Water resources of St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana
Vincent E. White, Lawrence B. Prakken, Robert B. Fendick Jr.
2015, Fact Sheet 2014-3102
Information concerning the availability, use, and quality of water in St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana, is critical for proper water-supply management. The purpose of this fact sheet is to present information that can be used by water managers, parish residents, and others for stewardship of this vital resource. Information...
Developing a new, passive diffusion sampling array to detect helium anomalies associated with volcanic unrest
Brittany E Dame, D Kip Solomon, William C. Evans, Steven E. Ingebritsen
2015, Bulletin of Volcanology (77)
Helium (He) concentration and 3 He/ 4 He anomalies in soil gas and spring water are potentially powerful tools for investigating hydrothermal circulation associated with volca- nism and could perhaps serve as part of a hazards warning system. However, in operational practice, He and other gases are often sampled only...
Landslide modeling and forecasting—recent progress by the u.s. geological survey
Rex L. Baum, Jason W. Kean
2015, Conference Paper, Proceedings of Time to Face the Landslide Hazard Dilemma—Bridging Science, Policy, Public Safety, and Potential Loss
Landslide studies by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) are focused on two main objectives: scientific understanding and forecasting. The first objective is to gain better understanding of the physical processes involved in landslide initiation and movement. This objective is largely in support of the second objective, to develop predictive capabilities...
Are Piton de la Fournaise (La Réunion) and Kīlauea (Hawai‘i) really “Analog Volcanoes”?
Michael P. Poland, Aline Peltier, Thomas Staudacher
Rebecca Carey, Valerie Cayol, Michael P. Poland, Dominique Weis, editor(s)
2015, Book chapter, Hawaiian volcanoes: From source to surface
The basaltic ocean island volcanoes of Kīlauea (Island of Hawai‘i) and Piton de la Fournaise (La Réunion Island) are remarkable natural laboratories for volcanology. Both are near the active ends of long hotspot chains and host frequent eruptive activity (both effusive and explosive). Investigations of the geophysical, geochemical, and geologic...
“Points requiring elucidation” about Hawaiian volcanism
Michael P. Poland
Rebecca Carey, Valerie Cayol, Michael P. Poland, Dominique Weis, editor(s)
2015, Book chapter, Hawaiian volcanoes: From source to surface
Hawaiian volcanoes, which are easily accessed and observed at close range, are among the most studied on the planet and have spurred great advances in the geosciences, from understanding deep Earth processes to forecasting volcanic eruptions. More than a century of continuous observation and study of Hawai‘i's volcanoes has also...
Crustal stress and structure at Kīlauea Volcano inferred from seismic anisotropy
Jessica H. Johnson, Donald Swanson, Diana C. Roman, Michael P. Poland, Weston A. Thelen
Rebecca Carey, Valerie Cayol, Michael P. Poland, Dominique Weis, editor(s)
2015, Book chapter, Hawaiian volcanoes: From source to surface
Seismic anisotropy, measured through shear wave splitting (SWS) analysis, can be indicative of the state of stress in Earth's crust. Changes in SWS at Kīlauea Volcano, Hawai‘i, associated with the onset of summit eruptive activity in 2008 hint at the potential of the technique for tracking volcanic activity. To use...
Evidence for large compositional ranges in coeval melts erupted from Kīlauea's summit reservoir
Rosalind T. Helz, David A. Clague, Larry G. Mastin, Timothy R. Rose
Rebecca Carey, Valerie Cayol, Michael P. Poland, Dominique Weis, editor(s)
2015, Book chapter, Hawaiian volcanoes: From source to surface
Petrologic observations on Kīlauea's lavas include abundant microprobe analyses of glasses, which show the range of melts available in Kīlauea's summit reservoir over time. During the past two centuries, compositions of melts erupted within the caldera have been limited to MgO = 6.3–7.5 wt%. Extracaldera lavas of the 1959, 1971, and 1974 eruptions...
Wide-ranging phylogeographic structure of invasive red lionfish in the Western Atlantic and Greater Caribbean
John S. Butterfield, Edgardo Diaz-Ferguson, Brian R. Silliman, Jonathan W. Saunders, Dayne Buddo, Antonio A. Mignucci-Giannoni, Linda Searle, Aarin Conrad Allen, Margaret E. Hunter
2015, Marine Biology (162) 773-781
The red lionfish (Pterois volitans) is an invasive predatory marine fish that has rapidly expanded its presence in the Western Hemisphere. We collected 214 invasive red lionfish samples from nine countries and territories, including seven unpublished locations. To more comprehensively evaluate connectivity, we compiled our d-loop sequence data...
Status and understanding of groundwater quality in the Northern Coast Ranges study unit, 2009: California GAMA Priority Basin Project
Timothy M. Mathany, Kenneth Belitz
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2014-5215
Groundwater quality in the 633-square-mile (1,639-square-kilometer) Northern Coast Ranges (NOCO) study unit was investigated as part of the Priority Basin Project (PBP) of the Groundwater Ambient Monitoring and Assessment (GAMA) Program and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water-Quality Assessment Program. The study unit is composed of two study areas...
