Geologic controls on submarine slope failure along the central U.S. Atlantic margin: Insights from the Currituck Slide Complex
Jenna C. Hill, Daniel S. Brothers, Bradley K. Craig, Uri S. ten Brink, Jason D. Chaytor, Claudia Flores
2017, Marine Geology (385) 114-130
Multiple styles of failure, ranging from densely spaced, mass transport driven canyons to the large, slab-type slope failure of the Currituck Slide, characterize adjacent sections of the central U.S. Atlantic margin that appear to be defined by variations in geologic framework. Here we use regionally extensive, deep penetration multichannel seismic...
Antarctic ice-core water (USGS49) – A new isotopic reference material for δ2H and δ18O measurements of water
Jennifer M. Lorenz, Haiping Qi, Tyler B. Coplen
2017, Geostandards and Geoanalytical Research (41) 63-68
As a result of the scarcity of isotopic reference waters for daily use, a new secondary isotopic reference material for international distribution has been prepared from ice-core water from the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station. This isotopic reference material, designated as USGS49, was filtered, homogenised, loaded into glass ampoules, sealed with...
Land-use change and managed aquifer recharge effects on the hydrogeochemistry of two contrasting atoll island aquifers, Roi-Namur Island, Republic of the Marshall Islands
Mehrdad Hejazian, Jason J. Gurdak, Peter W. Swarzenski, Kingsley Odigie, Curt D. Storlazzi
2017, Applied Geochemistry (80) 58-71
Freshwater resources on low-lying atoll islands are highly vulnerable to climate change and sea-level rise. In addition to rainwater catchment, groundwater in the freshwater lens is a critically important water resource on many atoll islands, especially during drought. Although many atolls have high annual rainfall rates, dense natural vegetation...
Northern bobwhite breeding season ecology on a reclaimed surface mine
Jarred M. Brooke, Evan P. Tanner, David C. Peters, Ashley M. Tanner, Craig A. Harper, Patrick D. Keyser, Joseph D. Clark, John J. Morgan
2017, Journal of Wildlife Management (81) 73-85
Surface coal mining and subsequent reclamation of surface mines have converted large forest areas into early successional vegetative communities in the eastern United States. This reclamation can provide a novel opportunity to conserve northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus). We evaluated the influence of habitat management activities on nest survival, nest-site selection,...
Sources and dispersal of land-based runoff from small Hawaiian drainages to a coral reef: Insights from geochemical signatures
Renee K. Takesue, Curt D. Storlazzi
2017, Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science (188) 69-80
Land-based sediment and contaminant runoff is a major threat to coral reefs, and runoff reduction efforts would benefit from knowledge of specific runoff sources. Geochemical signatures of small drainage basins were determined in the fine fraction of soil and sediment, then used in the nearshore region of a coral reef-fringed...
Characterization of the quality of water, bed sediment, and fish in Mittry Lake, Arizona, 2014–15
Edyth Hermosillo, Alissa L. Coes
2017, Scientific Investigations Report 2017-5008
Water, bed-sediment, and fish sampling was conducted in Mittry Lake, Arizona, in 2014–15 to establish current water-quality conditions of the lake. The parameters of temperature, dissolved-oxygen concentration, specific conductance, and alkalinity were measured in the field. Water samples were collected and analyzed for dissolved major ions, dissolved trace elements, dissolved...
Mercury exposure may influence fluctuating asymmetry in waterbirds
Garth Herring, Collin A. Eagles-Smith, Joshua T. Ackerman
2017, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (36) 1599-1605
Variation in avian bilateral symmetry can be an indicator of developmental instability in response to a variety of stressors, including environmental contaminants. The authors used composite measures of fluctuating asymmetry to examine the influence of mercury concentrations in 2 tissues on fluctuating asymmetry within 4 waterbird species. Fluctuating asymmetry increased...
Nocturnal insect availability in bottomland hardwood forests managed for wildlife in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley
Loraine P. Ketzler, Christopher Comer, Daniel J. Twedt
2017, Forest Ecology and Management (391) 127-134
Silviculture used to alter forest structure and thereby enhance wildlife habitat has been advocated for bottomland hardwood forest management on public conservation lands in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley. Although some songbirds respond positively to these management actions to attain desired forest conditions for wildlife, the response of other species, is...
Autumn olive (Elaeagnus umbellata) presence and proliferation on former surface coal mines in Eastern USA
Adam J. Oliphant, R.H. Wynne, Carl E. Zipper, W. Mark Ford, P. F. Donovan, Jing Li
2017, Biological Invasions (19) 179-195
Invasive plants threaten native plant communities. Surface coal mines in the Appalachian Mountains are among the most disturbed landscapes in North America, but information about land cover characteristics of Appalachian mined lands is lacking. The invasive shrub autumn olive (Elaeagnus umbellata) occurs on these sites and interferes with...
