A case study on evaluating impacts of potential climate change on groundwater resources: Groundwater recharge in the Upper Colorado River Basin
Fred D. Tillman, Subhrendu Gangopadhyay, Tom Pruitt
2016, Report
An investigation of the change in groundwater recharge in response to potential climate change was performed for the UCRB using the SWB groundwater recharge model and downscaled climate data from the CMIP5 multi-model dataset. Climate projections from 97 downscaled CMIP5 datasets were assumed to be equally likely and recharge simulation results were combined. Results...
Flow reconstructions in the Upper Missouri River Basin using riparian tree rings
Derek M. Schook, Jonathan M. Friedman, Sara L. Rathburn
2016, Water Resources Research (52) 8159-8173
River flow reconstructions are typically developed using tree rings from montane conifers that cannot reflect flow regulation or hydrologic inputs from the lower portions of a watershed. Incorporating lowland riparian trees may improve the accuracy of flow reconstructions when these trees are physically linked to the alluvial water table. We...
Seismic imaging beneath an InSAR anomaly in eastern Washington State: Shallow faulting associated with an earthquake swarm in a low-hazard area
William J. Stephenson, Jackson K. Odum, Charles W. Wicks Jr., Thomas L. Pratt, Richard J. Blakely
2016, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (106) 1461-1469
In 2001, a rare swarm of small, shallow earthquakes beneath the city of Spokane, Washington, caused ground shaking as well as audible booms over a five‐month period. Subsequent Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) data analysis revealed an area of surface uplift in the vicinity of the earthquake swarm. To investigate...
DOM composition and transformation in boreal forest soils: The effects of temperature and organic-horizon decomposition state
Jonathan A. O’Donnell, George R. Aiken, Kenna D. Butler, Francois Guillemette, David C. Podgorski, Robert G. M. Spencer
2016, Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences (121) 2727-2744
The boreal region stores large amounts of organic carbon (C) in organic-soil horizons, which are vulnerable to destabilization via warming and disturbance. Decomposition of soil organic matter (SOM) contributes to the production and turnover of dissolved organic matter (DOM). While temperature is a primary control on rates of SOM and...
Watershed geomorphological characteristics
Faith A. Fitzpatrick
2016, Book chapter, Handbook of applied hydrology
This chapter describes commonly used geomorphological characteristics that are useful for analyzing watershed-scale hydrology and sediment dynamics. It includes calculations and measurements for stream network features and areal basin characteristics that cover a range of spatial and temporal scales and dimensions of watersheds. Construction and application of longitudinal profiles are...
Testing fault growth models with low-temperature thermochronology in the northwest Basin and Range, USA
Magdalena A. E. Curry, Jason B. Barnes, Joseph P. Colgan
2016, Tectonics (35) 2467-2492
Common fault growth models diverge in predicting how faults accumulate displacement and lengthen through time. A paucity of field-based data documenting the lateral component of fault growth hinders our ability to test these models and fully understand how natural fault systems evolve. Here we outline a framework for using apatite...
First direct evidence of long-distance seasonal movements and hibernation in a migratory bat
Theodore J. Weller, Kevin T. Castle, Felix Liechti, Cris D. Hein, Michael R. Schirmacher, Paul M. Cryan
2016, Scientific Reports (6)
Understanding of migration in small bats has been constrained by limitations of techniques that were labor-intensive, provided coarse levels of resolution, or were limited to population-level inferences. Knowledge of movements and behaviors of individual bats have been unknowable because of limitations in size of tracking devices and methods to attach...
Ontogenetic development of otoliths in Alligator Gar
James M. Long, Richard A. Snow
2016, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (145) 537-544
The Alligator Gar Atractosteus spatula is a species of conservation concern throughout its range, and better definition of otoliths during early development would aid understanding its life history and ecology. We conducted X-ray computed tomography scans, scanning electron microscopy, and light microscopy to examine the three pairs of otoliths and...
Effects of lake trout refuges on lake whitefish and cisco in the Apostle Islands Region of Lake Superior
Chiara M. Zuccarino-Crowe, William W. Taylor, Michael J. Hansen, Michael J. Seider, Charles C. Krueger
2016, Journal of Great Lakes Research (42) 1092-1101
Lake trout refuges in the Apostle Islands region of Lake Superior are analogous to the concept of marine protected areas. These refuges, established specifically for lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) and closed to most forms of recreational and commercial fishing, were implicated as one of several management actions leading to successful...
