Organic geochemical investigation and coal-bed methane characteristics of the Guasare coals (Paso Diablo mine, western Venezuela)
K. Quintero, M. Martinez, P. Hackley, G. Marquez, G. Garban, I. Esteves, M. Escobar
2011, Energy Sources, Part A: Recovery, Utilization and Environmental Effects (33) 959-971
The aim of this work was to carry out a geochemical study of channel samples collected from six coal beds in the Marcelina Formation (Zulia State, western Venezuela) and to determine experimentally the gas content of the coals from the Paso Diablo mine. Organic geochemical analyses by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry...
Analysis of passive surface-wave noise in surface microseismic data and its implications
F. Forghani-Arani, M. Willis, S. Haines, M. Batzle, M. Davidson
2011, SEG Technical Program Expanded Abstracts (30) 1493-1498
Tight gas reservoirs are projected to be a major portion of future energy resources. Because of their low permeability, hydraulic fracturing of these reservoirs is required to improve the permeability and reservoir productivity. Passive seismic monitoring is one of the few tools that can be used to characterize the changes...
Multi-scale temporal and spatial variation in genotypic composition of Cladophora-borne Escherichia coli populations in Lake Michigan
B.D. Badgley, J. Ferguson, A.V. Heuvel, G.T. Kleinheinz, C.M. McDermott, T.R. Sandrin, J. Kinzelman, E.A. Junion, M.N. Byappanahalli, R.L. Whitman, M.J. Sadowsky
2011, Water Research (45) 721-731
High concentrations of Escherichia coli in mats of Cladophora in the Great Lakes have raised concern over the continued use of this bacterium as an indicator of microbial water quality. Determining the impacts of these environmentally abundant E. coli, however, necessitates a better understanding of their ecology. In this study,...
Woody invasions of urban trails and the changing face of urban forests in the great plains, USA
K.T. Nemec, Craig R. Allen, A. Alai, G. Clements, A.C. Kessler, T. Kinsell, A. Major, B.J. Stephen
2011, American Midland Naturalist (165) 241-256
Corridors such as roads and trails can facilitate invasions by non-native plant species. The open, disturbed habitat associated with corridors provides favorable growing conditions for many non-native plant species. Bike trails are a corridor system common to many urban areas that have not been studied for their potential role in...
Herpetofauna of the cedar glades and associated habitats of the Inner Central Basin of middle Tennessee
M.L. Niemiller, Reynolds R. Graham, B.M. Glorioso, J. Spiess, B.T. Miller
2011, Herpetological Conservation and Biology (6) 127-141
The cedar glades and barrens of the Inner Central Basin (ICB) of middle Tennessee support a unique and diverse flora and fauna and represent some of the state's most valued natural areas. We conducted herpetofaunal inventories of the cedar glades, associated barrens, cedar-hardwood forest, and adjacent aquatic habitats of the...
The ShakeOut earthquake source and ground motion simulations
R.W. Graves, Douglas B. Houston, K.W. Hudnut
2011, Earthquake Spectra (27) 273-291
The ShakeOut Scenario is premised upon the detailed description of a hypothetical Mw 7.8 earthquake on the southern San Andreas Fault and the associated simulated ground motions. The main features of the scenario, such as its endpoints, magnitude, and gross slip distribution, were defined through expert opinion and incorporated information...
From agricultural intensification to conservation: Sediment transport in the Raccoon River, Iowa, 1916-2009
C.S. Jones, K. E. Schilling
2011, Journal of Environmental Quality (40) 1911-1923
Fluvial sediment is a ubiquitous pollutant that negatively aff ects surface water quality and municipal water supply treatment. As part of its routine water supply monitoring, the Des Moines Water Works (DMWW) has been measuring turbidity daily in the Raccoon River since 1916. For this study, we calibrated daily turbidity...
Evidence for predatory control of the invasive round goby
C.P. Madenjian, M.A. Stapanian, L.D. Witzel, D.W. Einhouse, S.A. Pothoven, H.L. Whitford
2011, Biological Invasions (13) 987-1002
We coupled bioenergetics modeling with bottom trawl survey results to evaluate the capacity of piscivorous fish in eastern Lake Erie to exert predatory control of the invading population of round goby Neogobius melanostomus. In the offshore (>20 m deep) waters of eastern Lake Erie, burbot Lota lota is a native...
CO2 plume management in saline reservoir sequestration
S.M. Frailey, R.J. Finley
2011, Conference Paper, Energy Procedia
A significant difference between injecting CO2 into saline aquifers for sequestration and injecting fluids into oil reservoirs or natural gas into aquifer storage reservoirs is the availability and use of other production and injection wells surrounding the primary injection well(s). Of major concern for CO2 sequestration using a single well...
