Earthquake-triggered ground-failure inventory associated with the M7.1 2018 Southcentral Alaska earthquake
Sabrina N. Martinez, Kate E. Allstadt, Eric M. Thompson, Sonia Ellison, Lauren N. Schaefer, Kelli Wadsworth Baxstrom
2024, Earthquake Spectra (40) 2161-2178
The 30 November 2018, magnitude (Mw) 7.1 earthquake in Southcentral Alaska triggered substantial landslides, liquefaction, and ground cracking throughout the region, resulting in widespread geotechnical damage to buildings and infrastructure. Despite a challenging reconnaissance and remote-sensing environment, we constructed a detailed digital inventory of ground failure associated...
Local environmental conditions structured discrete fish assemblages in Arctic lagoons
Sarah M. Laske, Vanessa R. von Biela, Ashley E. Stanek, Kenneth H. Dunton
2024, