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Geologic, sediment texture, and physiographic zone maps characterize the sea floor of Vineyard and western Nantucket Sounds, Massachusetts. These maps were derived from interpretations of seismic-reflection profiles, high-resolution bathymetry, acoustic-backscatter intensity, bottom photographs/video, and surficial sediment samples collected within the 494-square-kilometer study area. Interpretations of seismic stratigraphy and mapping of...

A Presidential disaster was declared in northwestern Massachusetts, following flooding from tropical storm Irene on August 28, 2011. During the storm, 3 to 10 inches of rain fell on soils that were susceptible to flash flooding because of wet antecedent conditions. The gage height at one U.S. Geological Survey streamgage...

The U.S. Geological Survey developed flood elevations in cooperation with the Federal Emergency Management Agency for a 14.3-mile reach of the Green River in Colrain, Leyden, and Greenfield, Massachusetts, to assist landowners and emergency management workers to prepare for and recover from floods. The river reach extends from the U.S....

For the final phase of wastewater treatment operations at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in Burlington County, New Jersey, treated effluent is pumped to 12 infiltration basins on a Land Application Site to recharge the unconfined Kirkwood-Cohansey aquifer system. Two of the 12 infiltration basins are operationally ineffective because discharged effluent fails...

The vertical avoidance behavior of the tadpole madtom (Noturus gyrinus) exposed to environmentally relevant concentrations of the granular formulation of the lampricide Bayluscide® was evaluated. The lampricide formulation (3.2 percent active ingredient coated on a sand granule) is used to control larval sea lamprey populations in the Great Lakes. The...

The combined geothermal discharge from over 10,000 features in Yellowstone National Park (YNP) can be can be estimated from the Cl flux in the Madison, Yellowstone, Falls, and Snake Rivers. Over the last 30 years, the Cl flux in YNP Rivers has been calculated using discharge measurements and Cl concentrations...

We present the first regional trends in anuran occupancy for eight states of the southeastern United States, based on 13 y (2001–2013) of North American Amphibian Monitoring Program (NAAMP) data. The NAAMP is a longterm monitoring program in which observers collect anuran calling observation data at fixed locations along random...

Atrazine has been implicated in reproductive dysfunction of exposed organisms, and previous studies documented decreased egg production in Japanese medaka (Oryzias latipes) and fathead minnows (Pimephales promelas) during 30-d to 38-d exposures to 0.5 µg/L, 5 µg/L, and 50 µg/L atrazine. The authors evaluated possible mechanisms underlying the reduction in egg production. Gene...

Habitat selection is an active behavioral process that may vary across spatial and temporal scales. Animals choose an area of primary utilization (i.e., home range) then make decisions focused on resource needs within patches. Dominance may affect the spatial distribution of conspecifics and concomitant habitat selection. Size-dependent social dominance hierarchies...

Continuous gravity data collected near the summit eruptive vent at Kīlauea Volcano, Hawaiʻi, during 2011–2015 show a strong correlation with summit-area surface deformation and the level of the lava lake within the vent over periods of days to weeks, suggesting that changes in gravity reflect variations in volcanic activity. Joint...

1. Drylands represent our planet's largest terrestrial biome and, due to their extensive area, maintain large stocks of carbon (C). Accordingly, understanding how dryland C cycling will respond to climate change is imperative for accurately forecasting global C cycling and future climate. However, it remains difficult to predict how increased...

The Brawley seismic zone (BSZ), in the Salton trough of southern California, has a history of earthquake swarms and geothermal energy exploitation. Some earthquake rate changes may have been induced by fluid extraction and injection activity at local geothermal fields, particularly at the North Brawley Geothermal Field (NBGF) and at...

Exploration for tight oil in the frontier Santanghu Basin of northwest China has resulted in recent commercial discoveries sourced from the lacustrine Upper Permian Lucaogou Formation, already considered a “world class source rock” in the Junggar Basin to the west. Here we apply an integrated analytical program to carbonate-dominated mudrocks...

The spatial scale of environmental layers is an important factor to consider in developing an understanding of ecological processes. This study employed Maxent modeling to investigate the geographic distribution of goitered gazelle, Gazella subgutturosa (Güldenstädt, 1780), in central Iran using uncorrelated variables at a spatial resolution of 250 m. We...

Understanding fault slip rates in the eastern California shear zone (ECSZ) using GPS geodesy is complicated by potentially overlapping strain signals due to many sub-parallel strike-slip faults and by inconsistencies with geologic slip rates. The role of fault system geometry in describing ECSZ deformation may be investigated with total variation...

The recent interest in exploration for shale gas increases the demand for a reliable, compatible resource assessment. Many different assessment methods are used, commonly depending on types and quantity of data available, which may lead to significantly divergent results for the same shale-gas play. This study compares results obtained using...

Timing of spring sea-ice retreat shapes the southeast Bering Sea food web. We compared summer seabird densities and average bathymetry depth distributions between years with early (typically warm) and late (typically cold) ice retreat. Averaged over all seabird species, densities in early-ice-retreat-years were 10.1% (95% CI: 1.1–47.9%) of that in...

Prescribed fire is a widely used forest management tool, yet the long-term effectiveness of prescribed fire in reducing fuels and fire hazards in many vegetation types is not well documented. We assessed the magnitude and duration of reductions in surface fuels and modeled fire hazards in coniferous forests across nine...

We investigated the crustal structure of the central Mesoproterozoic Belt Basin in northwestern Montana and northern Idaho using a crustal resistivity section derived from a transect of new short- and long-period magnetotelluric (MT) stations. Two- and three-dimensional resistivity models were generated from these data in combination with data collected previously...

The release of large amounts of sulfur to the stratosphere during explosive eruptions affects the radiative balance in the atmosphere and consequentially impacts climate for up to several years after the event. Quantitative estimations of the processes that control the mass balance of sulfur between melt, crystals, and vapor bubbles...

Adjustment of hunting season length is often used to regulate harvest of waterbirds but the effects are disputed. We describe the first results of season length extension on the harvest of the pink-footed goose, which has been selected as the first test case of adaptive harvest management of waterbirds in...

The Landsat Project is planning to implement a new collection management strategy for Landsat products generated at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. The goal of the initiative is to identify a collection of consistently geolocated and radiometrically calibrated images across the entire Landsat...

Now in its 17th year of operation, the Enhanced Thematic Mapper + (ETM+), on board the Landsat-7 satellite, continues to systematically acquire imagery of the Earth to add to the 40+ year archive of Landsat data. Characterization of the ETM+ on-orbit radiometric performance has been on-going since its launch in...

This national protocol framework is a standardized tool for the inventory and monitoring of the approximately 4,200 species of native and non-native bee species that may be found within the National Wildlife Refuge System (NWRS) administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). However, this protocol framework may also...

Frequent high-resolution measurements of topography at active volcanoes can provide important information for assessing the distribution and rate of emplacement of volcanic deposits and their influence on hazard. At dome-building volcanoes, monitoring techniques such as LiDAR and photogrammetry often provide a limited view of the area affected by the eruption....