Groundwater quality in the Lake Champlain and Susquehanna River basins, New York, 2014
Tia-Marie Scott, Elizabeth A. Nystrom, James E. Reddy
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1153
In a study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, groundwater samples were collected from 6 production wells and 7 domestic wells in the Lake Champlain Basin and from 11 production wells and 9 domestic wells in the Susquehanna River...
Streamflow and estimated loads of phosphorus and dissolved and suspended solids from selected tributaries to Lake Ontario, New York, water years 2012–14
Brett A. Hayhurst, Benjamin N. Fisher, James E. Reddy
2016, Scientific Investigations Report 2016-5084
This report presents results of the evaluation and interpretation of hydrologic and water-quality data collected as part of a cooperative program between the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Streamflow, phosphorus, and solids dissolved and suspended in stream water were the focus of monitoring by the U.S....
The South Carolina bridge-scour envelope curves
Stephen T. Benedict, Toby D. Feaster, Andral W. Caldwell
2016, Scientific Investigations Report 2016-5121
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the South Carolina Department of Transportation, conducted a series of three field investigations to evaluate historical, riverine bridge scour in the Piedmont and Coastal Plain regions of South Carolina. These investigations included data collected at 231 riverine bridges, which lead to the development...
Digital elevations and extents of regional hydrogeologic units in the Northern Atlantic Coastal Plain aquifer system from Long Island, New York, to North Carolina
Jason P. Pope, David C. Andreasen, E. Randolph Mcfarland, Martha K. Watt
2016, Data Series 996
Digital geospatial datasets of the extents and top elevations of the regional hydrogeologic units of the Northern Atlantic Coastal Plain aquifer system from Long Island, New York, to northeastern North Carolina were developed to provide an updated hydrogeologic framework to support analysis of groundwater resources. The 19 regional hydrogeologic units...
Characterization of water-quality and bed-sediment conditions in Currituck Sound, North Carolina, prior to the Mid-Currituck Bridge construction, 2011–15
Chad R. Wagner, Sharon Fitzgerald, Dominick J. Antolino
2016, Open-File Report 2015-1208
The North Carolina Turnpike Authority, a division of the North Carolina Department of Transportation, is planning to make transportation improvements in the Currituck Sound area by constructing a two-lane bridge from U.S. Highway 158 just south of Coinjock, North Carolina, to State Highway 12 on the Outer Banks just south...
Nutrient, organic carbon, and chloride concentrations and loads in selected Long Island Sound tributaries—Four decades of change following the passage of the Federal Clean Water Act
John R. Mullaney
2016, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5189
Trends in long-term water-quality and streamflow data from 14 water-quality monitoring sites in Connecticut were evaluated for water years 1974–2013 and 2001–13, coinciding with implementation of the Clean Water Act of 1972 and the Connecticut Nitrogen Credit Exchange program, as part of an assessment of nutrient and chloride concentrations and...
TopoLens: Building a cyberGIS community data service for enhancing the usability of high-resolution National Topographic datasets
Hao Hu, Xingchen Hong, Jeff Terstriep, Yan Liu, Michael P. Finn, Johnathan Rush, Jeffrey Wendel, Shaowen Wang
2016, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the XSEDE16 Conference on Diversity, Big Data, and Science at Scale
Geospatial data, often embedded with geographic references, are important to many application and science domains, and represent a major type of big data. The increased volume and diversity of geospatial data have caused serious usability issues for researchers in various scientific domains, which call for innovative cyberGIS solutions. To address...
Earthquake ground motion
Nico Luco, Charles A. Kircher, C. B. Crouse, Finley Charney, Curt B. Haselton, Jack W. Baker, Reid Zimmerman, John D. Hooper, William McVitty, Andy Taylor
2016, Report, 2015 NEHRP Recommended Seismic Provisions: Design Examples
Most of the effort in seismic design of buildings and other structures is focused on structural design. This chapter addresses another key aspect of the design process—characterization of earthquake ground motion into parameters for use in design. Section 3.1 describes the basis of the earthquake ground motion maps in the...
Data from exploratory sampling of groundwater in selected oil and gas areas of coastal Los Angeles County and Kern and Kings Counties in southern San Joaquin Valley, 2014–15: California oil, gas, and groundwater project
David B. Dillon, Tracy A. Davis, Matthew K. Landon, Michael T. Land, Michael T. Wright, Justin T. Kulongoski
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1181
Exploratory sampling of groundwater in coastal Los Angeles County and Kern and Kings Counties of the southern San Joaquin Valley was done by the U.S. Geological Survey from September 2014 through January 2015 as part of the California State Water Resources Control Board’s Water Quality in Areas of Oil...
