Book review: Mineral resource estimation
Mark J. Mihalasky
2016, Economic Geology (111) 272-274
Mineral Resource Estimation is about estimating mineral resources at the scale of an ore deposit and is not to be mistaken with mineral resource assessment, which is undertaken at a significantly broader scale, even if similar data and geospatial/geostatistical methods are used. The book describes geological, statistical, and geostatistical tools...
Mapping extent and change in surface mines within the United States for 2001 to 2006
Christopher E. Soulard, William Acevedo, Stephen V. Stehman, Owen P. Parker
2016, Land Degradation and Development (27) 248-257
A complete, spatially explicit dataset illustrating the 21st century mining footprint for the conterminous United States does not exist. To address this need, we developed a semi-automated procedure to map the country's mining footprint (30-m pixel) and establish a baseline to monitor changes in mine extent over time. The process...
Avian response to fire in pine–oak forests of Great Smoky Mountains National Park following decades of fire suppression
Eli T. Rose, Theodore R. Simons
2016, The Condor (118) 179-193
Fire suppression in southern Appalachian pine–oak forests during the past century dramatically altered the bird community. Fire return intervals decreased, resulting in local extirpation or population declines of many bird species adapted to post-fire plant communities. Within Great Smoky Mountains National Park, declines have been strongest for birds inhabiting xeric...
Quantifying pollen-vegetation relationships to reconstruct ancient forests using 19th-century forest composition and pollen data
Andria Dawson, Christopher J. Paciorek, Jason S. McLachlan, Simon Goring, John W. Williams, Stephen T. Jackson
2016, Quaternary Science Reviews (137) 156-175
Mitigation of climate change and adaptation to its effects relies partly on how effectively land-atmosphere interactions can be quantified. Quantifying composition of past forest ecosystems can help understand processes governing forest dynamics in a changing world. Fossil pollen data provide information about past forest composition,...
Weathering a Perfect Storm from Space
Jeffrey J. Love
2016, Earth Magazine (61) 8-9
Extreme space-weather events — intense solar and geomagnetic storms — have occurred in the past: most recently in 1859, 1921 and 1989. So scientists expect that, sooner or later, another extremely intense spaceweather event will strike Earth again. Such storms have the potential to cause widespread interference with and damage...
Ungulate reproductive parameters track satellite observations of plant phenology across latitude and climatological regimes
David Stoner, Joseph O. Sexton, Jyoteshwar Nagol, Heather H. Bernales, Thomas C. Edwards Jr.
2016, PLoS ONE (11) 1-19
The effect of climatically-driven plant phenology on mammalian reproduction is one key to predicting species-specific demographic responses to climate change. Large ungulates face their greatest energetic demands from the later stages of pregnancy through weaning, and so in seasonal environments parturition dates should match periods of high primary productivity. Interannual...
Lithospheric rheology constrained from twenty-five years of postseismic deformation following the 1989 Mw 6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake
Mong-Han Huang, Roland Burgmann, Frederick Pollitz
2016, Earth and Planetary Science Letters (435) 147-158
The October 17, 1989 Mw 6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake provides the first opportunity of probing the crustal and upper mantle rheology in the San Francisco Bay Area since the 1906 Mw 7.9 San Francisco earthquake. Here we use geodetic observations including GPS and InSAR to characterize...
The road to Yucca Mountain—Evolution of nuclear waste disposal in the United States
John S. Stuckless, Robert A. Levich
2016, Environmental & Engineering Geoscience (22) 1-25
The generation of electricity by nuclear power and the manufacturing of atomic weapons have created a large amount of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. There is a world-wide consensus that the best way to protect mankind and the environment is to dispose of this waste in a deep...
Erosional and depositional history of the Atlantic passive margin as recorded in detrital zircon fission-track ages and lithic detritus in Atlantic Coastal plain sediments
C. W. Naeser, N.D. Naeser, Lucy E. Edwards, Robert E. Weems, C. Scott Southworth, Wayne L. Newell
2016, American Journal of Science (316) 110-168
Comparison of fission-track (FT) ages of detrital zircons recovered from Atlantic Coastal Plain sediments to FT ages of zircons from bedrock in source terranes in the Appalachians provides a key to understanding the provenance of the sediments and, in turn, the erosional and depositional history of the Atlantic passive...
