Mineral potential for nickel, copper, platinum group elements(PGE), and chromium deposits hosted in ultramafic rocks in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania (phase V, deliverable 67)
Cliff D. Taylor, Erin E. Marsh, Eric D. Anderson
2015, Open-File Report 2013-1280-G
PRISM-I summary documents mention the presence of mafic-ultramafic igneous intrusive rocks in several areas of Mauritania and a number of chromium (Cr) and copper-nickel (Cu-Ni (±Co, Au)) occurrences associated with them. Permissive geologic settings generally include greenstone belts of any age, layered mafic-ultramafic and unlayered gabbro-anorthosite intrusive complexes in cratonic...
Monitoring Eastern Spadefoot (Scaphiopus holbrookii) response to weather with the use of a passive integrated transponder (PIT) system
Kevin J. Ryan, Aram J.K. Calhoun, Brad C. Timm, Joseph D. Zydlewski
2015, Journal of Herpetology (49) 257-263
Eastern Spadefoots (Scaphiopus holbrookii) are probably one of the least-understood amphibian species in the United States. In New England, populations are localized and it is likely that some populations go undocumented because of the species' cryptic habits. We used passive integrated transponders (PIT tags) to monitor burrow emergence with the...
Population structure and dynamics of northern pike and smallmouth bass in Coeur d’Alene Lake, Idaho.
John D. Walrath, Michael C. Quist, Jon A. Firehammer
2015, Northwest Science (89) 280-296
Numerous species have been introduced to Coeur d'Alene Lake, Idaho over the last century, but minimal research has been completed to understand their population dynamics. The objective of this study was to describe the population demographics and dynamics of northern pike (Esox lucius) and smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu), two important...
R for fledglings
Therese Donovan, Michelle Brown, Jonathan Katz
2015, Book
We’ve been asked to provide a short introduction to R and its utility in natural resource management. In this short introduction, we can guarantee one thing: you won’t learn R in a few days. That would be like learning to speak French in a few days. To actually learn R,...
Characterization of stormwater runoff from bridges in North Carolina and the effects of bridge runoff on receiving streams
Chad Wagner, Sharon Fitzgerald, Matthew Lauffer
2015, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the 2015 International Conference on Ecology & Transportation
The presentation will provide an overview of a collaborative study between USGS, NC Department of Transportation and URS Corporation to characterize stormwater runoff from bridges in North Carolina and the effects of bridge runoff on receiving streams. This investigation measured bridge deck runoff from 15 bridges for 12-15 storms, stream...
Status of the Topeka shiner in west-central Iowa
Clay Pierce, Bryan D. Bakevich, Michael C. Quist
2015, American Midland Naturalist (174) 350-358
The Topeka shiner Notropis topeka is a federally endangered fish species that is estimated to occupy only 20% of its historic range. In Iowa Topeka shiners have been in decline for decades. Our goal was to determine the present distribution of Topeka shiners in the west-central portion of their range in Iowa...
Fishes of the Blackwater River Drainage, Tucker County, West Virginia
Daniel A. Cincotta, Stuart A. Welsh, Douglas P. Wegman, Thomas E. Oldham, Lara B. Hedrick
2015, Southeastern Naturalist (14) 297-313
The Blackwater River, a tributary of the upper Cheat River of the Monongahela River, hosts a modest fish fauna. This relatively low diversity of fish species is partly explained by its drainage history. The Blackwater was once part of the prehistoric, northeasterly flowing St. Lawrence River. During the Pleistocene Epoch,...
Restricted spatial regression in practice: Geostatistical models, confounding, and robustness under model misspecification
Ephraim M. Hanks, Erin M. Schliep, Mevin Hooten, Jennifer A. Hoeting
2015, Environmetrics (26) 243-254
In spatial generalized linear mixed models (SGLMMs), covariates that are spatially smooth are often collinear with spatially smooth random effects. This phenomenon is known as spatial confounding and has been studied primarily in the case where the spatial support of the process being studied is discrete (e.g., areal spatial data)....
Accounting for imperfect detection in Hill numbers for biodiversity studies
Kristin M. Broms, Mevin Hooten, Ryan M. Fitzpatrick
2015, Methods in Ecology and Evolution (6) 99-108
Hill numbers unify biodiversity metrics by combining several into one expression. For example, species richness, Shannon's diversity index and the Gini–Simpson index are a few of the most used diversity measures, and they can be expressed as Hill numbers. Traditionally, Hill numbers have been calculated from relative...
