Mercury in western North America: A synthesis of environmental contamination, fluxes, bioaccumulation, and risk to fish and wildlife
Collin A. Eagles-Smith, James G. Wiener, Chris S. Eckley, James J. Willacker, David C. Evers, Mark C. Marvin-DiPasquale, Daniel Obrist, Jacob Fleck, George R. Aiken, Jesse M. Lepak, Allyson K. Jackson, Jackson Webster, A. Robin Stewart, Jay Davis, Charles N. Alpers, Joshua T. Ackerman
2016, Science of the Total Environment (568) 1213-1226
Western North America is a region defined by extreme gradients in geomorphology and climate, which support a diverse array of ecological communities and natural resources. The region also has extreme gradients in mercury (Hg) contamination due to a broad distribution of inorganic Hg sources. These diverse Hg sources and a...
Changes between early development (1930–60) and recent (2005–15) groundwater-level altitudes and dissolved-solids and nitrate concentrations In and near Gaines, Terry, and Yoakum Counties, Texas
Jonathan V. Thomas, Andrew Teeple, Jason Payne, Scott Ikard
2016, Scientific Investigations Map 3355
Llano Estacado Underground Water Conservation District, Sandy Land Underground Water Conservation District, and South Plains Underground Water Conservation District manage groundwater resources in a part of west Texas near the Texas-New Mexico State line. Declining groundwater levels have raised concerns about the amount of available groundwater in the study area...
Land cover changes associated with recent energy development in the Williston Basin; Northern Great Plains, USA
Todd M. Preston, Kevin Kim
2016, Science of the Total Environment (566-567) 1511-1518
The Williston Basin in the Northern Great Plains has experienced rapid energy development since 2000. To evaluate the land cover changes resulting from recent (2000 – 2015) development, the area and previous land cover of all well pads (pads) constructed during this time was determined, the amount of disturbed and...
Pedestrian flow-path modeling to support tsunami evacuation and disaster relief planning in the U.S. Pacific Northwest
Nathan J. Wood, Jeanne M. Jones, Mathew Schmidtlein, John Schelling, T. Frazier
2016, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction (18) 41-55
Successful evacuations are critical to saving lives from future tsunamis. Pedestrian-evacuation modeling related to tsunami hazards primarily has focused on identifying areas and the number of people in these areas where successful evacuations are unlikely. Less attention has been paid to identifying evacuation pathways and population demand at assembly areas...
A new specimen of Agorophius pygmaeus (Agorophiidae, Odontoceti, Cetacea) from the Early Oligocene Ashley Formation of South Carolina, USA
Stephen J. Godfrey, Mark D. Uhen, Jason E. Osborne, Lucy E. Edwards
2016, Journal of Paleontology (90) 154-169
The holotype partial skull of Agorophius pygmaeus (the monotypic form for both the genus Agorophius and the Family Agorophiidae) has been missing for approximately 140 years. Since the discovery of Agorophius pygmaeus, many additional taxa and specimens have been placed in the Family Agorophiidae, only to be reclassified and removed later. This has created confusion...
Assessing tidal marsh vulnerability to sea-level rise in the Skagit Delta
W. Gregory Hood, Eric E. Grossman, Curt Veldhuisen
2016, Northwest Science (90) 79-93
Historical aerial photographs, from 1937 to the present, show Skagit Delta tidal marshes prograding into Skagit Bay for most of the record, but the progradation rates have been steadily declining and the marshes have begun to erode in recent decades despite the large suspended sediment load provided by the Skagit...
Models for ecological models: Ocean primary productivity
Christopher K. Wikle, William B. Leeds, Mevin Hooten
2016, CHANCE (29) 23-30
The ocean accounts for more than 70% of planet Earth's surface, and it processes are critically important to marine and terrestrial life. Ocean ecosystems are strongly dependent on the physical state of the ocean (e.g., transports, mixing, upwelling, runoff, and ice dynamics(. As an example, consider the Coastal Gulf of...
Groundwater quality data from the National Water-Quality Assessment Project, May 2012 through December 2013
Terri Arnold, Leslie A. DeSimone, Laura M. Bexfield, Bruce D. Lindsey, Jeannie R. B. Barlow, Justin T. Kulongoski, MaryLynn Musgrove, James A. Kingsbury, Kenneth Belitz
2016, Data Series 997
Groundwater-quality data were collected from 748 wells as part of the National Water-Quality Assessment Project of the U.S. Geological Survey National Water-Quality Program from May 2012 through December 2013. The data were collected from four types of well networks: principal aquifer study networks, which assess the quality of groundwater used...