The removal kinetics of dissolved organic matter and the optical clarity of groundwater
Francis H. Chapelle, Yuan Shen, Eric W. Strom, Ronald Benner
2016, Hydrogeology Journal (24) 1413-1422
Concentrations of dissolved organic matter (DOM) and ultraviolet/visible light absorbance decrease systematically as groundwater moves through the unsaturated zones overlying aquifers and along flowpaths within aquifers. These changes occur over distances of tens of meters (m) implying rapid removal kinetics of the chromophoric DOM that imparts color to groundwater. A...
Records of continental slope sediment flow morphodynamic responses to gradient and active faulting from integrated AUV and ROV data, offshore Palos Verdes, southern California Borderland
Katherine L. Maier, Daniel S. Brothers, Charles K. Paull, Mary McGann, David W. Caress, James E. Conrad
2016, Marine Geology (393) 47-66
Variations in seabed gradient are widely acknowledged to influence deep-water deposition, but are often difficult to measure in sufficient detail from both modern and ancient examples. On the continental slope offshore Los Angeles, California, autonomous underwater vehicle, remotely operated vehicle, and shipboard methods were used to collect a dense grid...
Amino acid specific stable nitrogen isotope values in avian tissues: Insights from captive American kestrels and wild herring gulls
Craig E. Hebert, B.N. Popp, K.J. Fernie, C. Ka'apu-Lyons, Barnett A. Rattner, N. Wallsgrove
2016, Environmental Science & Technology (50) 12928-12937
Through laboratory and field studies, the utility of amino acid compound-specific nitrogen isotope analysis (AA-CSIA) in avian studies is investigated. Captive American kestrels (Falco sparverius) were fed an isotopically characterized diet and patterns in δ15N values of amino acids (AAs) were compared to those in their tissues (muscle and red...
Helium as a tracer for fluids released from Juan de Fuca lithosphere beneath the Cascadia forearc
Patricia A. McCrory, James E. Constantz, Andrew G. Hunt, J. Luke Blair
2016, Geochemistry International (17) 2423-2449
The ratio between helium isotopes (3He/4He) provides an excellent geochemical tracer for investigating the sources of fluids sampled at the Earth's surface. 3He/4He values observed in 25 mineral springs and wells above the Cascadia forearc document a significant component of mantle-derived helium above Juan de Fuca lithosphere, as well as...
An investigation of soil-structure interaction effects observed at the MIT Green Building
Ertugrul Taciroglu, Mehmet Çelebi, S. Farid Ghahari, Fariba Abazarsa
2016, Earthquake Spectra (32) 2425-2448
The soil-foundation impedance function of the MIT Green Building is identified from its response signals recorded during an earthquake. Estimation of foundation impedance functions from seismic response signals is a challenging task, because: (1) the foundation input motions (FIMs) are not directly measurable, (2) the as-built properties of the super-structure...
PhasePApy: A robust pure Python package for automatic identification of seismic phases
Chen Chen, Austin Holland
2016, Seismological Research Letters (87) 1384-1396
We developed a Python phase identification package: the PhasePApy for earthquake data processing and near‐real‐time monitoring. The package takes advantage of the growing number of Python libraries including Obspy. All the data formats supported by Obspy can be supported within the PhasePApy. The PhasePApy has two subpackages: the PhasePicker and...
Modeling the geographic distribution of Ixodes scapularis and Ixodes pacificus (Acari: Ixodidae) in the contiguous United States
Micah Hahn, Catherine S. Jarnevich, Andrew J. Monaghan, Rebecca J. Eisen
2016, Journal of Medical Entomology (53) 1176-1191
In addition to serving as vectors of several other human pathogens, the black-legged tick, Ixodes scapularis Say, and western black-legged tick, Ixodes pacificus Cooley and Kohls, are the primary vectors of the spirochete (Borrelia burgdorferi ) that causes Lyme disease, the most common vector-borne disease in the United States. Over...
Multiscale perspectives of fire, climate and humans in western North America and the Jemez Mountains, USA
Thomas W. Swetnam, Joshua Farella, Christopher I. Roos, Matthew J. Liebmann, Donald A. Falk, Craig D. Allen
2016, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (371)
Interannual climate variations have been important drivers of wildfire occurrence in ponderosa pine forests across western North America for at least 400 years, but at finer scales of mountain ranges and landscapes human land uses sometimes over-rode climate influences. We reconstruct and analyse effects of high human population densities...