Bacterial community diversity of the deep-sea octocoral Paramuricea placomus
Christina A. Kellogg, Steve W. Ross, Sandra D. Brooke
2016, PeerJ (4)
Compared to tropical corals, much less is known about deep-sea coral biology and ecology. Although the microbial communities of some deep-sea corals have been described, this is the first study to characterize the bacterial community associated with the deep-sea octocoral, Paramuricea placomus. Samples from five colonies of P. placomus were...
First record of invasive Burmese Python oviposition and brooding inside an anthropogenic structure
Emma Hanslowe, Bryan Falk, Michelle A. M. Collier, Jillian Josimovich, Thomas Rahill, Robert Reed
2016, Southeastern Naturalist (15) 103-106
We discovered an adult female Python bivittatus (Burmese Python) coiled around a clutch of 25 eggs in a cement culvert in Flamingo, FL, in Everglades National Park. To our knowledge, this is the first record of an invasive Burmese Python laying eggs and brooding inside an anthropogenic structure in Florida....
Near-real-time cheatgrass percent cover in the Northern Great Basin, USA, 2015
Stephen P. Boyte, Bruce K. Wylie
2016, Rangelands (38) 278-284
Cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum L.) dramatically changes shrub steppe ecosystems in the Northern Great Basin, United States.Current-season cheatgrass location and percent cover are difficult to estimate rapidly.We explain the development of a near-real-time cheatgrass percent cover dataset and map in the Northern Great Basin for the current year (2015), display the...
Geology, selected geophysics, and hydrogeology of the White River and parts of the Great Salt Lake Desert regional groundwater flow systems, Utah and Nevada
Peter D. Rowley, Gary L. Dixon, James M. Watrus, Andrews G. Burns, Edward A. Mankinen, Edwin H. McKee, Keith T. Pari, E. Bartlett Ekren, William G. Patrick
John B. Comer, Paul C. Inkenbrandt, K.A. Krahulec, Michael L. Pinnell, editor(s)
2016, Book chapter, Resources and Geo- logy of Utah's West Desert
The east-central Great Basin near the Utah-Nevada border contains two great groundwater flow systems. The first, the White River regional groundwater flow system, consists of a string of hydraulically connected hydrographic basins in Nevada spanning about 270 miles from north to south. The northernmost basin is Long Valley...
Expert elicitation of population-level effects of disturbance
Erica Fleishman, Mark Burgman, Michael C. Runge, Robert S Schick, Scott Krauss
Arthur N. Popper, Anthony Hawkins, editor(s)
2016, Book chapter, The effects of noise on aquatic life II
Expert elicitation is a rigorous method for synthesizing expert knowledge to inform decision making and is reliable and practical when field data are limited. We evaluated the feasibility of applying expert elicitation to estimate population-level effects of disturbance on marine mammals. Diverse experts estimated parameters related to mortality and sublethal...
Latest Pleistocene and Holocene glacial events in the Colonia valley, Northern Patagonia Icefield, southern Chile
David A. Nimick, Daniel Mcgrath, Shannon A. Mahan, Beverly A. Friesen, Jonathan Leidich
2016, Journal of Quaternary Science (31) 551-564
The Northern Patagonia Icefield (NPI) is the primary glaciated terrain worldwide at its latitude (46.5–47.5°S), and constraining its glacial history provides unique information for reconstructing Southern Hemisphere paleoclimate. The Colonia Glacier is the largest outlet glacier draining the eastern NPI. Ages were determined using dendrochronology, lichenometry, radiocarbon, cosmogenic 10Be and...
Considerations for building climate-based species distribution models
David N. Bucklin, Mathieu Basille, Stephanie S. Romanach, Laura A. Brandt, Frank J. Mazzotti, James I. Watling
2016, Report
Climate plays an important role in the distribution of species. A given species may adjust to new conditions in-place, move to new areas with suitable climates, or go extinct. Scientists and conservation practitioners use mathematical models to predict the effects of future climate change on wildlife and plan for a...
Scaling relation between earthquake magnitude and the departure time from P wave similar growth
Shunta Noda, William L. Ellsworth
2016, Geophysical Research Letters (43) 9053-9060
We introduce a new scaling relation between earthquake magnitude (M) and a characteristic of initial P wave displacement. By examining Japanese K-NET data averaged in bins partitioned by Mw and hypocentral distance, we demonstrate that the P wave displacement briefly displays similar growth at the onset of rupture and that the...
