Installation of a groundwater monitoring-well network on the east side of the Uncompahgre River in the Lower Gunnison River Basin, Colorado, 2012
Judith C. Thomas, L. R. Arnold
2015, Data Series 923
The east side of the Uncompahgre River Basin has been a known contributor of dissolved selenium to recipient streams. Discharge of groundwater containing dissolved selenium contributes to surface-water selenium concentrations and loads; however, the groundwater system on the east side of the Uncompahgre River Basin is not well characterized. The...
Depth-to-basement, sediment-thickness, and bathymetry data for the deep-sea basins offshore of Washington, Oregon, and California
Florence L. Wong, Muriel S. Grim
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1118
Contours and derivative raster files of depth-to-basement, sediment-thickness, and bathymetry data for the area offshore of Washington, Oregon, and California are provided here as GIS-ready shapefiles and GeoTIFF files. The data were used to generate paper maps in 1992 and 1993 from 1984 surveys of the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone...
Alteration, slope-classified alteration, and potential lahar inundation maps of volcanoes for the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) Volcano Archive
John C. Mars, Bernard E. Hubbard, David Pieri, Justin Linick
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5035
This study identifies areas prone to lahars from hydrothermally altered volcanic edifices on a global scale, using visible and near infrared (VNIR) and short wavelength infrared (SWIR) reflectance data from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) and digital elevation data from the ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model...
Groundwater quality in Geauga County, Ohio: status, including detection frequency of methane in water wells, 2009, and changes during 1978-2009
Martha L. Jagucki, Stephanie P. Kula, Brian E. Mailot
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5032
Domestic wells that are not safeguarded by regular water-quality testing provide drinking water for 79 percent of the residents of Geauga County, in northeastern Ohio. Since 1978, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has worked cooperatively with the Board of Commissioners and Geauga County Planning Commission to monitor the quality of...
Human harvest, climate change and their synergistic effects drove the Chinese Crested Tern to the brink of extinction
Shuihua Chen, Zhongyong Fan, Daniel D. Roby, Yiwei Lu, Gangsong Chen, Qin Huang, Lijing Cheng, Jiang Zhu
2015, Global Ecology and Conservation (4) 137-145
Synergistic effect refers to simultaneous actions of separate factors which have a greater total effect than the sum of the individual factor effects. However, there has been a limited knowledge on how synergistic effects occur and individual roles of different drivers are not often considered. Therefore, it becomes quite challenging...
Primative components, crustal assimilation, and magmatic degassing of the 2008 Kilauea summit eruption
Michael C. Rowe, Carl R. Thornber, Tim R. Orr
2015, Book chapter, Hawaiian volcanoes, from source to surface
Simultaneous summit and rift zone eruptions at Kīlauea starting in 2008 reflect a shallow eruptive plumbing system inundated by a bourgeoning supply of new magma from depth. Olivine-hosted melt inclusions, host glass, and bulk lava compositions of magma erupted at both the summit and east rift zone demonstrate chemical continuity...
A collision risk model to predict avian fatalities at wind facilities: an example using golden eagles, Aquila chrysaetos
Leslie New, Emily Bjerre, Brian A. Millsap, Mark C. Otto, Michael C. Runge
2015, PLoS ONE (10) 1-12
Wind power is a major candidate in the search for clean, renewable energy. Beyond the technical and economic challenges of wind energy development are environmental issues that may restrict its growth. Avian fatalities due to collisions with rotating turbine blades are a leading concern and there is considerable uncertainty surrounding...
Testing the thermal-niche oxygen-squeeze hypothesis for estuarine striped bass
Richard T. Kraus, D.H. Secor, Rebecca L. Wingate
2015, Environmental Biology of Fishes (98) 2083-2092
In many stratified coastal ecosystems, conceptual and bioenergetics models predict seasonal reduction in quality and quantity of fish habitat due to high temperatures and hypoxia. We tested these predictions using acoustic telemetry of 2 to 4 kg striped bass (Morone saxatilis Walbaum) and high-resolution spatial water quality sampling in the...