Transformational principles for NEON sampling of mammalian parasites and pathogens: A response to Springer and colleagues
Joseph A. Cook, Stephen E. Greiman, Salvatore J. Agosta, Robert P. Anderson, B. S. Arbogast, Robert J. Baker, Walter Boeger, Robert D. Bradley, Daniel R. Brooks, Rebecca A. Cole, John R. Demboski, Andrew P. Dobson, Jonathan L. Dunnum, Ralph P. Eckerlin, Jacob A. Esselstyn, Kurt E. Galbreath, John Hawdon, Hopi E. Hoekstra, Susan J. Kutz, Jessica E. Light, Link E. Olson, Bruce D. Patterson, James L. Patton, Anna J. Phillips, Eric Rickart, Duke S. Rogers, Mark E. Siddall, Vasyl V. Tkach, Eric P. Hoberg
2016, BioScience (66) 917-919
No abstract available....
Hydrologic exchange flows and their ecological consequences in river corridors
Judson Harvey
2016, Book chapter, Stream ecosystems in a changing environment
The actively flowing waters of streams and rivers remain in close contact with surrounding off-channel and subsurface environments. These hydrologic linkages between relatively fast flowing channel waters, with more slowly flowing waters off-channel and in the subsurface, are collectively referred to as hydrologic exchange flows (HEFs). HEFs include surface exchange...
Assessing the seismic risk potential of South America
Kishor S. Jaiswal, Mark D. Petersen, Stephen Harmsen, Gregory M. Smoczyk
2016, Conference Paper
We present here a simplified approach to quantifying regional seismic risk. The seismic risk for a given region can be inferred in terms of average annual loss (AAL) that represents long-term value of earthquake losses in any one year caused from a long-term seismic hazard. The AAL are commonly measured...
The Impacts of flow alterations to crayfishes in Southeastern Oklahoma, with an emphasis on the mena crayfish (orconectes menae)
Shannon K. Brewer, Joseph J. Dyer
2016, Report
Human activities can alter the environment to the point that it is unsuitable to the native species resulting in a loss of biodiversity. Ecologists understand the importance of biodiversity and the conservation of vulnerable species. Species that are narrowly endemic are considered to be particularly vulnerable because they often use...
Contributions of moderately low flows and large floods to geomorphic change in the Rio Puerco Arroyo, New Mexico
Eleanor R. Griffin, Jonathan M. Friedman
2016, Conference Paper, New Mexico Fall Field Conference Guidebook
Abstract—From the mid-1800s to around 1930, monsoonal floods incised an arroyo roughly 100 m wide and 10 m deep along the lower Rio Puerco, NM, from the confluence with the Rio San Jose downstream to the mouth at the Rio Grande, causing sedimentation and flooding downstream. Since the 1930s, the...
Glacial Lake Hitchcock and the sea: Fieldtrip Guidebook for the 78th Annual Reunion of the Northeast Friends of the Pleistocene
Janet Radway Stone, J.C. Ridge, Ralph S. Lewis, Mary L. DiGiacomo-Cohen
Margaret A. Thomas, editor(s)
2016, Book
The fieldtrip will demonstrate the evidence for a close connection of Lake Hitchcock levels with lake levels and the position of sea level in Long Island Sound via a channel cut into glacial lake deposits in the lower Connecticut River valley, which issuperposed on a bedrock ridge at the mouth of the Connecticut...
South Park, Colorado: The interplay of tectonics and sedimentation creates one of Colorado’s crown jewels
Peter E Barkmann, Edward J Sterne, Marieke Dechesne, Karen J. Houck
S.M. Keller, Matthew L. Morgan, editor(s)
2016, Book chapter, Unfolding the Geology of the West: Geological Society of America Field Guide
Recent mapping efforts and hydrocarbon exploration in the South Park Basin have brought to light the magnitude in complexity of a structural basin already recognized for its unique sedimentary and tectonic setting. This fi eld trip to one of Colorado’s scenic gems will examine how Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic strata record the tectonic signatures...
Review of suspended sediment in lower South Bay relevant to light attenuation and phytoplankton blooms
David H. Schoellhamer, Gregory Shellenbarger, Maureen A. Downing-Kunz, Andrew J. Manning
2016, Report, Lower South Bay Nutrient Synthesis
Lower South Bay (LSB), a shallow subembayment of San Francisco Bay (SFB), is situated south of the Dumbarton Bridge, and is surrounded by, and interconnected with, a network of sloughs, marshes, and former salt ponds undergoing restoration (Figure ES.1). LSB receives 120 million gallons per day of treated wastewater effluent...
