Landsat brings understanding to the impact of industrialization
U.S. Geological Survey
2016, Fact Sheet 2016-3054
In his 1963 book, “The Quiet Crisis,” former Interior Secretary Stewart Udall lamented what he called the decline of natural resources in the United States under the advancements of industrialization and urbanization....
Landsat plays a key role in reducing hunger on earth
U.S. Geological Survey
2016, Fact Sheet 2016-3059
The United Nations’ Department of Economic and Social Affairs predicts 9.7 billion people will sit down every day to the global dinner table by 2050. If this prediction is correct, the world is going to need more crops, more livestock, and more efficient and sustainable agricultural practices....
NHDPlusHR: A national geospatial framework for surface-water information
Roland J. Viger, Alan H. Rea, Jeffrey D. Simley, Karen M. Hanson
2016, JAWRA (52) 901-905
The U.S. Geological Survey is developing a new geospatial hydrographic framework for the United States, called the National Hydrography Dataset Plus High Resolution (NHDPlusHR), that integrates a diversity of the best-available information, robustly supports ongoing dataset improvements, enables hydrographic generalization to derive alternate representations of the network while maintaining feature...
StreamThermal: A software package for calculating thermal metrics from stream temperature data
Yin-Phan Tsang, Dana M. Infante, Jana S. Stewart, Lizhu Wang, Ralph Tingly, Darren Thornbrugh, Arthur Cooper, Daniel Wesley
2016, Fisheries (41) 548-554
Improving quality and better availability of continuous stream temperature data allows natural resource managers, particularly in fisheries, to understand associations between different characteristics of stream thermal regimes and stream fishes. However, there is no convenient tool to efficiently characterize multiple metrics reflecting stream thermal regimes with the increasing amount...
Transboundary fisheries science: Meeting the challenges of inland fisheries management in the 21st century
Stephen R. Midway, Tyler Wagner, Joseph D. Zydlewski, Brian J. Irwin, Craig P. Paukert
2016, Fisheries (41) 536-546
Managing inland fisheries in the 21st century presents several obstacles, including the need to view fisheries from multiple spatial and temporal scales, which usually involves populations and resources spanning sociopolitical boundaries. Though collaboration is not new to fisheries science, inland aquatic systems have historically been managed at local scales and...
Sedimentation survey of Lago Lucchetti, Yauco, Puerto Rico, September 2013–May 2014
Julieta Gómez-Fragoso
2016, Scientific Investigations Map 3364
The U.S. Geological Survey conducted a sedimentation survey of Lago Lucchetti, Yauco, Puerto Rico, in 2013–14 in cooperation with the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority. The survey updated a previous survey, conducted in 2000, and provided accurate information regarding reservoir storage capacity and sedimentation rate using bathymetric techniques and...
Simulation of climate change effects on streamflow, groundwater, and stream temperature using GSFLOW and SNTEMP in the Black Earth Creek Watershed, Wisconsin
Randall J. Hunt, Stephen M. Westenbroek, John F. Walker, William R. Selbig, R. Steven Regan, Andrew T. Leaf, David A. Saad
2016, Scientific Investigations Report 2016-5091
A groundwater/surface-water model was constructed and calibrated for the Black Earth Creek watershed in south-central Wisconsin. The model was then run to simulate scenarios representing common societal concerns in the basin, focusing on maintaining a cold-water resource in an urbanizing fringe near its upper stream reaches and minimizing downstream flooding....
The Eastern California Shear Zone as the northward extension of the southern San Andreas Fault
Wayne R. Thatcher, James C. Savage, Robert W. Simpson
2016, Journal of Geophysical Research B: Solid Earth (121) 2904-2914
Cluster analysis offers an agnostic way to organize and explore features of the current GPS velocity field without reference to geologic information or physical models using information only contained in the velocity field itself. We have used cluster analysis of the Southern California Global Positioning System (GPS) velocity field to...
State-space modeling of population sizes and trends in Nihoa Finch and Millerbird
P. Marcos Gorresen, Kevin W. Brinck, Richard J. Camp, Chris Farmer, Sheldon M. Plentovich, Paul C. Banko
2016, Condor (118) 542-557
Both of the 2 passerines endemic to Nihoa Island, Hawai‘i, USA—the Nihoa Millerbird (Acrocephalus familiaris kingi) and Nihoa Finch (Telespiza ultima)—are listed as endangered by federal and state agencies. Their abundances have been estimated by irregularly implemented fixed-width strip-transect sampling from 1967 to 2012, from which area-based extrapolation of the...
