Pilot- and bench-scale testing of faecal indicator bacteria survival in marine beach sand near point sources
K.B. Mika, G. Imamura, C. Chang, V. Conway, G. Fernandez, J.F. Griffith, R.A. Kampalath, C.M. Lee, C.-C. Lin, R. Moreno, S. Thompson, R.L. Whitman, J.A. Jay
2009, Journal of Applied Microbiology (107) 72-84
Aim: Factors affecting faecal indicator bacteria (FIB) and pathogen survival/persistence in sand remain largely unstudied. This work elucidates how biological and physical factors affect die-off in beach sand following sewage spills. Methods and Results: Solar disinfection with mechanical mixing was pilot-tested as a disinfection procedure after a large sewage spill...
Accelerated weathering of limestone for CO2 mitigation: Opportunities for the stone and cement industries
William H. Langer, Carma A. San Juan, Greg H. Rau, Ken Caldeira
2009, Mining Engineering (61) 27-32
Large amounts of limestone fines co-produced during the processing of crushed limestone may be useful in the sequestration of carbon dioxide (CO2). Accelerated weathering of limestone (AWL) is proposed as a low-tech method to capture and sequester CO2 from fossil fuel-fired power plants and other point sources such as cement manufacturing....
Miocene mass-transport sediments, Troodos Massif, Cyprus
A.R. Lord, R.W. Harrison, M. BouDagher-Fadel, B. D. Stone, O. Varol
2009, Proceedings of the Geologists' Association (120) 133-138
Sediment mass-transport layers of submarine origin on the northern and southern flanks of the Troodos ophiolitic massif are dated biostratigraphically as early Miocene and late Miocene, respectively and therefore represent different seismogenic events in the uplift and erosional history of the Troodos terrane. Analysis of such events has potential for...
Modeling utilization distributions in space and time
K.A. Keating, S. Cherry
2009, Ecology (90) 1971-1980
W. Van Winkle defined the utilization distribution (UD) as a probability density that gives an animal's relative frequency of occurrence in a two-dimensional (x, y) plane. We extend Van Winkle's work by redefining the UD as the relative frequency distribution of an animal's occurrence in all four dimensions of space...
USGS: Science at the intersection of land and ocean
M.D. Myers
2009, Sea Technology (50) 18-21
The US Geological Survey (USGS) conducts an ongoing national assessment of coastal change hazards in order to help protect lives and support management of coastal infrastructure and resources. The research group rapidly gathers to investigate coastal changes along the Gulf Coast's sandy beaches after each hurricane to examine the magnitude...
The Mauna Loa carbon dioxide record: lessons for long-term Earth observations
Eric T. Sundquist, Ralph F. Keeling
2009, Book chapter, Carbon Sequestration and Its Role in the Global Carbon Cycle
The Mauna Loa carbon dioxide record is an iconic symbol of the human capacity to alter the planet. Yet this record would not have been possible without the remarkable work of one man, Charles David Keeling. We describe three emergent themes that characterized his work: (1) his desire to study...
Postfledging Forster's Tern movements, habitat selection, and colony attendance in San Francisco Bay
Joshua T. Ackerman, Jill D. Bluso-Demers, John Y. Takekawa
2009, Condor (111) 100-110
Relatively little is known about birds during the postfledging period when flighted chicks have left the nest and must learn to forage independently. We examined postfledging movements, habitat selection, and colony attendance of Forster's Terns (Sterna forsteri) radio-marked just before they fledged in San Francisco Bay, California. The proportion of...
Evidence that pairing with genetically similar mates is maladaptive in a monogamous bird
Herve Mulard, E. Danchin, Sandra L. Talbot, Andrew M. Ramey, Scott A. Hatch, J.F. White, F. Helfenstein, R.H. Wagner
2009, BMC Evolutionary Biology (9)
BackgroundEvidence of multiple genetic criteria of mate choice is accumulating in numerous taxa. In many species, females have been shown to pair with genetically dissimilar mates or with extra-pair partners that are more genetically compatible than their social mates, thereby increasing their offsprings' heterozygosity which often correlates with...
Modeled ground water age distributions
Linda R. Woolfenden, Timothy R. Ginn
2009, Ground Water (47) 547-557
The age of ground water in any given sample is a distributed quantity representing distributed provenance (in space and time) of the water. Conventional analysis of tracers such as unstable isotopes or anthropogenic chemical species gives discrete or binary measures of the presence of water of a given age. Modeled...
