Tectonic setting of Cretaceous basins on the NE Tibetan Plateau: Insights from the Jungong basin
William Craddock, E. Kirby, Z. Dewen, L. Jianhui
2012, Basin Research (24) 51-69
Quantifying the Cenozoic growth of high topography in the Indo‐Asian collision zone remains challenging, due in part to significant shortening that occurred within Eurasia before collision. A growing body of evidence suggests that regions far removed from the suture zone experienced deformation before and during the early phases of Himalayan...
Has the magnitude of floods across the USA changed with global CO 2 levels?
R.M. Hirsch, K.R. Ryberg
2012, Hydrological Sciences Journal (57) 1-9
Statistical relationships between annual floods at 200 long-term (85-127 years of record) streamgauges in the coterminous United States and the global mean carbon dioxide concentration (GMCO2) record are explored. The streamgauge locations are limited to those with little or no regulation or urban development. The coterminous US is divided into...
El Niño-Southern oscillation variability from the late cretaceous marca shale of California
Andrew Davies, Alan E.S. Kemp, Graham P. Weedon, John A. Barron
2012, Geology (40) 15-18
Changes in the possible behavior of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) with global warming have provoked interest in records of ENSO from past “greenhouse” climate states. The latest Cretaceous laminated Marca Shale of California permits a seasonal-scale reconstruction of water column flux events and hence interannual paleoclimate variability. The annual flux...
Histologic, immunologic and endocrine biomarkers indicate contaminant effects in fishes of the Ashtabula River
L. R. Iwanowicz, V. S. Blazer, N.P. Hitt, S. D. McCormick, D.S. Devault, C. A. Ottinger
2012, Ecotoxicology (21) 165-182
The use of fish as sentinels of aquatic ecosystem health is a biologically relevant approach to environmental monitoring and assessment. We examined the health of the Ashtabula River using histologic, immunologic, and endocrine biomarkers in brown bullhead (BB; Ameiurus nebulosus) and largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) and compared fish collected from...
Mineral resource of the month: manganese
Lisa A. Corathers
2012, Earth (57) 23-23
Manganese is a silver-colored metal resembling iron and often found in conjunction with iron. The earliest-known human use of manganese compounds was in the Stone Age, when early humans used manganese dioxide as pigments in cave paintings. In ancient Rome and Egypt, people started using it to color or remove...
Effects of high fire frequency in creosote bush scrub vegetation of the Mojave Desert
M.L. Brooks
2012, International Journal of Wildland Fire (21) 61-68
Plant invasions can increase fire frequency in desert ecosystems where fires were historically infrequent. Although there are many resource management concerns associated with high frequency fire in deserts, fundamental effects on plant community characteristics remain largely unstudied. Here I describe the effects of fire frequency on creosote bush scrub vegetation...
Generation and evolution of hydrothermal fluids at Yellowstone: Insights from the Heart Lake Geyser Basin
J. B. Lowenstern, D. Bergfeld, William C. Evans, S. Hurwitz
2012, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (13)
We sampled fumaroles and hot springs from the Heart Lake Geyser Basin (HLGB), measured water and gas discharge, and estimated heat and mass flux from this geothermal area in 2009. The combined data set reveals that diverse fluids share an origin by mixing of deep solute-rich parent water with dilute...
Mineral resource of the month: cadmium
Amy C. Tolcin
2012, Earth (57) 23-23
The element cadmium was discovered in 1817 by Friedrich Stromeyer, a professor of chemistry at the University of Göttingen in Germany. Stromeyer noticed that a yellowish glow would occur when heat was applied to certain samples of calamine, a zinc-carbonate. This was unusual as the reaction was expected to be...
Hierarchical spatial structure of stream fish colonization and extinction
N.P. Hitt, J.H. Roberts
2012, Oikos (121) 127-137
Spatial variation in extinction and colonization is expected to influence community composition over time. In stream fish communities, local species richness (alpha diversity) and species turnover (beta diversity) are thought to be regulated by high extinction rates in headwater streams and high colonization rates in downstream areas. We evaluated the...
