Geospatial data for coal beds in the Powder River Basin, Wyoming and Montana
Scott A. Kinney, David C. Scott, Lee M. Osmonson, James A. Luppens
2015, Data Series 912
The purpose of this report is to provide geospatial data for various layers and themes in a Geographic Information System (GIS) format for the Powder River Basin, Wyoming and Montana. In 2015, as part of the U.S. Coal Resources and Reserves Assessment Project, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) completed an...
Summary of urban stormwater quality in Albuquerque, New Mexico, 2003-12
Erik F. Storms, Gretchen P. Oelsner, Evan A. Locke, Michael R. Stevens, Orlando C. Romero
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5006
Urban stormwater in the Albuquerque metropolitan area was sampled by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the City of Albuquerque, the Albuquerque Metropolitan Arroyo Flood Control Authority, the New Mexico Department of Transportation, and the University of New Mexico. Stormwater was sampled from a network of monitoring stations from...
Bathymetric and velocimetric surveys at highway bridges crossing the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers on the periphery of Missouri, June 2014
Richard J. Huizinga
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5048
Bathymetric and velocimetric data were collected by the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Missouri Department of Transportation, in the vicinity of 8 bridges at 7 highway crossings of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers on the periphery of Missouri from June 3 to 11, 2014. A multibeam echosounder mapping...
Near-surface stratigraphy and morphology, Mississippi Inner Shelf, northern Gulf of Mexico
James G. Flocks, Jack Kindinger, Kyle W. Kelso, Julie Bernier, Nancy T. DeWitt, Michael FitzHarris
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1014
Over the past decade, the Mississippi Barrier Islands have been the focus of a comprehensive geologic investigation by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in collaboration with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and the National Park Service (NPS). The islands (Dauphin, Petite Bois, Horn, East Ship, West Ship, and...
Temperature impacts on the water year 2014 drought in California
Shraddhanand Shukla, Mohammad Safeeq, Amir AghaKouchak, Kaiyu Guan, Christopher C. Funk
2015, Geophysical Research Letters (42) 4384-4393
California is experiencing one of the worst droughts on record. Here we use a hydrological model and risk assessment framework to understand the influence of temperature on the water year (WY) 2014 drought in California and examine the probability that this drought would have been less severe if temperatures resembled...
Analysis of regional rainfall-runoff parameters for the Lake Michigan Diversion hydrological modeling
David T. Soong, Thomas M. Over
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5053
The Lake Michigan Diversion Accounting (LMDA) system has been developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Chicago District (USACE-Chicago) and the State of Illinois as a part of the interstate Great Lakes water regulatory program. The diverted Lake Michigan watershed is a 673-square-mile watershed that is comprised of the...
Testing of candidate non-lethal sampling methods for detection of Renibacterium salmoninarum in juvenile Chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha
Diane G. Elliott, Constance L. McKibben, Carla M. Conway, Maureen K. Purcell, Dorothy M. Chase, Lynn M. Applegate
2015, Diseases of Aquatic Organisms (114) 21-43
Non-lethal pathogen testing can be a useful tool for fish disease research and management. Our research objectives were to determine if (1) fin clips, gill snips, surface mucus scrapings, blood draws, or kidney biopsies could be obtained non-lethally from 3 to 15 g Chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha, (2) non-lethal samples could...
Potential demographic and genetic effects of a sterilant applied to wild horse mares
James E. Roelle, Sara J. Oyler-McCance
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1045
Wild horse populations on western ranges can increase rapidly, resulting in the need for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to remove animals in order to protect the habitat that horses share with numerous other species. As an alternative to removals, BLM has sought to develop a long-term, perhaps even...
U.S. Geological Survey water-resources programs in New Mexico, FY 2015
David P. Mau
2015, Fact Sheet 2015-3039
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has collected hydrologic information in New Mexico since 1889, beginning with the first USGS streamflow-gaging station in the Nation, located on the Rio Grande near Embudo, New Mexico. Water-resources information provided by the USGS is used by many government agencies for issuing flood warnings to...