U-Pb zircon ages from the southwestern Karoo Basin, South Africa - Implications for the Permian-Triassic boundary
A. Fildani, A. Weislogel, N.J. Drinkwater, T. McHargue, A. Tankard, J. Wooden, D. Hodgson, S. Flint
2009, Geology (37) 719-722
U-Pb ages determined using sensitive high-resolution ion microprobe-reverse geometry on 205 single-grain zircons from 16 ash beds within submarine fan deposits of the Ecca Group provide the first evidence of a marine Permian-Triassic (P-T) boundary in the Karoo Basin of South Africa. These U-Pb ages provide an objective basis for...
Major earthquakes recorded by Speleothems in Midwestern U.S. caves
S.V. Panno, C.C. Lundstrom, Keith C. Hackley, B. Brandon Curry, B.W. Fouke, Z. Zhang
2009, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (99) 2147-2154
Historic earthquakes generated by the New Madrid seismic zone represent some of the largest recorded in the United States, yet prehistoric events are recognized only through deformation in late-Wisconsin to Holocene-age, near surface sediments (liquefaction, monoclinal folding, and changes in river meanders). In this article, we show that speleothems in...
Did the Middlesboro, Kentucky, bolide impact event influence coal rank?
J.C. Hower, S.F. Greb, K.W. Kuehn, C.F. Eble
2009, International Journal of Coal Geology (79) 92-96
The Middlesboro Basin, southeastern Kentucky, occurs on the Cumberland Overthrust Sheet and includes a ca. 5.5-km diameter impact structure. The Lower and Middle Pennsylvanian coal-bearing strata are faulted, with some evidence for shock metamorphism. The event post-dated the latest-Pennsylvanian-early-Permian thrusting and was likely prior to late-Mesozoic entrenchment of drainages. The...
TreeMAC: Localized TDMA MAC protocol for real-time high-data-rate sensor networks
W.-Z. Song, R. Huang, B. Shirazi, R.L. Husent
2009, Conference Paper, 7th Annual IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications, PerCom 2009
Earlier sensor network MAC protocols focus on energy conservation in low-duty cycle applications, while some recent applications involve real-time high-data-rate signals. This motivates us to design an innovative localized TDMA MAC protocol to achieve high throughput and low congestion in data collection sensor networks, besides energy conservation. TreeMAC divides a...
Effects of an unseasonable snowstorm on red-faced Warbler nesting success
Karie L. Decker, C.J. Conway
2009, Condor (111) 392-395
Earlier initiation of nests by breeding birds may reflect an adaptive response to changes in food availability or warming of spring temperatures, but the consequences of initiating nests too early may be severe, particularly at high elevations. A rare snowstorm in late May 2008 resulted in nest abandonment by 68%...
Pilot studies for the North American Soil Geochemical Landscapes Project - Site selection, sampling protocols, analytical methods, and quality control protocols
D. B. Smith, L. G. Woodruff, R. M. O’Leary, W.F. Cannon, R. G. Garrett, J.E. Kilburn, M. B. Goldhaber
2009, Applied Geochemistry (24) 1357-1368
In 2004, the US Geological Survey (USGS) and the Geological Survey of Canada sampled and chemically analyzed soils along two transects across Canada and the USA in preparation for a planned soil geochemical survey of North America. This effort was a pilot study to test and refine sampling protocols, analytical...
Integration of MODIS-derived metrics to assess interannual variability in snowpack, lake ice, and NDVI in southwest Alaska
Bradley C. Reed, Michael E. Budde, Page Spencer, Amy E. Miller
2009, Remote Sensing of Environment (113) 1443-1452
Impacts of global climate change are expected to result in greater variation in the seasonality of snowpack, lake ice, and vegetation dynamics in southwest Alaska. All have wide-reaching physical and biological ecosystem effects in the region. We used Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) calibrated radiance, snow cover extent, and vegetation...
A combined telemetry - tag return approach to estimate fishing and natural mortality rates of an estuarine fish
N.M. Bacheler, J.A. Buckel, J.E. Hightower, L.M. Paramore, K. H. Pollock
2009, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (66) 1230-1244
A joint analysis of tag return and telemetry data should improve estimates of mortality rates for exploited fishes; however, the combined approach has thus far only been tested in terrestrial systems. We tagged subadult red drum (Sciaenops ocellatus) with conventional tags and ultrasonic transmitters over 3 years in coastal North...