Regulation leads to increases in riparian vegetation, but not direct allochthonous inputs, along the Colorado River in Grand Canyon, Arizona
T.A. Kennedy, B.E. Ralston
2012, River Research and Applications (28) 2-12
Dams and associated river regulation have led to the expansion of riparian vegetation, especially nonnative species, along downstream ecosystems. Nonnative saltcedar is one of the dominant riparian plants along virtually every major river system in the arid western United States, but allochthonous inputs have never been quantified along a segment...
Holocene aridification of India
C. Ponton, L. Giosan, T.I. Eglinton, D.Q. Fuller, J.E. Johnson, P. Kumar, Timothy S. Collett
2012, Geophysical Research Letters (39)
Spanning a latitudinal range typical for deserts, the Indian peninsula is fertile instead and sustains over a billion people through monsoonal rains. Despite the strong link between climate and society, our knowledge of the long‐term monsoon variability is incomplete over the Indian subcontinent. Here we reconstruct the Holocene paleoclimate in...
Reducing uncertainty about objective functions in adaptive management
Byron K. Williams
2012, Ecological Modelling (225) 61-65
This paper extends the uncertainty framework of adaptive management to include uncertainty about the objectives to be used in guiding decisions. Adaptive decision making typically assumes explicit and agreed-upon objectives for management, but allows for uncertainty as to the structure of the decision process that generates change through time. Yet...
Migration of Sakhalin taimen (Parahucho perryi): Evidence of freshwater resident life history types
Christian E. Zimmerman, P.S. Rand, M. Fukushima, S.F. Zolotukhin
2012, Environmental Biology of Fishes (93) 223-232
Sakhalin taimen (Parahucho perryi) range from the Russian Far East mainland along the Sea of Japan coast, and Sakhalin, Kuril, and Hokkaido Islands and are considered to primarily be an anadromous species. We used otolith strontium-to-calcium ratios (Sr/Ca) to determine the chronology of migration between freshwater and saltwater and identify...
Contrasting extreme long-distance migration patterns in bar-tailed godwits Limosa lapponica
Phil F. Battley, Nils Warnock, T. Lee Tibbitts, Robert E. Gill Jr., Theunis Piersma, Chris J. Hassell, David C. Douglas, Daniel M. Mulcahy, Brett D. Gartrell, Rob Schuckard, David S. Melville, Adrian C. Riegen
2012, Journal of Avian Biology (43) 21-32
Migrating birds make the longest non-stop endurance flights in the animal kingdom. Satellite technology is now providing direct evidence on the lengths and durations of these flights and associated staging episodes for individual birds. Using this technology, we compared the migration performance of two subspecies of bar-tailed godwit Limosa lapponica travelling between...
Grizzly bear population vital rates and trend in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem, Montana
R.D. Mace, D.W. Carney, T. Chilton-Radandt, S.A. Courville, M.A. Haroldson, R.B. Harris, J. Jonkel, B. McLellan, M. Madel, T.L. Manley, C.C. Schwartz, C. Servheen, G. Stenhouse, J.S. Waller, E. Wenum
2012, Journal of Wildlife Management (76) 119-128
We estimated grizzly bear (Ursus arctos) population vital rates and trend for the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem (NCDE), Montana, between 2004 and 2009 by following radio-collared females and observing their fate and reproductive performance. Our estimates of dependent cub and yearling survival were 0.612 (95% CI = 0.300–0.818) and 0.682 (95% CI = 0.258–0.898)....
Avian community responses to vegetation structure within chained and hand-cut pinyon-juniper woodlands on the Colorado Plateau
Charles van Riper III, Claire Crow
2012, Book chapter, The Colorado Plateau V: Research, environmental planning, and management for collaborative conservation
We investigated relationships between breeding birds and vegetation characteristics in fuels-reduction treatment areas within pinyon-juniper woodlands at locations over the Colorado Plateau. The goal of this study was to document differences in avian community responses to two types of pinyon-juniper fuels-reduction treatments (chained vs. hand-cut), relative to control sites. We...
Validation of a coupled wave-flow model in a high-energy setting: the mouth of the Columbia River
Edwin P.L. Elias, Guy R. Gelfenbaum, Andre J. van der Westhuysen
2012, Journal of Geophysical Research C: Oceans (117)
A monthlong time series of wave, current, salinity, and suspended-sediment measurements was made at five sites on a transect across the Mouth of Columbia River (MCR). These data were used to calibrate and evaluate the performance of a coupled hydrodynamic and wave model for the MCR based on the Delft3D...