Dimensionless erosion laws for cohesive sediment
Joseph S. Walder
2016, Journal of Hydraulic Engineering (142) 1-13
A method of achieving a dimensionless collapse of erosion-rate data for cohesive sediments is proposed and shown to work well for data collected in flume-erosion tests on mixtures of sand and mud (silt plus clay sized particles) for a wide range of mud fraction. The data collapse...
A decision support tool for adaptive management of native prairie ecosystems
Victoria M. Hunt, Sarah Jacobi, Jill J. Gannon, Jennifer E. Zorn, Clinton T. Moore, Eric V. Lonsdorf
2016, Interfaces (46) 334-344
The Native Prairie Adaptive Management initiative is a decision support framework that provides cooperators with management-action recommendations to help them conserve native species and suppress invasive species on prairie lands. We developed a Web-based decision support tool (DST) for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey...
Corrigendum to “Widespread occurrence of (per)chlorate in the Solar System” [Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 430 (2015) 470–476]
W. Andrew Jackson, Alfonso F. Davila, Derek W. G. Sears, John D. Coates, Christopher P. McKay, Maeghan Brundrett, Nubia Estrada, J.K. Bohlke
2016, Earth and Planetary Science Letters (436) 142-143
The authors regret that two sets of data (Atacama (Rao et al., 2010) and Mars Meteorite Range (Kounaves et al., 2014)) in Fig. 2 of our article were plotted in the wrong units. The correction does not change the relationship between ClO<mrow...
Dynamic occupancy models for explicit colonization processes
Kristin M. Broms, Mevin Hooten, Devin S. Johnson, Res Altwegg, Loveday Conquest
2016, Ecology (97) 194-204
The dynamic, multi-season occupancy model framework has become a popular tool for modeling open populations with occupancies that change over time through local colonizations and extinctions. However, few versions of the model relate these probabilities to the occupancies of neighboring sites or patches. We present a modeling framework that incorporates...
Evaluating geothermal and hydrogeologic controls on regional groundwater temperature distribution
Erick R. Burns, Steven E. Ingebritsen, Michael Manga, Colin F. Williams
2016, Water Resources Research (52) 1328-1344
A one-dimensional (1-D) analytic solution is developed for heat transport through an aquifer system where the vertical temperature profile in the aquifer is nearly uniform. The general anisotropic form of the viscous heat generation term is developed for use in groundwater flow simulations. The 1-D solution is extended to more...
Mountain pine beetle host selection between lodgepole and ponderosa pines in the southern Rocky Mountains
Daniel R. West, Jenny S. Briggs, William R. Jacobi, Jose F. Negron
2016, Environmental Entomology (45) 127-141
Recent evidence of range expansion and host transition by mountain pine beetle ( Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins; MPB) has suggested that MPB may not primarily breed in their natal host, but will switch hosts to an alternate tree species. As MPB populations expanded in lodgepole pine forests in the southern Rocky Mountains, we...
Elevated Rocky Mountain elk numbers prevent positive effects of fire on quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) recruitment
David Solance Smith, Stephen M. Fettig, Matthew A. Bowker
2016, Forest Ecology and Management (362) 46-54
Quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) is the most widespread tree species in North America and has supported a unique ecosystem for tens of thousands of years, yet is currently threatened by dramatic loss and possible local extinctions. While multiple factors such as climate change and fire suppression are thought to contribute...
Comparison of measurement- and proxy-based Vs30 values in California
Alan K. Yong
2016, Earthquake Spectra (32) 171-192
This study was prompted by the recent availability of a significant amount of openly accessible measured VS30 values and the desire to investigate the trend of using proxy-based models to predict VS30 in the absence of measurements. Comparisons between measured and model-based values were performed. The measured data included 503...