Results from laboratory and field testing of nitrate measuring spectrophotometers
Teri T. Snazelle
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1065
Five ultraviolet (UV) spectrophotometer nitrate analyzers were evaluated by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Hydrologic Instrumentation Facility (HIF) during a two-phase evaluation. In Phase I, the TriOS ProPs (10-millimeter (mm) path length), Hach NITRATAX plus sc (5-mm path length), Satlantic Submersible UV Nitrate Analyzer (SUNA, 10-mm path length), and S::CAN...
Evaluation of Xylem EXO water-quality sondes and sensors
Teri T. Snazelle
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1063
Two models of multiparameter sondes manufactured by Xylem, parent company of Yellow Springs Incorporated (YSI)—EXO1 and EXO2—equipped with EXO conductivity/temperature (C/T), pH, dissolved oxygen (DO), and turbidity sensors, were evaluated by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Hydrologic Instrumentation Facility. The sondes and sensors were evaluated in two phases for compliance with...
The source, discharge, and chemical characteristics of selected springs, and the abundance and health of associated endemic anuran species in the Mojave network parks
Roy A. Schroeder, Gregory A. Smith, Peter Martin, Alan L. Flint, Elizabeth Gallegos, Robert N. Fisher
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5027
Hydrological and biological investigations were done during 2005 and 2006 in cooperation with the U.S. National Park Service to investigate the source, discharge, and chemical characteristics of selected springs and the abundance and health of endemic anuran (frog and toad) species at Darwin Falls in Death Valley National Park, Piute...
Seismotectonic significance of the 2008–2010 Walloon Brabant seismic swarm in the Brabant Massif, Belgium
Koen Van Noten, Thomas Lecocq, Anjana K. Shah, Thierry Camelbeeck
2015, Tectonophysics (656) 20-38
Between 12 July 2008 and 18 January 2010 a seismic swarm occurred close to the town of Court-Saint-Etienne, 20 km SE of Brussels (Belgium). The Belgian network and a temporary seismic network covering the epicentral area established a seismic catalogue in which magnitude varies between ML -0.7 and ML 3.2. Based on waveform...
Conservation paleobiology: Leveraging knowledge of the past to inform conservation and restoration
Gregory P. Dietl, Susan M. Kidwell, Mark Brenner, David A. Burney, Karl W. Flessa, Stephen T. Jackson, Paul L. Koch
2015, Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences (43) 79-103
Humans now play a major role in altering Earth and its biota. Finding ways to ameliorate human impacts on biodiversity and to sustain and restore the ecosystem services on which we depend is a grand scientific and societal challenge. Conservation paleobiology is an emerging discipline that uses geohistorical data to...
Monitoring Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem wetlands: Can long-term monitoring help us understand their future?
Andrew M. Ray, Adam J. Sepulveda, Blake R. Hossack, Debra Patla, David Thoma, Robert K. Al-Chokhachy, Andrea R. Litt
2015, Yellowstone Science (23) 44-53
In the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), changes in the drying cycles of wetlands have been documented. Wetlands are areas where the water table is at or near the land surface and standing shallow water is present for much or all of the growing season. We discuss how monitoring data can...
Western juniper management: assessing strategies for improving greater sage-grouse habitat and rangeland productivity
Shahla Farzan, Derek J.N. Young, Allison G. Dedrick, Mattew Hamilton, Erik C. Porse, Peter S. Coates, Gabriel Sampson
2015, Environmental Management (56) 675-683
Western juniper (Juniperus occidentalis subsp. occidentalis) range expansion into sagebrush steppe ecosystems has affected both native wildlife and economic livelihoods across western North America. The potential listing of the greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) under the U.S. Endangered Species Act has spurred a decade of juniper removal efforts,...
Flood-inundation maps for the White River at Indianapolis, Indiana, 2014
Elizabeth A. Nystrom
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5051
Digital flood-inundation maps for a 6.4-mile reach of the White River in Indianapolis, Indiana, from 0.3 miles upstream of Michigan Street to the Harding Street Generating Station dam (at the confluence with Lick Creek), were created by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in cooperation with the Indiana Office of Community...