Sea otter health: challenging a pet hypothesis
Kevin D. Lafferty
2015, International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife (4) 291-294
A recent series of studies on tagged sea otters (Enhydra lutris nereis) challenges the hypothesis that sea otters are sentinels of a dirty ocean, in particular, that pet cats are the main source of exposure to Toxoplasma gondii in central California. Counter to expectations, sea otters from unpopulated stretches of...
Southern San Andreas Fault seismicity is consistent with the Gutenberg-Richter magnitude-frequency distribution
Morgan T. Page, Karen Felzer
2015, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (105) 2070-2080
The magnitudes of any collection of earthquakes nucleating in a region are generally observed to follow the Gutenberg-Richter (G-R) distribution. On some major faults, however, paleoseismic rates are higher than a G-R extrapolation from the modern rate of small earthquakes would predict. This, along with other observations, led to formulation...
Social living mitigates the costs of a chronic illness in a cooperative carnivore
Emily S. Almberg, Paul C. Cross, Andrew P. Dobson, Douglas W. Smith, Matthew C Metz, Daniel R. Stahler, Peter J. Hudson
2015, Ecology Letters (18) 660-667
Infection risk is assumed to increase with social group size, and thus be a cost of group living. We assess infection risk and costs with respect to group size using data from an epidemic of sarcoptic mange (Sarcoptes scabiei) among grey wolves (Canis lupus). We demonstrate that group size does...
MMI: Multimodel inference or models with management implications?
J. Fieberg, Douglas H. Johnson
2015, Journal of Wildlife Management (79) 708-718
We consider a variety of regression modeling strategies for analyzing observational data associated with typical wildlife studies, including all subsets and stepwise regression, a single full model, and Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC)-based multimodel inference. Although there are advantages and disadvantages to each approach, we suggest that there is no unique...
Monitoring population status of sea otters (Enhydra lutris) in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Alaska: options and considerations
George G. Esslinger, Daniel Esler, S. Howlin, L.A. Starcevich
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1119
After many decades of absence from southeast Alaska, sea otters (Enhydra lutris) are recolonizing parts of their former range, including Glacier Bay, Alaska. Sea otters are well known for structuring nearshore ecosystems and causing community-level changes such as increases in kelp abundance and changes in the size and number of...
Training conservation practitioners to be better decision makers
Fred A. Johnson, Mitchell J. Eaton, James H. Williams, Gitte H. Jensen, Jesper Madsen
2015, Sustainability (7) 8354-8373
Traditional conservation curricula and training typically emphasizes only one part of systematic decision making (i.e., the science), at the expense of preparing conservation practitioners with critical skills in values-setting, working with decision makers and stakeholders, and effective problem framing. In this article we describe how the application of decision science...
Summer declines in activity and body temperature offer polar bears limited energy savings
J.P. Whiteman, H.J. Harlow, George M. Durner, R. Anderson-Sprecher, Shannon E. Albeke, Eric V. Regehr, Steven C. Amstrup, M. Ben-David
2015, Science (349) 295-298
Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) summer on the sea ice or, where it melts, on shore. Although the physiology of “ice” bears in summer is unknown, “shore” bears purportedly minimize energy losses by entering a hibernation-like state when deprived of food. Such a strategy could partially compensate for the loss of...
Age-specific vibrissae growth rates: a tool for determining the timing of ecologically important events in Steller sea lions
L.D. Rea, A.M. Christ, A.B. Hayden, V.K. Stegall, S.D. Farley, Craig A. Stricker, J.E. Mellish, John M. Maniscalco, J.N. Waite, V.N. Burkanov, K.W. Pitcher
2015, Marine Mammal Science (31) 1213-1233
Steller sea lions (SSL; Eumetopias jubatus) grow their vibrissae continually, providing a multiyear record suitable for ecological and physiological studies based on stable isotopes. An accurate age-specific vibrissae growth rate is essential for registering a chronology along the length of the record, and for interpreting the timing of ecologically important events....
Scale dependence of disease impacts on quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) mortality in the southwestern United States
David M. Bell, John B. Bradford, William K. Lauenroth
2015, Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics (96) 1835-1845
Depending on how disease impacts tree exposure to risk, both the prevalence of disease and disease effects on survival may contribute to patterns of mortality risk across a species' range. Disease may accelerate tree species' declines in response to global change factors, such as drought, biotic interactions, such as...