GRIDGEN Version 1.0: a computer program for generating unstructured finite-volume grids
Jyh-Ming Lien, Gaisheng Liu, Christian D. Langevin
2015, Open-File Report 2014-1109
GRIDGEN is a computer program for creating layered quadtree grids for use with numerical models, such as the MODFLOW–USG program for simulation of groundwater flow. The program begins by reading a three-dimensional base grid, which can have variable row and column widths and spatially variable cell top and bottom elevations....
Groundwater quality in the Northern Coast Ranges Basins, California
Timothy M. Mathany, Kenneth Belitz
2015, Fact Sheet 2014-3114
The Northern Coast Ranges (NOCO) study unit is 633 square miles and consists of 35 groundwater basins and subbasins (California Department of Water Resources, 2003; Mathany and Belitz, 2015). These basins and subbasins were grouped into two study areas based primarily on locality. The groundwater basins and subbasins located inland,...
Atlas of relations between climatic parameters and distributions of important trees and shrubs in North America: Revisions for all taxa from the United States and Canada and new taxa from the western United States
Robert S. Thompson, Katherine H. Anderson, Richard T. Pelltier, Laura E. Strickland, Sarah L. Shafer, Patrick J. Bartlein, Andrew K. McFadden
2015, Professional Paper 1650-G
This is the seventh volume in an atlas series that explores the relations between the geographic distributions of woody plant species and climatic variables in North America. A 25-kilometer (km) equal-area grid of modern climatic and bioclimatic variables was constructed from weather data. The geographic distributions of selected tree and...
In-place oil shale resources of the Mahogany zone sorted by grade, overburden thickness and stripping ratio, Green River Formation, Piceance Basin, Colorado and Uinta Basin, Utah
Justin E. Birdwell, Tracey J. Mercier, Ronald C. Johnson, Michael E. Brownfield
2015, Fact Sheet 2015-3005
A range of geological parameters relevant to mining oil shale have been examined for the Mahogany zone of the Green River Formation in the Piceance Basin, Colorado, and Uinta Basin, Utah, using information available in the U.S. Geological Survey Oil Shale Assessment database. Basinwide discrete and cumulative distributions of resource...
Maine StreamStats: a water-resources web application
Pamela J. Lombard
2015, Fact Sheet 2015-3014
Maine StreamStats is a tool that any user with Internet access can use to delineate a basin on the fly and estimate a wide variety of streamflow statistics for ungaged sites on rivers and streams in Maine. Estimates are based on regression equations or are from data from similar gaged...
Wildlife, urban inputs, and landscape configuration are responsible for degraded swimming water quality at an embayed beach
Muruleedhara N. Byappanahalli, Meredith Nevers, Richard L. Whitman, Zhongfu Ge, Dawn A. Shively, Ashley Spoljaric, Katarzyna Przybyla-Kelly
2015, Journal of Great Lakes Research (41) 156-163
Jeorse Park Beach, on southern Lake Michigan, experiences frequent closures due to high Escherichia coli (E. coli) levels since regular monitoring was implemented in 2005. During the summer of 2010, contaminant source tracking techniques, such as the conventional microbial and physical surveys and hydrodynamic models, were used to determine the reasons for...
The Landscape Evolution Observatory: a large-scale controllable infrastructure to study coupled Earth-surface processes
Luke A. Pangle, Stephen B. DeLong, Nate Abramson, John Adams, Greg A. Barron-Gafford, David D. Breshears, Paul D. Brooks, Jon Chorover, William E. Dietrich, Katerina Dontsova, Matej Durcik, Javier Espeleta, T.P.A. Ferre, Regis Ferriere, Whitney Henderson, Edward A. Hunt, Travis E. Huxman, David Millar, Brendan Murphy, Guo-Yue Niu, Mitch Pavao-Zuckerman, Jon D. Pelletier, Craig Rasmussen, Joaquin Ruiz, Scott Saleska, Marcel Schaap, Michael Sibayan, Peter A. Troch, Markus Tuller, Joost van Haren, Xubin Zeng
2015, Geomorphology (244) 190-203
Zero-order drainage basins, and their constituent hillslopes, are the fundamental geomorphic unit comprising much of Earth's uplands. The convergent topography of these landscapes generates spatially variable substrate and moisture content, facilitating biological diversity and influencing how the landscape filters precipitation and sequesters atmospheric carbon dioxide. In light of these significant...
Large-scale dam removal on the Elwha River, Washington, USA: river channel and floodplain geomorphic change
Amy E. East, George R. Pess, Jennifer A. Bountry, Christopher S. Magirl, Andrew C. Ritchie, Joshua B. Logan, Timothy J. Randle, Mark C. Mastin, Justin Toby Minear, Jeffrey J. Duda, Martin C. Liermann, Michael L. McHenry, Timothy J. Beechie, Patrick B. Shafroth
2015, Geomorphology (228) 765-786
A substantial increase in fluvial sediment supply relative to transport capacity causes complex, large-magnitude changes in river and floodplain morphology downstream. Although sedimentary and geomorphic responses to sediment pulses are a fundamental part of landscape evolution, few opportunities exist to quantify those processes over field scales. We investigated the downstream...
