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U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Mission: The USGS national mission is to monitor, analyze, and predict the current and evolving dynamics of complex human and natural Earth-system interactions, and to deliver actionable information at scales and timeframes relevant to decision-makers. Consistent with the national mission, the USGS in Alaska provides...

We present a model of the lower seismogenic depth of earthquakes in the western United States (WUS) estimated using the hypocentral depths of events M > 1, a crustal temperature model, and historical earthquake rupture depth models. Locations of earthquakes are from the Advanced National Seismic System Comprehensive Earthquake Catalog from 1980...

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), continued streamflow data collection in water years 2013–21 to update daily streamflow regressions and annual and semimonthly streamflow statistics initially developed in 2012 for streams designated as “wild,” “scenic,” or “recreational” under the National Wild and...

In Katmai National Park, Alaska, USA, we have seen changes in the number of brown bears and sea otters. The number of animals of a species a habitat can support is called carrying capacity. Even though bears live on land and sea otters live in the ocean, these two mammals...

This study investigates the applicability of the Landsat Dynamic Surface Water Extent (DSWE) science product for waterbird habitat modeling in multiple non-canopied habitat types. We compare surface water distribution estimates derived from DSWE to two site-specific survey methods: visual surveys and digitized aerial imagery. These site-specific surveys were conducted on...

Aim: Anticipating when and where changes in species' demographic rates will lead to range shifts in response to changing climate remains a major challenge. Despite evidence of increasing mortality in dry forests across the globe in response to drought and warming temperatures, the overall impacts on the distribution of dry...

The increasing global expansion of antimicrobial resistant infections warrants the development of effective antibiotic alternative therapies, particularly for use in livestock production, an agricultural sector that is perceived to disproportionately contribute to the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) crisis by consuming nearly two-thirds of the global antibiotic supply. Probiotics and probiotic derived...

We used two datasets to investigate the reliability of plumage for sexing adult Ruddy Turnstones Arenaria interpres of the morinella subspecies during May and early June in Delaware Bay, on the Mid-Atlantic Coast of the United States (39.1202°N, 75.2479°W). We first examined 23 years of data on the capture and recapture of 1,818 individual...

It has been nearly a decade since updates to seismic and fault sources in the central and eastern United States (CEUS) were last assessed for the 2012 Central and Eastern United States Seismic Source Characterization for nuclear facilities (CEUS-SSCn) and 2014 United States Geological Survey National Seismic Hazard Model (NSHM)...

Coral disease has progressively become one of the most pressing issues affecting coral reef survival. In the last 50 years, several reefs throughout the Caribbean have been severely impacted by increased frequency and intensity of disease outbreaks leading to coral death. A recent example of this is stony coral tissue...

Discovery of hidden geothermal resources is challenging. It requires the mining of large datasets with diverse data attributes representing subsurface hydrogeological and geothermal conditions. The commonly used play fairway analysis approach typically incorporates subject-matter expertise to analyze regional data to estimate geothermal characteristics and favorability. We demonstrate an alternative approach...

Development of wind energy facilities results in interactions between wildlife and wind turbines. Raptors, including bald and golden eagles, are among the species known to incur mortality from these interactions. Several alerting technologies have been proposed to mitigate this mortality by increasing eagle avoidance of wind energy facilities. However, there...

This chapter focuses on meeting the need to produce neural network outputs that are physically consistent and also express uncertainties, a rare combination to date. It explains the effectiveness of physics-guided architecture - long-short-term-memory (PGA-LSTM) in achieving better generalizability and physical consistency over data collected from Lake Mendota in Wisconsin...

This chapter introduces a framework for combining scientific knowledge of physics-based models with neural networks to advance scientific discovery. It explains termed physics-guided neural networks (PGNN), leverages the output of physics-based model simulations along with observational features in a hybrid modeling setup to generate predictions using a neural network architecture....

This chapter presents a physics-guided recurrent neural network model (PGRNN) for predicting water temperature in lake systems. Standard machine learning (ML) methods, especially deep learning models, often require a large amount of labeled training samples, which are often not available in scientific problems due to the substantial human labor and...

We examine three distinctive biostratigraphic signatures associated with: hunting and gathering, landscape domestication, and globalisation. All three signatures have significant fossil records of regional importance that can be correlated inter-regionally and help describe the developing pattern of human expansion and appropriation of resources. While none have individual first or last...

The dataset described here includes estimates of historical (1980–2020) daily surface water temperature, lake metadata, and daily weather conditions for lakes bigger than 4 ha in the conterminous United States (n = 185,549), and also in situ temperature observations for a subset of lakes (n = 12,227). Estimates were generated using a long short-term memory...

Elevated concentrations and loads of nutrients in the South Platte River and Cherry Creek in Denver, Colorado, may have adverse effects on those streams and downstream water bodies, including increased production of algae, eutrophication, and decreased recreational opportunities. This article describes streamflow and concentrations and loads of nutrients for the...

Disturbances to aquatic habitats are not uniformly distributed within the Great Lakes and acute effects can be strongest in nearshore areas where both landscape and within lake effects can have strong influence. Furthermore, different fish species respond to disturbances in different ways. A means to identify...

Neonicotinoid insecticide use has increased over the last decade, including as agricultural seed treatments (application of chemical in a coating to the seed prior to planting). In California, multiple crops, including lettuce, can be grown using neonicotinoid treated seeds or receive a direct neonicotinoid soil application (drenching) at planting. Using...

A unique drone-based system for underwater mapping (bathymetry) was developed at the University of Florida. The system, called the “Bathy-drone”, comprises a drone that drags, via a tether, a small vessel on the water surface in a raster pattern. The vessel is equipped with a recreational commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) sonar...

In April 2022, a seismic swarm near Mt. Edgecumbe in southeast Alaska suggested renewed activity at this transform fault volcano, which was last active ≈800 years ago. Previously, thin rhyolitic tephras were deposited 5 and 4 ka. Satellite radar data from 2014 to 2022 resolves line-of-sight rapid inflation up...

The phylogeography of the American black bear (Ursus americanus) is characterized by isolation into glacial refugia, followed by population expansion and genetic admixture. Anthropogenic activities, including overharvest, habitat loss, and transportation infrastructure, have also influenced their landscape genetic structure. We describe the genetic structure...

Accurate evaluations of habitat preference are key to understanding optimal conditions for wildlife survival and reproduction. Habitat selection, however, usually is evaluated using a single index of preference, and congruence among multiple, relevant indices of preference is examined rarely.We assessed the concordance between...

Bird migrations are impressive behavioral phenomena, representing complex spatiotemporal strategies to balance costs of living while maximizing fitness. The field of bird migration research has made great strides over the past decades, yet fundamental gaps remain. Technologies have sparked a transformation in the study of bird migration research by revealing...