Geology, hydrology, water quality, and potential for interbasin invasive-species spread by way of the groundwater pathway near Lemont, Illinois
Robert T. Kay, P.C. Mills, P. Ryan Jackson
2016, Scientific Investigations Report 2016-5095
Invasive species such as Asian carps have the potential to travel in the egg, larval, or fry stages from the Des Plaines River (DPR) to the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal (CSSC) by way of the network of secondary-permeability features in the dolomite aquifer between these water bodies. Such movement...
Transition of vegetation states positively affects harvester ants in the Great Basin, United States
Joseph D. Holbrook, David S. Pilliod, Robert Arkle, Janet L. Rachlow, Kerri T. Vierling, Michelle M. Wiest
2016, Rangeland Ecology and Management (69) 449-456
Invasions by non-native plants can alter ecosystems such that new ecological states are reached, but less is known about how these transitions influence animal populations. Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) ecosystems are experiencing state changes because of fire and invasion by exotic annual grasses. Our goal was to study the effects of...
Noise reduction in long‐period seismograms by way of array summing
Adam T. Ringler, David C. Wilson, Tyler Storm, Benjamin T. Marshall, Charles R. Hutt, Austin Holland
2016, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (106) 1991-1997
Long‐period (>100 s period) seismic data can often be dominated by instrumental noise as well as local site noise. When multiple collocated sensors are installed at a single site, it is possible to improve the overall station noise levels by applying stacking methods to their traces. We look at the noise...
A call to insect scientists: Challenges and opportunities of managing insect communities under climate change
Jessica J. Hellmann, Ralph Grundel, Chris Hoving, Gregor W. Schuurman
2016, Current Opinion in Insect Science (17) 92-97
As climate change moves insect systems into uncharted territory, more knowledge about insect dynamics and the factors that drive them could enable us to better manage and conserve insect communities. Climate change may also require us revisit insect management goals and strategies and lead to a new kind of scientific...
Climate warming reduces fish production and benthic habitat in Lake Tanganyika, one of the most biodiverse freshwater ecosystems
Andrew S. Cohen, Elizabeth L. Gergurich, Benjamin M. Kraemer, Michael M. McGlue, Peter B. McIntyre, James M. Russell, Jack D. Simmons, Peter W. Swarzenski
2016, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (113) 9563-9568
Warming climates are rapidly transforming lake ecosystems worldwide, but the breadth of changes in tropical lakes is poorly documented. Sustainable management of freshwater fisheries and biodiversity requires accounting for historical and ongoing stressors such as climate change and harvest intensity. This is problematic in tropical Africa, where records of ecosystem...
Feeding periodicity, diet composition, and food consumption of subyearling rainbow trout in winter
James H. Johnson, Marc Chalupnicki, Ross Abbett
2016, Environmental Biology of Fishes (99) 771-778
Although winter is a critically important period for stream salmonids, aspects of the ecology of several species are poorly understood. Consequently, we examined the diel feeding ecology of subyearling rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) during winter in a central New York stream. Rainbow trout diet was significantly different during...
Kinematic ground motion simulations on rough faults including effects of 3D stochastic velocity perturbations
Robert Graves, Arben Pitarka
2016, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (106) 2136-2153
We describe a methodology for generating kinematic earthquake ruptures for use in 3D ground‐motion simulations over the 0–5 Hz frequency band. Our approach begins by specifying a spatially random slip distribution that has a roughly wavenumber‐squared fall‐off. Given a hypocenter, the rupture speed is specified to average about 75%–80% of the...
Sulfur species in source rock bitumen before and after hydrous pyrolysis determined by X-ray absorption near-edge structure
Trudy B. Bolin, Justin E. Birdwell, Michael Lewan, Ronald J. Hill, Michael B. Grayson, Sudipa Mitra-Kirtley, Kyle D. Bake, Paul R. Craddock, Wael Abdallah, Andrew E. Pomerantz
2016, Energy & Fuels (30) 6264-6270
The sulfur speciation of source rock bitumen (chloroform-extractable organic matter in sedimentary rocks) was examined using sulfur K-edge X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) spectroscopy for a suite of 11 source rocks from around the world. Sulfur speciation was determined for both the native bitumen in thermally immature rocks and the...
