Inigo Losada, Jose Marengo, Roger McLean, Linda Mearns, Reinhard Mechler, John Morton, Isabelle Niang, Taikan Oki, Jane Mukarugwiza Olwoch, Maggie Opondo, Elvira Poloczanska, Hans #NAME? Portner, Andy Reisinger, Aromar Revi, Daniela Schmidt, Rebecca Shaw, William Solecki, Daithi Stone, John Stone, Ken Strzepek, Avelino G. Suarez, Petra Tschakert, Riccardo Valentini, Sebastian Vicuna, Alicia Villamizar, Katharine Vincent, Rachel Warren, Leslie White, Thomas Wilbanks, Poh Poh Wong
2014, Book chapter, Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Human interference with the climate system is occurring (WGI AR5 SPM Section D.3; WGI AR5 Sections 2.2, 6.3, 10.3 to 10.6, 10.9). Climate change poses risks for human and natural systems. The assessment of impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability in the Working Group II contribution to the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report...
Trends in the capture fisheries in Cuyo East Pass, Philippines
Tee-Jay A. San Diego, William L. Fisher
2014, International Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Studies (1) 57-72
Findings are presented of a comprehensive analysis of time series catch and effort data from 2000 to 2006 collected from a multi-species, multi-gear and two-sector (municipal and commercial) capture fisheries in Cuyo East Pass, Philippines. Multivariate techniques were used to determine temporal variation in species composition and gear selectivity that...
A method and example of seismically imaging near‐surface fault zones in geologically complex areas using Vp, Vs, and their ratios
Rufus D. Catchings, Michael J. Rymer, Mark R. Goldman, Robert R. Sickler, Coyn J. Criley
2014, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (104) 1989-2006
The determination of near‐surface (vadose zone and slightly below) fault locations and geometries is important because assessment of ground rupture, strong shaking, geologic slip rates, and rupture histories occurs at shallow depths. However, seismic imaging of fault zones at shallow depths can be difficult due to near‐surface complexities, such as...
Groundwater conditions in Utah, spring of 2014
Carole B. Burden
2014, Cooperative Investigations Report 55
This is the fifty-first in a series of annual reports that describe groundwater conditions in Utah. Reports in this series, published cooperatively by the U.S. Geological Survey and the Utah Department of Natural Resources, Division of Water Rights, and the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, Division of Water Quality, provide...
Decadal-scale variability of diffuse CO2 emissions and seismicity revealed from long-term monitoring (1995–2013) at Mammoth Mountain, California, USA
Cynthia A. Werner, Deborah Bergfeld, Chris Farrar, Michael P. Doukas, Peter J. Kelly, Christoph Kern
2014, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research (289) 51-63
Mammoth Mountain, California, is a dacitic volcano that has experienced several periods of unrest since 1989. The onset of diffuse soil CO2 emissions at numerous locations on the flanks of the volcano began in 1989–1990 following an 11-month period of heightened seismicity. CO2 emission rates were measured yearly from 1995...
Arsenic speciation and sorption in natural environments
Kate M. Campbell, D. Kirk Nordstrom
2014, Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry (79) 185-216
Aqueous arsenic speciation, or the chemical forms in which arsenic exists in water, is a challenging, interesting, and complicated aspect of environmental arsenic geochemistry. Arsenic has the ability to form a wide range of chemical bonds with carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and sulfur, resulting in a large variety of compounds that...
Effects of tillage and application rate on atrazine transport to subsurface drainage: Evaluation of RZWQM using a six-year field study
Robert W. Malone, Bernard T. Nolan, Liwang Ma, Rameshwar S. Kanwar, Carl H. Pederson, Philip Heilman
2014, Agricultural Water Management (132) 10-22
Well tested agricultural system models can improve our understanding of the water quality effects of management practices under different conditions. The Root Zone Water Quality Model (RZWQM) has been tested under a variety of conditions. However, the current model's ability to simulate pesticide transport to subsurface drain flow over a...