Potential drivers of virulence evolution in aquaculture
David A. Kennedy, Gael Kurath, Ilana L. Brito, Maureen K. Purcell, Andrew F. Read, James R. Winton, Andrew R. Wargo
2016, Evolutionary Applications (9) 344-354
Infectious diseases are economically detrimental to aquaculture, and with continued expansion and intensification of aquaculture, the importance of managing infectious diseases will likely increase in the future. Here, we use evolution of virulence theory, along with examples, to identify aquaculture practices that might lead to the evolution of increased pathogen...
Analysis of brook trout spatial behavior during passage attempts in corrugated culverts using near-infrared illumination video imagery
Normand E. Bergeron, Pierre-Marc Constantin, Elsa Goerig, Theodore R. Castro-Santos
2016, Conference Paper
We used video recording and near-infrared illumination to document the spatial behavior of brook trout of various sizes attempting to pass corrugated culverts under different hydraulic conditions. Semi-automated image analysis was used to digitize fish position at high temporal resolution inside the culvert, which allowed calculation of various spatial behavior...
Impacts of climate change on land-use and wetland productivity in the Prairie Pothole Region of North America
Benjamin S. Rashford, Richard M. Adams, Jun Wu, Richard A. Voldseth, Glenn R. Guntenspergen, Brett Werner, W. Carter Johnson
2016, Regional Environmental Change (16) 515-526
Wetland productivity in the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) of North America is closely linked to climate. A warmer and drier climate, as predicted, will negatively affect the productivity of PPR wetlands and the services they provide. The effect of climate change on wetland productivity, however, will not only depend on...
Greenhouse gas fluxes from salt marshes exposed to chronic nutrient enrichment
Gail L. Chmura, Lisa Kellman, Lee van Ardenne, Glenn R. Guntenspergen
2016, PLoS ONE (11)
We assessed the impact of nutrient additions on greenhouse gas fluxes using dark static chambers in a microtidal and a macrotidal marsh along the coast of New Brunswick, Canada approximately monthly over a year. Both were experimentally fertilized for six years with varying levels of N and P. For unfertilized,...
Survival of female mallards along the Vermont-Quebec border region
Jerry R. Longcore, Daniel G. McAuley, Dennis M. Heisey, Christine M. Bunck, David A. Clugston
2016, Journal of Wildlife Management (80) 355-367
Understanding effects of location and timing of harvest seasons on mortality of ducks and geese from hunting is important in forming regulations that sustain viable waterfowl populations throughout their range. During 1990 and 1991 we alternately marked 80 hatching year (HY), female mallards along the Vermont–Quebec border; half with radio-transmitters...
An assessment of the cultivated cropland class of NLCD 2006 using a multi-source and multi-criteria approach
Patrick Danielson, Limin Yang, Suming Jin, Collin G. Homer, Darrell Napton
2016, Remote Sensing (8)
We developed a method that analyzes the quality of the cultivated cropland class mapped in the USA National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 2006. The method integrates multiple geospatial datasets and a Multi Index Integrated Change Analysis (MIICA) change detection method that captures spectral changes to identify the spatial distribution and...
Estimating golden-cheeked warbler immigration: Implications for the spatial scale of conservation
A. Duarte, F.W. Weckerly, M. Schaub, Jeffrey S. Hatfield
2016, Animal Conservation (19) 65-74
Understanding the factors that drive population dynamics is fundamental to species conservation and management. Since the golden-cheeked warbler Setophaga chrysoparia was first listed as endangered, much effort has taken place to monitor warbler abundance, occupancy, reproduction and survival. Yet, despite being directly related to local population dynamics, movement rates have...
Effective stress, friction and deep crustal faulting
N.M. Beeler, Greg Hirth, Amanda M. Thomas, Roland Burgmann
2016, Journal of Geophysical Research B: Solid Earth (121) 1040-1059
Studies of crustal faulting and rock friction invariably assume the effective normal stress that determines fault shear resistance during frictional sliding is the applied normal stress minus the pore pressure. Here we propose an expression for the effective stress coefficient αf at temperatures and stresses near the brittle-ductile transition (BDT)...