Lava tube shatter rings and their correlation with lava flux increases at Kīlauea Volcano, Hawai‘i
T.R. Orr
2011, Bulletin of Volcanology (73) 335-346
Shatter rings are circular to elliptical volcanic features, typically tens of meters in diameter, which form over active lava tubes. They are typified by an upraised rim of blocky rubble and a central depression. Prior to this study, shatter rings had not been observed forming, and, thus, were interpreted in...
Habitat use of nesting and brood-rearing King Rails in the Illinois and Upper Mississippi River Valleys
A.J. Darrah, D.G. Krementz
2011, Waterbirds (34) 160-167
Most studies of King Rail (Rallus elegans) have investigated habitat use during the nesting season, while few comparisons have been made between the nesting and brood-rearing seasons. King Rails were located during the nesting season in Missouri using repeated surveys with call playback, and systematic searches for broods were conducted...
Alphacoronaviruses in new World bats: Prevalence, persistence, phylogeny, and potential for interaction with humans
C. Osborne, P.M. Cryan, T. J. O'Shea, L.M. Oko, C. Ndaluka, C.H. Calisher, A.D. Berglund, M.L. Klavetter, R. A. Bowen, K.V. Holmes, S.R. Dominguez
2011, PLoS ONE (6) 1-11
Bats are reservoirs for many different coronaviruses (CoVs) as well as many other important zoonotic viruses. We sampled feces and/or anal swabs of 1,044 insectivorous bats of 2 families and 17 species from 21 different locations within Colorado from 2007 to 2009. We detected alphacoronavirus RNA in bats of 4...
Mg-spinel lithology: A new rock type on the lunar farside
C.M. Pieters, S. Besse, J. Boardman, B. Buratti, L. Cheek, R. N. Clark, J. #NAME? Combe, D. Dhingra, J.N. Goswami, R.O. Green, J.W. Head, P. Isaacson, R. Klima, G. Kramer, S. Lundeen, E. Malaret, T. McCord, J. Mustard, J. Nettles, N. Petro, C. Runyon, M. Staid, J. Sunshine, L.A. Taylor, K. Thaisen, S. Tompkins, J. Whitten
2011, Journal of Geophysical Research E: Planets (116)
High-resolution compositional data from Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M 3) for the Moscoviense region on the lunar farside reveal three unusual, but distinctive, rock types along the inner basin ring. These are designated "OOS" since they are dominated by high concentrations of orthopyroxene, olivine, and Mg-rich spinel, respectively. The OOS occur...
Classifying the hydrologic function of prairie potholes with remote sensing and GIS
Jennifer R. Rover, C.K. Wright, Ned H. Euliss Jr., David M. Mushet, Bruce K. Wylie
2011, Wetlands (31) 319-327
A sequence of Landsat TM/ETM+ scenes capturing the substantial surface water variations exhibited by prairie pothole wetlands over a drought to deluge period were analyzed in an attempt to determine the general hydrologic function of individual wetlands (recharge, flow-through, and discharge). Multipixel objects (water bodies) were clustered according to their...
The Sculptured Hills of the Taurus Highlands: Implications for the relative age of Serenitatis, basin chronologies and the cratering history of the Moon
P. D. Spudis, D.E. Wilhelms, M.S. Robinson
2011, Journal of Geophysical Research E: Planets (116)
New images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera show the distribution and geological relations of the Sculptured Hills, a geological unit widespread in the highlands between the Serenitatis and Crisium basins. The Sculptured Hills shows knobby, undulating, radially textured, and plains-like morphologies and in many places is indistinguishable from the...
Millennial precipitation reconstruction for the Jemez Mountains, New Mexico, reveals changing drought signal
Ramzi Touchan, Connie A. Woodhouse, David M. Meko, Craig D. Allen
2011, International Journal of Climatology (31) 896-906
Drought is a recurring phenomenon in the American Southwest. Since the frequency and severity of hydrologic droughts and other hydroclimatic events are of critical importance to the ecology and rapidly growing human population of this region, knowledge of long-term natural hydroclimatic variability is valuable for resource managers and policy-makers. An...
Widespread inclination shallowing in Permian and Triassic paleomagnetic data from Laurentia: Support from new paleomagnetic data from Middle Permian shallow intrusions in southern Illinois (USA) and virtual geomagnetic pole distributions
M. Domeier, R. Van Der Voo, F.B. Denny
2011, Tectonophysics (511) 38-52
Recent paleomagnetic work has highlighted a common and shallow inclination bias in continental redbeds. The Permian and Triassic paleomagnetic records from Laurentia are almost entirely derived from such sedimentary rocks, so a pervasive inclination error will expectedly bias the apparent polar wander path of Laurentia in a significant way. The...