Oceanic and atmospheric forcing of Larsen C Ice-Shelf thinning
P. R. Holland, A. Brisbourne, H. F. J. Corr, Daniel Mcgrath, K. Purdon, J. Paden, H. A. Fricker, F. S. Paolo, A.H. Fleming
2015, The Cryosphere (9) 1005-1024
The catastrophic collapses of Larsen A and B ice shelves on the eastern Antarctic Peninsula have caused their tributary glaciers to accelerate, contributing to sea-level rise and freshening the Antarctic Bottom Water formed nearby. The surface of Larsen C Ice Shelf (LCIS), the largest ice shelf on the peninsula, is...
Day-roost tree selection by northern long-eared bats - What do non-roost tree comparisons and one year of data really tell us?
Alexander Silvis, W. Mark Ford, Eric R. Britzke
2015, Global Ecology and Conservation (3) 756-763
Bat day-roost selection often is described through comparisons of day-roosts with randomly selected, and assumed unused, trees. Relatively few studies, however, look at patterns of multi-year selection or compare day-roosts used across years. We explored day-roost selection using 2 years of roost selection data for female northern long-eared bats (Myotis...
Ecological effects of the harvest phase of geoduck clam (Panopea generosa Gould, 1850) aquaculture on infaunal communities in southern Puget Sound, Washington USA.
Glenn R. VanBlaricom, Jennifer L. Eccles, Julian D. Olden, P. Sean Mcdonald
2015, Journal of Shellfish Research (34) 171-187
Intertidal aquaculture for geoducks (Panopea generosa Gould, 1850) is expanding in southern Puget Sound, Washington, where gently sloping sandy beaches are used for field culture. Geoduck aquaculture contributes significantly to the regional economy, but has become controversial because of a range of unresolved questions involving potential biological impacts on marine ecosystems....
Fatty-acid profiles of white muscle and liver in stream-maturing steelhead trout Oncorhynchus mykiss from early migration to kelt emigration
Zachary L. Penney, Christine M. Moffitt
2015, Journal of Fish Biology (86) 105-120
The profiles of specific fatty acids (FA) in white muscle and liver of fasting steelhead troutOncorhynchus mykiss were evaluated at three periods during their prespawning migration and at kelt emigration in the Snake–Columbia River of Washington, Oregon and Idaho, to improve the understanding of energy change. Twenty-seven FAs were identified; depletion...
Dispersal, movements and site fidelity of post-fledging King Eiders Somateria spectabilis and their attendant females
Rebecca L. Bentzen, Abby N. Powell
2015, Ibis (157) 133-146
Post-fledging dispersal and site fidelity are poorly understood, particularly for sea ducks that spend the majority of their annual cycle at sea. This is the first description of movements and their timing for first-year (juvenile) and second-year (subadult) King Eiders Somateria spectabilis in relation to their attendant females. We fitted satellite transmitters...
Conservation status of North American freshwater crayfish (Decapoda: Cambaridae) from the southern United States
Zachary J. Loughman, Stuart A. Welsh, James W. Fetzner, Roger F. Thoma
2015, Journal of Crustacean Biology (35) 850-860
A list is provided of all crayfishes (family Cambaridae) in the southern United States, which includes common names, global conservation status, an alternative review of the conservation status based on the IUCN red list criteria, and state distribution. This list includes 357 native crayfishes, of which 12 (3.4%) are critically...
Synopsis of the history of sea otter conservation in the United States
Glenn R. VanBlaricom
2015, Book chapter
In the late 1860s, declining US sea otter populations elicited concern because of prior excessive harvests. Congress mandated protection of Alaskan sea otters in 1868, but hunting continued unrestrained. The Fur Seal Treaty of 1911 (abrogated in 1941) protected sea otters in international waters, but was not applicable to most...
Contrasting fish assemblages in free-flowing and impounded tributaries to the Upper Delaware River: Implications for conserving biodiversity
Barry P. Baldigo, Mari-Beth Delucia, Walter D. Keller, George E. Schuler, Colin D. Apse, Tara Moberg
2015, Book chapter, Advances in Environmental Research
The Neversink River and the Beaver Kill in southeastern New York are major tributaries to the Delaware River, the longest undammed river east of the Mississippi. While the Beaver Kill is free flowing for its entire length, the Neversink River is subdivided by the Neversink Reservoir, which likely affects the...