New perspectives on a 140-year legacy of mining and abandoned mine cleanup in the San Juan Mountains, Colorado
Douglas B. Yager, David L. Fey, Thomas Chapin, Raymond H. Johnson
2016, Field Guides (44) 377-419
The Gold King mine water release that occurred on 5 August 2015 near the historical mining community of Silverton, Colorado, highlights the environmental legacy that abandoned mines have on the environment. During reclamation efforts, a breach of collapsed workings at the Gold King mine sent 3 million gallons of acidic...
May through July 2015 storm event effects on suspended-sediment loads, sediment trapping efficiency, and storage capacity of John Redmond Reservoir
Guy M. Foster, Lindsey R. King
2016, Fact Sheet 2016-3035
The Neosho River and its primary tributary, the Cottonwood River, are the main sources of inflow to John Redmond Reservoir in east-central Kansas. Storm events during May through July 2015 caused large inflows of water and sediment into the reservoir. The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Kansas Water...
Geology and geologic history of the Moscow-Pullman basin, Idaho and Washington, from late Grande Ronde to late Saddle Mountains time
John H Bush, Dean L Garwood, Pamela Dunlap
2016, GSA Field Guides (41) 151-174
The Moscow-Pullman basin, located on the eastern margin of the Columbia River flood basalt province, consists of a subsurface mosaic of interlayered Miocene sediments and lava flows of the Imnaha, Grande Ronde, Wanapum, and Saddle Mountains Basalts of the Columbia River Basalt Group. This sequence is ~1800 ft (550 m)...
Effects of May through July 2015 storm events on suspended sediment loads, sediment trapping efficiency, and storage capacity of John Redmond Reservoir, east-central Kansas
Guy M. Foster
2016, Scientific Investigations Report 2016-5040
The Neosho River and its primary tributary, the Cottonwood River, are the main sources of inflow to John Redmond Reservoir in east-central Kansas. Storage loss in the reservoir resulting from sedimentation has been estimated to be 765 acre-feet per year for 1964–2014. The 1964–2014 sedimentation rate was almost 90 percent...
State-dependent resource harvesting with lagged information about system states
Fred A. Johnson, Paul L. Fackler, G Scott Boomer, Guthrie S. Zimmerman, Byron K. Williams, James D. Nichols, Robert Dorazio
2016, PLoS ONE (11) 1-21
Markov decision processes (MDPs), which involve a temporal sequence of actions conditioned on the state of the managed system, are increasingly being applied in natural resource management. This study focuses on the modification of a traditional MDP to account for those cases in which an action must be chosen after...
United States copper metal and scrap use and trade patterns, 1995‒2014
Thomas G. Goonan
2016, Scientific Investigations Report 2016-5075
In 1995, China accounted for 10 percent of world copper consumption. By 2014, China accounted for about 49 percent of world copper consumption. This change has affected global copper and copper scrap prices, the sources of copper supply, and U.S. trade of copper-containing materials. This report considers changes to the copper...
Estimating species – area relationships by modeling abundance and frequency subject to incomplete sampling
Yuichi Yamaura, Edward F. Connor, Andy Royle, Katsuo Itoh, Kiyoshi Sato, Hisatomo Taki, Yoshio Mishima
2016, Ecology and Evolution (6) 4836-4848
Models and data used to describe species–area relationships confound sampling with ecological process as they fail to acknowledge that estimates of species richness arise due to sampling. This compromises our ability to make ecological inferences from and about species–area relationships. We develop and illustrate hierarchical community models of...
Late Pleistocene and Holocene tephrostratigraphy of interior Alaska and Yukon: Key beds and chronologies over the past 30,000 years
Lauren J. Davies, Britta J.L. Jensen, Duane G. Froese, Kristi L. Wallace
2016, Quaternary Science Reviews (146) 28-53
The Aleutian Arc-Alaska Peninsula and Wrangell volcanic field are the main source areas for tephra deposits found across Alaska and northern Canada, and increasingly, <a class="topic-link" title="Learn more about tephra...