Database for the geologic map of Upper Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Atosa A. Abendini, Joel E. Robinson, L.J. Patrick Muffler, D. E. White, Melvin H. Beeson, A. H. Truesdell
2015, Data Series 911
This dataset contains contacts, geologic units, and map boundaries from Miscellaneous Investigations Series Map I-1371, "The Geologic map of upper Geyser Basin, Yellowstone, National Park, Wyoming". This dataset was constructed to produce a digital geologic map as a basis for ongoing studies of hydrothermal processes....
Scientific information in support of water resource management of the Big River area, Rhode Island
David S. Armstrong, John P. Masterson, Keith W. Robinson, Kathleen M. Crawley
2015, Fact Sheet 2015-3035
The Rhode Island Water Resources Board (RIWRB) is concerned that the demand for water may exceed the available public water supply in central and southern Rhode Island. Although water is often assumed to be plentiful in Rhode Island because of abundant rainfall, an adequate supply of water is not always...
Gravity data from the Sierra Vista Subwatershed, Upper San Pedro Basin, Arizona
Jeffrey R. Kennedy
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1086
Observations of very small changes of Earth’s gravitational field (time-lapse gravity) provide a direct, non-invasive method for measuring changes in aquifer storage change. An existing network of gravity stations in the Sierra Vista Subwatershed was revised in 2014 to better understand the spatial distribution of changes in aquifer storage, especially...
Habitat use patterns of the invasive red lionfish Pterois volitans: a comparison between mangrove and reef systems in San Salvador, Bahamas
Catalina Pimiento, James C. Nifong, Margaret E. Hunter, Eric Monaco, Brian R. Silliman
2015, Marine Ecology Progress Series (36) 28-37
The Indo-Pacific red lionfish Pterois volitans is widespread both in its native and its non-native habitats. The rapid invasion of this top predator has had a marked negative effect on fish populations in the Western Atlantic and the Caribbean. It is now well documented that lionfish are invading many tropical and sub-tropical...
Geochemical and mineralogical sampling of the Devonian shales in the Broadtop synclinorium, Appalachian basin, in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania
Catherine B. Enomoto, James L. Coleman Jr., Christopher S. Swezey, Patrick W. Niemeyer, Frank T. Dulong
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1061
Reconnaissance field mapping and outcrop sampling for geochemical and mineralogical analyses indicate that the Middle Devonian Marcellus Shale in the Broadtop synclinorium and nearby areas from southeastern West Virginia to south-central Pennsylvania has an organic content sufficiently high and a thermal maturity sufficiently moderate to be considered for a shale...
Indian National Gas Hydrate Program Expedition 01 report
Timothy S. Collett, M. Riedel, R. Boswell, J. Presley, P. Kumar, A. Sathe, A. Sethi, M.V. Lall, NGHP Expedition Scientists
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5054
Gas hydrate is a naturally occurring “ice-like” combination of natural gas and water that has the potential to serve as an immense resource of natural gas from the world’s oceans and polar regions. However, gas-hydrate recovery is both a scientific and a technical challenge and much remains to be learned...
Historic and forecasted population and land-cover change in eastern North Carolina, 1992-2030
Peter R. Claggett, Hearn Jr., David I. Donato
2015, Open-File Report 2014-1125
The Southeast Regional Partnership for Planning and Sustainability (SERPPAS) was formed in 2005 as a partnership between the Department of Defense (DOD) and State and Federal agencies to promote better collaboration in making resource-use decisions. In support of this goal, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) conducted a study to evaluate...
Temporal and basin-specific population trends of quagga mussels on soft sediment of a multi-basin reservoir
Timothy J Caldwell, Michael R. Rosen, Sudeep Chandra, Kumud Acharya, Andrea M Caires, Clinton J. Davis, Melissa Thaw, Daniel M. Webster
2015, Book chapter, Biology and management of invasive Quagga and Zebra Mussels in the western United States
Invasive quagga (Dreissena bugnesis) and zebra (Dreissena ploymorpha) mussels have rapidly spread throughout North America. Understanding the relationships between environmental variables and quagga mussels during the early stages of invasion will help management strategies and allow researchers to predict patterns of future invasions. Quagga mussels were detected in Lake Mead,...