Coastal deposits of heavy mineral sands; Global significance and US resources
Bradley S. Van Gosen, Donald I. Bleiwas, George M. Bedinger, Karl J. Ellefsen, Anjana K. Shah
2016, Mining Engineering (68) 36-43
Ancient and modern coastal deposits of heavy mineral sands (HMS) are the principal source of several heavy industrial minerals, with mining and processing operations on every continent except Antarctica. For example, HMS deposits are the main source of titanium feedstock for the titanium dioxide (TiO2) pigments industry, obtained from the...
Hydrothermal frictional strengths of rock and mineral samples relevant to the creeping section of the San Andreas Fault
Diane E. Moore, David A. Lockner, Stephen H. Hickman
2016, Journal of Structural Geology (89) 153-167
We compare frictional strengths in the temperature range 25–250 °C of fault gouge from SAFOD (CDZ and SDZ) with quartzofeldspathic wall rocks typical of the central creeping section of the San Andreas Fault (Great Valley sequence and Franciscan Complex). The Great Valley and Franciscan samples have coefficients of friction, μ >...
Variation of organic matter quantity and quality in streams at Critical Zone Observatory watersheds
Matthew P. Miller, Elizabeth W. Boyer, Diane M. McKnight, Michael G. Brown, Rachel S. Gabor, Carolyn T. Hunsaker, Lidiia Iavorivska, Shreeram Inamdar, Louis A. Kaplan, Dale W. Johnson, Henry Lin, William H. McDowell, Julia N. Perdrial
2016, Water Resources Research (52) 8202-8216
The quantity and chemical composition of dissolved organic matter (DOM) in surface waters influence ecosystem processes and anthropogenic use of freshwater. However, despite the importance of understanding spatial and temporal patterns in DOM, measures of DOM quality are not routinely included as part of large-scale ecosystem monitoring programs and variations...
Cultivation of a native alga for biomass and biofuel accumulation in coal bed methane production water
Logan H. Hodgskiss, Justin Nagy, Elliott P. Barnhart, Alfred B. Cunningham, Matthew W. Fields
2016, Algal Research (19) 63-68
Coal bed methane (CBM) production has resulted in thousands of ponds in the Powder River Basin of low-quality water in a water-challenged region. A green alga isolate, PW95, was isolated from a CBM production pond, and analysis of a partial ribosomal gene sequence indicated the isolate belongs to the Chlorococcaceae...
Lateral and subsurface flows impact arctic coastal plain lake water budgets
Joshua C. Koch
2016, Hydrological Processes (30) 3918-3931
Arctic thaw lakes are an important source of water for aquatic ecosystems, wildlife, and humans. Many recent studies have observed changes in Arctic surface waters related to climate warming and permafrost thaw; however, explaining the trends and predicting future responses to warming is difficult without a stronger fundamental understanding of...
A synthesis of terrestrial mercury in the western United States: Spatial distribution defined by land cover and plant productivity
Daniel Obrist, Christopher Pearson, Jackson Webster, Tyler J. Kane, Che-Jen Lin, George R. Aiken, Charles N. Alpers
2016, Science of the Total Environment (568) 522-535
A synthesis of published vegetation mercury (Hg) data across 11 contiguous states in the western United States showed that aboveground biomass concentrations followed the order: leaves (26 μg kg− 1) ~ branches (26 μg kg− 1) > bark (16 μg kg− 1) > bole wood (1 μg kg− 1). No spatial trends of Hg in aboveground biomass distribution were detected, which likely is due to very sparse...
Inter-comparison of three-dimensional models of volcanic plumes
Yujiro Suzuki, Antonio Costa, Matteo Cerminara, Tomaso Esposti Ongaro, Michael Herzog, Alexa R. Van Eaton, Leif Denby
2016, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research (326) 26-42
We performed an inter-comparison study of three-dimensional models of volcanic plumes. A set of common volcanological input parameters and meteorological conditions were provided for two kinds of eruptions, representing a weak and a strong eruption column. From the different models, we compared the maximum plume height, neutral buoyancy level (where...
Seismic evidence of glacial-age river incision into the Tahaa barrier reef, French Polynesia
Michael Toomey, Jonathan D. Woodruff, Andrew D. Ashton, J. Taylor Perron
2016, Marine Geology (380) 284-289
Rivers have long been recognized for their ability to shape reef-bound volcanic islands. On the time-scale of glacial–interglacial sea-level cycles, fluvial incision of exposed barrier reef lagoons may compete with constructional coral growth to shape the coastal geomorphology of ocean islands. However, overprinting of Pleistocene landscapes by Holocene erosion or...