Titan's fluvial valleys: Morphology, distribution, and spectral properties
M.H. Langhans, R. Jaumann, K. Stephan, R. H. Brown, B. J. Buratti, Roger N. Clark, K. H. Baines, P. D. Nicholson, R. D. Lorenz, Laurence A. Soderblom, J.M. Soderblom, Christophe Sotin, J. W. Barnes, R. Nelson
2012, Planetary and Space Science (60) 34-51
Titan's fluvial channels have been investigated based on data obtained by the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) instrument and the Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) onboard the Cassini spacecraft. In this paper, a database of fluvial features is created based on radar-SAR data aiming to unveil the distribution and the...
Magnetostratigraphy susceptibility for the Guadalupian Series GSSPs (Middle Permian) in Guadalupe Mountains National Park and adjacent areas in West Texas
Bruce R. Wardlaw, Brooks B. Ellwood, Lance L. Lambert, Jonathan H. Tomkin, Gordon L. Bell, Galina P. Nestell
2012, Geological Society, London, Special Publications (373) 21-21
Here we establish a magnetostratigraphy susceptibility zonation for the three Middle Permian Global boundary Stratotype Sections and Points (GSSPs) that have recently been defined, located in Guadalupe Mountains National Park, West Texas, USA. These GSSPs, all within the Middle Permian Guadalupian Series, define (1) the base of the Roadian Stage...
Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement Off-Project Water Program Total Evapotranspiration Map for April to October 2004
Water Resources Division, U.S. Geological Survey
2012, Report
On the causes of mid-Pliocene warmth and polar amplification
Daniel J. Lunt, Alan M. Haywood, Gavin A. Schmidt, Ulrich Salzmann, Paul J. Valdes, Harry J. Dowsett, Claire A. Loptson
2012, Earth and Planetary Science Letters (321-322) 128-138
The mid-Pliocene (~ 3 to 3.3 Ma ago), is a period of sustained global warmth in comparison to the late Quaternary (0 to ~ 1 Ma ago), and has potential to inform predictions of long-term future climate change. However, given that several processes potentially contributed, relatively little is understood about...
Mineral resource of the month: aggregates
Jason C. Willett
2012, Earth (57) 25-25
Crushed stone and construction sand and gravel, the two major types of natural aggregates, are among the most abundant and accessible natural resources on the planet. The earliest civilizations used aggregates for various purposes, mainly construction. Today aggregates provide the basic raw materials for the foundation of modern society....
Physical setting and natural sources of exposure to carcinogenic trace elements and radionuclides in Lahontan Valley, Nevada
Ralph L. Seiler
2012, Chemico-Biological Interactions (196) 79-86
In Lahontan Valley, Nevada, arsenic, cobalt, tungsten, uranium, radon, and polonium-210 are carcinogens that occur naturally in sediments and groundwater. Arsenic and cobalt are principally derived from erosion of volcanic rocks in the local mountains and tungsten and uranium are derived from erosion of granitic rocks in headwater reaches of...
Appendix A: other methods for estimating trends of Arctic birds
Jonathan Bart, Stephen Brown, R.I. Guy Morrison, Paul A. Smith
Jonathan Bart, Victoria Johnston, editor(s)
2012, Book chapter, Arctic shorebirds in North America: a decade of monitoring
The Arctic PRISM was designed to determine shorebird population size and trend. During an extensive peer review of PRISM, some reviewers suggested that measuring demographic rates or monitoring shorebirds on migration would be more appropriate than estimating population size on the breeding grounds. However, each method has its own limitations....
Production and disposal of waste materials from gas and oil extraction from the Marcellus Shale Play in Pennsylvania
Kelly O. Maloney, David A. Yoxtheimer
2012, Environmental Practice (14) 278-287
The increasing world demand for energy has led to an increase in the exploration and extraction of natural gas, condensate, and oil from unconventional organic-rich shale plays. However, little is known about the quantity, transport, and disposal method of wastes produced during the extraction process. We examined the quantity of...