Antigenic characterization of H3 subtypes of avian influenza A viruses from North America
Elizabeth Bailey, Li-Pong Long, Nan Zhao, Jeffrey S. Hall, John A Baroch, Jaqueline Nolting, Lucy Senter, Frederick L Cunningham, G Todd Pharr, Larry Hanson, Richard Slemons, Thomas J. DeLiberto, Xiu-Feng Wan
2016, Avian Diseases (60) 346-353
Besides humans, H3 subtypes of influenza A viruses (IAVs) can infect various animal hosts, including avian, swine, equine, canine, and sea mammal species. These H3 viruses are both antigenically and genetically diverse. Here, we characterized the antigenic diversity of contemporary H3 avian IAVs recovered from migratory birds in North America....
Preserving prairies: Understanding temporal and spatial patterns of invasive annual bromes in the Northern Great Plains
Isabel Ashton, Amy J. Symstad, Christopher Davis, Daniel J. Swanson
2016, Ecosphere (7)
Two Eurasian invasive annual brome grasses, cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) and Japanese brome (Bromus japonicus), are well known for their impact in steppe ecosystems of the western United States where these grasses have altered fire regimes, reduced native plant diversity and abundance, and degraded wildlife habitat. Annual bromes are also abundant...
A note on the temporary misregistration of Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Sentinel-2 Multi Spectral Instrument (MSI) imagery
James C. Storey, David P. Roy, Jeffrey Masek, Ferran Gascon, John L. Dwyer, Mike Choate
2016, Remote Sensing of Environment (186) 121-122
The Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2 sensors provide multi-spectral image data with similar spectral and spatial characteristics that together provide improved temporal coverage globally. Both systems are designed to register Level 1 products to a reference image framework, however, the Landsat-8 framework, based upon the Global Land Survey images, contains residual geolocation...
Mineral resources of the Sagebrush Focal Areas of Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming
Warren C. Day, Thomas P. Frost, Jane M. Hammarstrom, Michael L. Zientek, editor(s)
2016, Scientific Investigations Report 2016-5089
Scientific Investigations Report 2016–5089 and accompanying data releases are the products of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Sagebrush Mineral-Resource Assessment (SaMiRA). The assessment was done at the request of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to evaluate the mineral-resource potential of some 10 million acres of Federal and adjacent lands...
Overview with methods and procedures of the U.S. Geological Survey mineral-resource assessment of the Sagebrush Focal Areas of Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming: Chapter A in Mineral resources of the Sagebrush Focal Areas of Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming
Warren C. Day, Jane M. Hammarstrom, Michael L. Zientek, Thomas P. Frost, editor(s)
2016, Scientific Investigations Report 2016-5089-A
This report, chapter A of Scientific Investigations Report 2016–5089, provides an overview of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Sagebrush Mineral-Resource Assessment (SaMiRA). The report also describes the methods, procedures, and voluminous fundamental reference information used throughout the assessment. Data from several major publicly available databases and other published sources were...
Spatial differences in hydrologic characteristics and water chemistry of a temperate coastal plain peatland: The Great Dismal Swamp, USA
Gary K. Speiran, Frederick C. Wurster
2016, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the 15th International Peat Congress 2016
Spatial differences in hydrologic processes and geochemistry across forested peatlands control the response of the wetland-community species and resiliency to natural and anthropogenic disturbances. Knowing these controls is essential to effectively managing peatlands as resilient wetland habitats. The Great Dismal Swamp is a 45,325 hectare peatland in the Atlantic Coastal...
Hydrological conditions and evaluation of sustainable groundwater use in the Sierra Vista Subwatershed, Upper San Pedro Basin, southeastern Arizona
Bruce Gungle, James B. Callegary, Nicholas V. Paretti, Jeffrey R. Kennedy, Christopher J. Eastoe, Dale S. Turner, Jesse E. Dickinson, Lainie R. Levick, Zachary P. Sugg
2016, Scientific Investigations Report 2016-5114
This study assessed progress toward achieving sustainable groundwater use in the Sierra Vista Subwatershed of the Upper San Pedro Basin, Arizona, through evaluation of 14 indicators of sustainable use. Sustainable use of groundwater in the Sierra Vista Subwatershed requires, at a minimum, a stable rate of groundwater discharge to, and...
Effects of salinity and flooding on post-hurricane regeneration potential in coastal wetland vegetation
Beth A. Middleton
2016, American Journal of Botany (103) 1420-1435
PREMISE OF THE STUDY: The nature of regeneration dynamics after hurricane flooding and salinity intrusion may play an important role in shaping coastal vegetation patterns. METHODS: The regeneration potentials of coastal species, types and gradients (wetland types from seaward to landward) were studied on the Delmarva Peninsula after Hurricane Sandy using...