Self-similar rupture implied by scaling properties of volcanic earthquakes occurring during the 2004-2008 eruption of Mount St. Helens, Washington
Rebecca M. Harrington, Grzegorz Kwiatek, Seth C. Moran
2015, Journal of Geophysical Research B: Solid Earth (120) 1966-1982
We analyze a group of 6073 low-frequency earthquakes recorded during a week-long temporary deployment of broadband seismometers at distances of less than 3 km from the crater at Mount St. Helens in September of 2006. We estimate the seismic moment (M0) and spectral corner frequency (f0) using a spectral ratio approach...
Marine foraging ecology influences mercury bioaccumulation in deep-diving northern elephant seals
Sarah H. Peterson, Joshua T. Ackerman, Daniel P. Costa
2015, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (282)
Mercury contamination of oceans is prevalent worldwide and methylmercury concentrations in the mesopelagic zone (200–1000 m) are increasing more rapidly than in surface waters. Yet mercury bioaccumulation in mesopelagic predators has been understudied. Northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris) biannually travel thousands of kilometres to forage within coastal and open-ocean regions...
Climate-water quality relationships in Texas reservoirs
Rodica Gelca, Katharine Hayhoe, Ian Scott-Fleming, Caleb Crow, D. Dawson, Reynaldo Patino
2015, Hydrological Processes (30) 12-29
Water temperature, dissolved oxygen, and concentrations of salts in surface water bodies can be affected by the natural environment, local human activities such as surface and ground water withdrawals, land use, and energy extraction, and variability and long-term trends in atmospheric conditions including temperature and precipitation. Here, we quantify the...
A landsat data tiling and compositing approach optimized for change detection in the conterminous United States
Kurtis Nelson, Daniel R. Steinwand
2015, Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing (81) 573-586
Annual disturbance maps are produced by the LANDFIRE program across the conterminous United States (CONUS). Existing LANDFIRE disturbance data from 1999 to 2010 are available and current efforts will produce disturbance data through 2012. A tiling and compositing approach was developed to produce bi-annual images optimized for change detection. A...
Organic contaminant transport and fate in the subsurface: evolution of knowledge and understanding
Hedeff I. Essaid, Barbara A. Bekins, Isabelle M. Cozzarelli
2015, Water Resources Research (51) 4861-4902
Toxic organic contaminants may enter the subsurface as slightly soluble and volatile nonaqueous phase liquids (NAPLs) or as dissolved solutes resulting in contaminant plumes emanating from the source zone. A large body of research published in Water Resources Research has been devoted to characterizing and understanding processes controlling the transport and fate...
The mysterious wolves of Belarus
Shannon Barber-Meyer
2015, International Wolf 22-24
It was just after 3 a.m. as we very quietly exited the van, making sure our water-resistant clothes didn’t make too much noise. A wolf researcher howled into the cold and murky mist. We waited in darkness, hoping for an answer. A single wolf howl from about 300 meters in...
Reproductive traits of shovelnose sturgeon Scaphirhynchus platorynchus (Rafinesque, 1820) in the lower Platte River, Nebraska
M. J. Hamel, M.L. Rugg, M.A. Pegg, Reynaldo Patino, J.J. Hammen
2015, Journal of Applied Ichthyology (31) 592-602
We assessed reproductive status, fecundity, egg size, and spawning dynamics of shovelnose sturgeon Scaphirhynchus platorynchus in the lower Platte River. Shovelnose sturgeon were captured throughout each year during 2011 and 2012 using a multi-gear approach designed to collect a variety of fish of varying sizes and ages. Fish were collected monthly for...
Shear Wave Velocity and Site Amplification Factors for 25 Strong-Motion Instrument Stations Affected by the M5.8 Mineral, Virginia, Earthquake of August 23, 2011
Robert E. Kayen, Brad A. Carkin, Skye C. Corbett, Aliza Zangwill, Ivan Estevez, Lena Lai
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1099
Vertical one-dimensional shear wave velocity (Vs) profiles are presented for 25 strong-motion instrument sites along the Mid-Atlantic eastern seaboard, Piedmont region, and Appalachian region, which surround the epicenter of the M5.8 Mineral, Virginia, Earthquake of August 23, 2011. Testing was performed at sites in Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, the...