Toxicity of sediments from lead-zinc mining areas to juvenile freshwater mussels (Lampsilis siliquoidea) compared to standard test organisms
John M. Besser, Christopher G. Ingersoll, William G. Brumbaugh, Nile E. Kemble, Thomas W. May, Ning Wang, Donald D. MacDonald, Andrew D. Roberts
2015, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (34) 626-639
Sediment toxicity tests compared chronic effects on survival, growth, and biomass of juvenile freshwater mussels (28-d exposures with Lampsilis siliquoidea) to the responses of standard test organisms—amphipods (28-d exposures with Hyalella azteca) and midges (10-d exposures with Chironomus dilutus)—in sediments from 2 lead–zinc mining areas: the Tri-State Mining District and Southeast Missouri...
A plant toxin mediated mechanism for the lag in snowshoe hare population recovery following cyclic declines
Donald L. DeAngelis, John P. Bryant, Rongsong Liu, Stephen A. Gourley, Charles J Krebs, Paul B Reichardt
2015, Oikos (124) 796-805
A necessary condition for a snowshoe hare population to cycle is reduced reproduction after the population declines. But the cause of a cyclic snowshoe hare population's reduced reproduction during the low phase of the cycle, when predator density collapses, is not completely understood. We propose that moderate-severe browsing by snowshoe...
Seismicity of the Earth 1900-2013, seismotectonics of South America (Nazca Plate Region)
Gavin P. Hayes, Gregory M. Smoczyk, Harley M. Benz, Kevin P. Furlong, Antonio Villaseñor
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1031-E
The South American arc extends over 7,000 kilometers (km), from the Chilean margin triple junction offshore of southern Chile, to its intersection with the Panama fracture zone, offshore of the southern coast of Panama in Central America. It marks the plate boundary between the subducting Nazca plate and the South...
Ecosystem consequences of changing inputs of terrestrial dissolved organic matter to lakes: current knowledge and future challenges
Christopher T. Solomon, Stuart E. Jones, Brian Weidel, Ishi Buffam, Megan L. Fork, Jan Karlsson, Soren Larsen, Jay T. Lennon, Jordan S. Read, Steven Sadro, Jasmine E. Saros
2015, Ecosystems (18) 376-389
Lake ecosystems and the services that they provide to people are profoundly influenced by dissolved organic matter derived from terrestrial plant tissues. These terrestrial dissolved organic matter (tDOM) inputs to lakes have changed substantially in recent decades, and will likely continue to change. In this paper, we first briefly review...
Conceptual and numerical models of groundwater flow in the Ogallala and Arikaree aquifers, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation area, South Dakota, water years 1980-2009
Kyle W. Davis, Larry D. Putnam, Anneka R. LaBelle
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2014-5241
The Ogallala and Arikaree aquifers are the largest sources of groundwater on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and are used extensively for irrigation and public and domestic water supplies. To assess the potential for decreased water levels and discharge to streams in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, conceptual and numerical...
A comparison of hydrologic models for ecological flows and water availability
Peter V Caldwell, Jonathan G. Kennen, Ge Sun, Julie E. Kiang, John B Butcher, Michelle C Eddy, Lauren E. Hay, Jacob H. LaFontaine, Ernie F. Hain, Stacy C Nelson, Steve G McNulty
2015, Ecohydrology (8) 1525-1546
Robust hydrologic models are needed to help manage water resources for healthy aquatic ecosystems and reliable water supplies for people, but there is a lack of comprehensive model comparison studies that quantify differences in streamflow predictions among model applications developed to answer management questions. We assessed differences in daily streamflow...
Development of 13 microsatellites for Gunnison Sage-grouse (Centrocercus minimus) using next-generation shotgun sequencing and their utility in Greater Sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus)
Jennifer A. Fike, Sara J. Oyler-McCance, Shawna J Zimmerman, Todd A. Castoe
2015, Conservation Genetics Resources (7) 211-214
Gunnison Sage-grouse are an obligate sagebrush species that has experienced significant population declines and has been proposed for listing under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. In order to examine levels of connectivity among Gunnison Sage-grouse leks, we identified 13 novel microsatellite loci though next-generation shotgun sequencing, and tested them on...
Analysis of historic agricultural irrigation data from the Natural Resources Conservation Service monitoring and evaluation for Grand Valley, Lower Gunnison Basin, and McElmo Creek Basin, western Colorado, 1985 to 2003
John W. Mayo
2015, Open-File Report 2014-1261
The Natural Resources Conservation Service Monitoring and Evaluation for three salinity control units in western Colorado—Grand Valley, Lower Gunnison, and McElmo Creek—from 1985 to 2003 was a response to the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Act, Public Law 93–320, July 24, 1974, and its amendments. The Natural Resources Conservation Service...