Estimating juvenile Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) abundance from beach seine data collected in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta and San Francisco Bay, California
Russell W. Perry, Joseph E. Kirsch, A. Noble Hendrix
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1099
Resource managers rely on abundance or density metrics derived from beach seine surveys to make vital decisions that affect fish population dynamics and assemblage structure. However, abundance and density metrics may be biased by imperfect capture and lack of geographic closure during sampling. Currently, there is considerable uncertainty about the...
Gravity and magnetic studies of the eastern Mojave Desert, California and Nevada
Kevin M. Denton, David A. Ponce
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1070
IntroductionFrom May 2011 to August 2014, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) collected gravity data at more than 2,300 stations and physical property measurements on more than 640 rock samples from outcrops in the eastern Mojave Desert, California and Nevada. Gravity, magnetic, and physical-property data are used to study and locate...
Community exposure to tsunami hazards in Hawai‘i
Jamie L. Jones, Matthew R. Jamieson, Nathan J. Wood
2016, Scientific Investigations Report 2016-5053
Hawai‘i has experienced numerous destructive tsunamis and the potential for future inundation has been described over the years using various historical events and scenarios. To support tsunami preparedness and risk-reduction planning in Hawai‘i, this study documents the variations among 91 coastal communities and 4 counties in the amounts, types, and...
Detection of hepatitis E virus and other livestock-related pathogens in Iowa streams
Carrie E. Givens, Dana W. Kolpin, Mark A. Borchardt, Joseph W. Duris, Thomas B. Moorman, Susan K. Spencer
2016, Science of the Total Environment (566-567) 1042-1051
Manure application is a source of pathogens to the environment. Through overland runoff and tile drainage, zoonotic pathogens can contaminate surface water and streambed sediment and could affect both wildlife and human health. This study examined the environmental occurrence of gene markers for livestock-related bacterial, protozoan, and viral pathogens and...
Trade-offs between energy maximization and parental care in a central place forager, the sea otter
N M Thometz, M. M. Staedler, Joseph A. Tomoleoni, James L. Bodkin, G.B. Bentall, M. Tim Tinker
2016, Behavioral Ecology (27) 1552-1566
Between 1999 and 2014, 126 archival time–depth recorders (TDRs) were used to examine the foraging behavior of southern sea otters (Enhydra lutris nereis) off the coast of California, in both resource-abundant (recently occupied, low sea otter density) and resource-limited (long-occupied, high sea otter density) locations. Following predictions of foraging theory,...
Quantification of human-associated fecal indicators reveal sewage from urban watersheds as a source of pollution to Lake Michigan
Hayley T. Olds, Deborah K. Dila, Melinda J. Bootsma, Steven R. Corsi, Sandra L. McLellan
2016, Water Research (100) 556-567
Sewage contamination of urban waterways from sewer overflows and failing infrastructure is a major environmental and public health concern. Fecal coliforms (FC) are commonly employed as fecal indicator bacteria, but do not distinguish between human and non-human sources of fecal contamination. Human Bacteroides and humanLachnospiraceae, two genetic markers for human-associated indicator bacteria,...
Taxonomy of the order Mononegavirales: update 2016
C.L. Afonso, Gael Kurath, 82 Additional Authors
2016, Archives of Virology (161) 2351-2360
In 2016, the order Mononegavirales was emended through the addition of two new families (Mymonaviridae and Sunviridae), the elevation of the paramyxoviral subfamily Pneumovirinae to family status (Pneumoviridae), the addition of five free-floating genera (Anphevirus, Arlivirus, Chengtivirus, Crustavirus, and Wastrivirus), and several other changes at the genus and species levels....
Geologic and geophysical models for Osage County, Oklahoma, with implications for groundwater resources
Mark R. Hudson, David V. Smith, Michael P. Pantea, Carol Becker
2016, Scientific Investigations Report 2016-5067
This report summarizes a three-dimensional (3-D) geologic model that was constructed to provide a framework to investigate groundwater resources of the Osage Nation in northeastern Oklahoma. This report also presents an analysis of an airborne electromagnetic (AEM) survey that assessed the spatial variation of electrical resistivity to depths as great...
Historical files from Federal Government mineral exploration-assistance programs, 1950 to 1974
David G. Frank
2016, Data Series 1004
The Defense Minerals Administration (DMA), Defense Minerals Exploration Administration (DMEA), and Office of Minerals Exploration (OME) mineral exploration programs were active over the period 1950–1974. Under these programs, the Federal Government contributed financial assistance in the exploration for certain strategic and critical minerals. The information about a mining property that...