Comment on "Revisiting the 1872 owens valley, California, earthquake" by Susan E. Hough and Kate Hutton
W. H. Bakun
2009, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (99) 2589-2590
Bakun (2009) argues that the conclusions of Hough and Hutton (2008) are wrong because the study failed to take into account the Sierra Nevada attenuation model of Bakun (2006). In particular, Bakun (2009) argues that propagation effects can explain the relatively high intensities generated by the 1872 Owens Valley earthquake....
Occurrence of gas hydrate in Oligocene Frio sand: Alaminos Canyon Block 818: Northern Gulf of Mexico
R. Boswell, D. Shelander, M. Lee, T. Latham, T. Collett, G. Guerin, G. Moridis, M. Reagan, D. Goldberg
2009, Marine and Petroleum Geology (26) 1499-1512
A unique set of high-quality downhole shallow subsurface well log data combined with industry standard 3D seismic data from the Alaminos Canyon area has enabled the first detailed description of a concentrated gas hydrate accumulation within sand in the Gulf of Mexico. The gas hydrate occurs within very fine grained,...
Turbulent stresses and secondary currents in a tidal-forced channel with significant curvature and asymmetric bed forms
D.A. Fong, Stephen G. Monismith, M.T. Stacey, J.R. Burau
2009, Journal of Hydraulic Engineering (135) 198-208
Acoustic Doppler current profilers are deployed to measure both the mean flow and turbulent properties in a channel with significant curvature. Direct measurements of the Reynolds stress show a significant asymmetry over the tidal cycle where stresses are enhanced during the flood tide and less prominent over...
Scrub-shrub bird habitat associations at multiple spatial scales in beaver meadows in Massachusetts
R.B. Chandler, D.I. King, S. DeStefano
2009, The Auk (126) 186-197
Most scrub-shrub bird species are declining in the northeastern United States, and these declines are largely attributed to regional declines in habitat availability. American Beaver (Castor canadensis; hereafter “beaver”) populations have been increasing in the Northeast in recent decades, and beavers create scrub-shrub habitat through their dam-building and foraging activities....
Effects of geolocation archival tags on reproduction and adult body mass of sooty shearwaters (Puffinus griseus)
J. Adams, D. Scott, S. McKechnie, G. Blackwell, S.A. Shaffer, H. Moller
2009, New Zealand Journal of Ecology (36) 355-366
We attached 11 g (1.4% body-mass equivalent) global location sensing (GLS) archival tag packages to tarsi of 25 breeding sooty shearwaters (Puffinus griseus, titi) on Whenua Hou (Codfish Island), New Zealand during the chick-rearing period in 2005. Compared with chicks reared by non-handled adults that did not carry tags, deployment...
Satellite-marked waterfowl reveal migratory connection between H5N1 outbreak areas in China and Mongolia
D.J. Prosser, John Y. Takekawa, S. H. Newman, B. Yan, David C. Douglas, Y. Hou, Z. Xing, Dongxiao Zhang, T. Li, Y. Li, D. Zhao, W.M. Perry, E.C. Palm
2009, Ibis (151) 568-576
The role of wild birds in the spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 has been greatly debated and remains an unresolved question. However, analyses to determine involvement of wild birds have been hindered by the lack of basic information on their movements in central Asia. Thus, we initiated a...
Deformation of the Batestown till of the Lake Michigan lobe, Laurentide ice sheet
J.F. Thomason, N.R. Iverson
2009, Journal of Glaciology (55) 131-146
Deep, pervasive shear deformation of the bed to high strains (>100) may have been primarily responsible for flow and sediment transport of the Lake Michigan lobe of the Laurentide ice sheet. To test this hypothesis, we sampled at 0.2 m increments a basal till from one advance of the lobe...
Fire behavior, weather, and burn severity of the 2007 anaktuvuk river tundra fire, North Slope, Alaska
Benjamin M. Jones, Crystal A. Kolden, Randi Jandt, John T. Abatzoglou, Frank Urban, Christopher D. Arp
2009, Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research (41) 309-316
In 2007, the Anaktuvuk River Fire (ARF) became the largest recorded tundra fire on the North Slope of Alaska. The ARF burned for nearly three months, consuming more than 100,000 ha. At its peak in early September, the ARF burned at a rate of 7000 ha d-1. The conditions potentially...