Relations of alpine plant communities across environmental gradients: Multilevel versus multiscale analyses
George P. Malanson, Dale L. Zimmerman, Mitch Kinney, Daniel B. Fagre
2017, Annals of the Association of American Geographers (107) 41-53
Alpine plant communities vary, and their environmental covariates could influence their response to climate change. A single multilevel model of how alpine plant community composition is determined by hierarchical relations is compared to a separate examination of those relations at different scales. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling of species cover for plots...
Rapid carbon loss and slow recovery following permafrost thaw in boreal peatlands
Miriam C. Jones, Jennifer W. Harden, Jonathan A. O’Donnell, Kristen L. Manies, M. Torre Jorgenson, Claire C. Treat, Stephanie Ewing
2017, Global Change Biology (23) 1109-1127
Permafrost peatlands store one-third of the total carbon (C) in the atmosphere and are increasingly vulnerable to thaw as high-latitude temperatures warm. Large uncertainties remain about C dynamics following permafrost thaw in boreal peatlands. We used a chronosequence approach to measure C stocks in forested permafrost plateaus (forest) and thawed...
Recalibration of the Mars Science Laboratory ChemCam instrument with an expanded geochemical database
Samuel M. Clegg, Roger C. Wiens, Ryan B. Anderson, Olivier Forni, Jens Frydenvang, Jeremie Lasue, Agnes Cousin, Valerie Payre, Tommy Boucher, M. Darby Dyar, Scott M. McLennan, Richard V. Morris, Trevor G. Graff, Stanley A Mertzman, Bethany L. Ehlmann, Ines Belgacem, Horton E. Newsom, Ben C. Clark, Noureddine Melikechi, Alissa Mezzacappa, Rhonda E. McInroy, Ronald Martinez, Patrick J. Gasda, Olivier Gasnault, Sylvestre Maurice
2017, Spectrochimica Acta Part B: Atomic Spectroscopy (129) 64-85
The ChemCam Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) instrument onboard the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover Curiosity has obtained > 300,000 spectra of rock and soil analysis targets since landing at Gale Crater in 2012, and the spectra represent perhaps the largest publicly-available LIBS datasets. The compositions of the major elements, reported as...
Winter 2016, Part B—Coastal oblique aerial photographs collected from Assateague Island, Virginia, to Montauk Point, New York, March 8–9, 2016
Karen L. M. Morgan
2017, Data Series 1030
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), as part of the National Assessment of Coastal Change Hazards project, conducts baseline and storm-response photography missions to document and understand the changes in the vulnerability of the Nation's coasts to extreme storms. On March 8–9, 2016, the USGS conducted an oblique aerial photographic survey...
Winter 2016, Part A—Coastal oblique aerial photographs collected from the South Carolina/North Carolina border to Assateague Island, Virginia, February 18–19, 2016
Karen L. M. Morgan
2017, Data Series 1029
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), as part of the National Assessment of Coastal Change Hazards project, conducts baseline and storm-response photography missions to document and understand the changes in the vulnerability of the Nation's coasts to extreme storms. On February 18–19, 2016, the USGS conducted an oblique aerial photographic survey...
Preparing future fisheries professionals to make good decisions
Michael E. Colvin, James T. Peterson
2017, Fisheries (41) 473-474
Future fisheries professionals will face decision-making challenges in an increasingly complex field of fisheries management. Though fisheries students are well trained in the use of the scientific method to understand the natural world, they are rarely exposed to structured decision making (SDM) as part of an undergraduate or graduate education....
Potential concerns with analytical Methods Used for the detection of Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans from archived DNA of amphibian swab samples, Oregon, USA
Deborah D. Iwanowicz, William B. Schill, Deanna H. Olson, M. J. Adams, Christine L. Densmore, Robert S. Cornman, Cynthia R. Adams, Chester Figiel, Chauncey W. Anderson, Andrew R Blaustein, Tara Chestnut
2017, Environmental Entomology (48) 352-355
Taxonomic identification of pollen has historically been accomplished via light microscopy but requires specialized knowledge and reference collections, particularly when identification to lower taxonomic levels is necessary. Recently, next-generation sequencing technology has been used as a cost-effective alternative for identifying bee-collected pollen; however, this novel approach has not been tested...