Micrometer-scale U–Pb age domains in eucrite zircons, impact re-setting, and the thermal history of the HED parent body
M.D. Hopkins, S.J. Mojzsis, W.F. Bottke, Oleg Abramov
2015, Icarus (245) 367-378
Meteoritic zircons are rare, but some are documented to occur in asteroidal meteorites, including those of the howardite–eucrite–diogenite (HED) achondrite clan (Rubin, A. [1997]. Meteorit. Planet. Sci. 32, 231–247). The HEDs are widely considered to originate from the Asteroid 4 Vesta. Vesta and the other large main belt asteroids record...
Modifications to risk-targeted seismic design maps for subduction and near-fault hazards
Abbie B. Liel, Nico Luco, Meera Raghunandan, C. Champion
Terje Haukaas, editor(s)
2015, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the 12th international conference on applications of statistics and probability in civil engineering (ICASP12)
ASCE 7-10 introduced new seismic design maps that define risk-targeted ground motions such that buildings designed according to these maps will have 1% chance of collapse in 50 years. These maps were developed by iterative risk calculation, wherein a generic building collapse fragility curve is convolved with the U.S. Geological...
Groundwater conditions in Utah, spring of 2015
Carole B. Burden
2015, Cooperative Investigations Report 56
This is the fifty-second 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...
PhreeqcRM: A reaction module for transport simulators based on the geochemical model PHREEQC
David L. Parkhurst, Laurin Wissmeier
2015, Advances in Water Resources (83) 176-189
PhreeqcRM is a geochemical reaction module designed specifically to perform equilibrium and kinetic reaction calculations for reactive transport simulators that use an operator-splitting approach. The basic function of the reaction module is to take component concentrations from the model cells of the transport simulator, run geochemical reactions, and...
Observational changes to the natural flow regime in Lee Creek in relation to altered precipitation patterns and its implication for fishes
Michael R. Gatlin, James M. Long, Donald J. Turton
2015, Proceedings of the Oklahoma Academy of Science (95) 135-146
The natural flow regime is important for structuring streams and their resident ichthyofauna and alterations to this regime can have cascading consequences. We sought to determine if changes in hydrology could be attributed to changes in precipitation in a minimally altered watershed (Lee Creek). The stream flow regime was analyzed...
Understanding protected area resilience: a multi-scale, social-ecological approach
Graeme S. Cumming, Craig R. Allen, Natalie C. Ban, Duan Biggs, Harry C. Biggs, David H.M Cumming, Alta De Vos, Graham Epstein, Michel Etienne, Kristine Maciejewski, Raphael Mathevet, Christine Moore, Mateja Nenadovic, Michael Schoon
2015, Ecological Applications (25) 299-319
Protected areas (PAs) remain central to the conservation of biodiversity. Classical PAs were conceived as areas that would be set aside to maintain a natural state with minimal human influence. However, global environmental change and growing cross-scale anthropogenic influences mean that PAs can no longer be thought of as ecological...
Concentrations and distributions of metals associated with dissolved organic matter from the Suwannee River (GA, USA)
M. Keshia Kuhn, Elisabeth Neubauer, Thilo Hofmann, Frank von der Kammer, George R. Aiken, Patricia A. Maurice
2015, Environmental Engineering Science (32) 54-65
Concentrations and distributions of metals in Suwannee River (SR) raw filtered surface water (RFSW) and dissolved organic matter (DOM) processed by reverse osmosis (RO), XAD-8 resin (for humic and fulvic acids [FA]), and XAD-4 resin (for “transphilic” acids) were analyzed by asymmetrical flow field-flow fractionation (AsFlFFF). SR samples were compared...
Shortnose sturgeon in the Gulf of Maine: Use of spawning habitat in the Kennebec System and response to dam removal
Gail S. Wippelhauser, Gayle B. Zydlewski, Micah Kieffer, James Sulikowski, Michael T. Kinnison
2015, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (144) 742-752
Evidence has become available in this century indicating that populations of the endangered Shortnose Sturgeon Acipenser brevirostrum migrate outside their natal river systems, but the full extent and functional basis of these migrations are not well understood. Between 2007 and 2013, 40 Shortnose Sturgeon captured and tagged in four Gulf of Maine...