Ecoregional differences in late-20th-century land-use and land-cover change in the U.S. northern great plains
Roger F. Auch, K. L. Sayler, D.E. Napton, Janis L. Taylor, M.S. Brooks
2011, Great Plains Research (21) 231-243
Land-cover and land-use change usually results from a combination of anthropogenic drivers and biophysical conditions found across multiple scales, ranging from parcel to regional levels. A group of four Level 111 ecoregions located in the U.S. northern Great Plains is used to demonstrate the similarities and differences in land change...
Historical perspective on seismic hazard to Hispaniola and the northeast Caribbean region
Uri S. ten Brink, W. H. Bakun, C.H. Flores
2011, Journal of Geophysical Research B: Solid Earth (116)
We evaluate the long-term seismic activity of the North-American/Caribbean plate boundary from 500 years of historical earthquake damage reports. The 2010 Haiti earthquakes and other earthquakes were used to derive regional attenuation relationships between earthquake intensity, magnitude, and distance from the reported damage to the epicenter, for Hispaniola and for...
Diverse, discrete, mantle-derived batches of basalt erupted along a short normal fault zone: The Poison Lake chain, southernmost Cascades
L.J.P. Muffler, M.A. Clynne, A.T. Calvert, D.E. Champion
2011, Geological Society of America Bulletin (123) 2177-2200
The Poison Lake chain consists of small, monogenetic, calc-alkaline basaltic volcanoes located east of the Cascade arc axis, 30 km ENE of Lassen Peak in northeastern California. This chain consists of 39 distinguishable units in a 14-km-long and 2-kmwide zone trending NNW, parallel to nearby Quaternary normal faults. The 39...
Paleoenvironmental implications of taxonomic variation among δ15N values of chloropigments
Meytal B. Higgins, Felisa Wolfe-Simon, Rebecca S. Robinson, Yelun Qin, Mark A. Saito, Ann Pearson
2011, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (75) 7351-7363
Natural variations in the ratios of nitrogen isotopes in biomass reflect variations in nutrient sources utilized for growth. In order to use δ15N values of chloropigments of photosynthetic organisms to determine the corresponding δ15N values of biomass – and by extension, surface waters – the isotopic offset between chlorophyll and...
Twenty Years After the 1988 Yellowstone Fires: Lessons About Disturbance and Ecosystems
W.H. Romme, M.S. Boyce, R. Gresswell, E.H. Merrill, G.W. Minshall, C. Whitlock, M.G. Turner
2011, Ecosystems (14) 1196-1215
The 1988 Yellowstone fires were among the first in what has proven to be an upsurge in large severe fires in the western USA during the past 20 years. At the time of the fires, little was known about the impacts of such a large severe disturbance because scientists had...
Effects of biologically-active chemical mixtures on fish in a wastewater-impacted urban stream
L. B. Barber, G.K. Brown, T.G. Nettesheim, E.W. Murphy, S.E. Bartell, H.L. Schoenfuss
2011, Science of the Total Environment (409) 4720-4728
Stream flow in urban aquatic ecosystems often is maintained by water-reclamation plant (WRP) effluents that contain mixtures of natural and anthropogenic chemicals that persist through the treatment processes. In effluent-impacted streams, aquatic organisms such as fish are continuously exposed to biologically-active chemicals throughout their life cycles. The North Shore Channel...
Early Mesozoic paleogeography and tectonic evolution of the western United States: Insights from detrital zircon U-Pb geochronology, Blue Mountains Province, northeastern Oregon
Todd A. LaMaskin, J.D. Vervoort, R.J. Dorsey, J.E. Wright
2011, Geological Society of America Bulletin (123) 1939-1965
This study assesses early Mesozoic provenance linkages and paleogeographic-tectonic models for the western United States based on new petrographic and detrital zircon data from Triassic and Jurassic sandstones of the "Izee" and Olds Ferry terranes of the Blue Mountains Province, northeastern Oregon. Triassic sediments were likely derived from the Baker...
Ecosystem approach to inland fisheries: Research needs and implementation strategies
T.D. Beard Jr., R. Arlinghaus, S. J. Cooke, P.B. McIntyre, S. De Silva, D. Bartley, I.G. Cowx
2011, Conference Paper, Biology Letters
Inland fisheries are a vital component in the livelihoods and food security of people throughout the world, as well as contributing huge recreational and economic benefits. These valuable assets are jeopardized by lack of research-based understanding of the impacts of fisheries on inland ecosystems, and similarly the impact of human...