Contaminants of emerging concern in the Great Lakes Basin: A report on sediment, water, and fish tissue chemistry collected in 2010-2012
Steven J. Choy, Mandy L. Annis, JoAnn Banda, Sarah R. Bowman, Mark E. Brigham, Sarah M. Elliott, Daniel J. Gefell, Mark Jankowski, Zachary G. Jorgenson, Kathy Lee, Jeremy N. Moore, William A. Tucker
2017, Biological Technical Publication BTP-R3017-2013
Despite being detected at low levels in surface waters and sediments across the United States, contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) in the Great Lakes Basin are not well characterized in terms of spatial and temporal occurrence. Additionally, although the detrimental effects of exposure to CECs on fish and wildlife have...
Aquatic concentrations of chemical analytes compared to ecotoxicity estimates
Mitchell S. Kostich, Robert W. Flick, Angela L. Batt, Heath E. Mash, J. Scott Boone, Edward T. Furlong, Dana W. Kolpin, Susan T. Glassmeyer
2017, Science of the Total Environment (579) 1649-1657
We describe screening level estimates of potential aquatic toxicity posed by 227 chemical analytes that were measured in 25 ambient water samples collected as part of a joint USGS/USEPA drinking water plant study. Measured concentrations were compared to biological effect concentration (EC) estimates, including USEPA aquatic life criteria, effective plasma...
Trends in the quality of water in New Jersey streams, water years 1971–2011
R. Edward Hickman, Robert M. Hirsch
2017, Scientific Investigations Report 2016-5176
In a study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and the Delaware River Basin Commission, trend tests were conducted on selected water-quality characteristics measured at stations on streams in New Jersey during selected periods over water years 1971‒2011. Tests were...
Water-quality sampling plan for evaluating the distribution of bigheaded carps in the Illinois Waterway
James J. Duncker, Paul J. Terrio
2017, Open-File Report 2017-1019
The two nonnative invasive bigheaded carp species (bighead carp Hypophthalmichthys nobilis and silver carp H. molitrix) that were accidentally released in the 1970s have spread widely into the rivers and waterways of the Mississippi River Basin. First detected in the lower reaches of the Illinois Waterway (IWW, the combined Illinois...
Geochemistry and hydrology of perched groundwater springs: assessing elevated uranium concentrations at Pigeon Spring relative to nearby Pigeon Mine, Arizona (USA)
Kimberly R. Beisner, Nicholas V. Paretti, Fred D. Tillman, David L. Naftz, Donald J. Bills, Katherine Walton-Day, Tanya J. Gallegos
2017, Hydrogeology Journal (25) 539-556
The processes that affect water chemistry as the water flows from recharge areas through breccia-pipe uranium deposits in the Grand Canyon region of the southwestern United States are not well understood. Pigeon Spring had elevated uranium in 1982 (44 μg/L), compared to other perched springs (2.7–18 μg/L), prior to mining...
Nonnative trout invasions combined with climate change threaten persistence of isolated cutthroat trout populations in the southern Rocky Mountains
James J. Roberts, Kurt D. Fausch, Mevin Hooten, Douglas P. Peterson
2017, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (37) 314-325
Effective conservation of Cutthroat Trout Oncorhynchus clarkii lineages native to the Rocky Mountains will require estimating effects of multiple stressors and directing management toward the most important ones. Recent analyses have focused on the direct and indirect effects of a changing climate on contemporary ranges, which are much reduced from historic...
Shifts in microbial community structure and function in surface waters impacted by unconventional oil and gas wastewater revealed by metagenomics
N.L. Fahrenfeld, Hannah Delos Reyes, Alessia Eramo, Denise M. Akob, Adam C. Mumford, Isabelle M. Cozzarelli
2017, Science of the Total Environment 1205-1213
Unconventional oil and gas (UOG) production produces large quantities of wastewater with complex geochemistry and largely uncharacterized impacts on surface waters. In this study, we assessed shifts in microbial community structure and function in sediments and waters upstream and downstream from a UOG wastewater disposal facility. To do this, quantitative...
Water resources of Iberia Parish, Louisiana
Vincent E. White, Lawrence B. Prakken
2017, Fact Sheet 2016-3100
IntroductionInformation concerning the availability, use, and quality of water in Iberia Parish, Louisiana, is critical for proper water-resource management. This fact sheet summarizes the availability, past and current use, use trends, and water quality from groundwater and surface-water sources in the parish for water managers, parish residents, and others to...
Water resources of Concordia Parish, Louisiana
Vincent E. White
2017, Fact Sheet 2016-3099
IntroductionInformation concerning the availability, use, and quality of water in Concordia Parish, Louisiana, is critical for proper water-supply management. The purpose of this fact sheet is to present information that can be used by water managers, parish residents, and others for stewardship of this vital resource. Information on the availability,...
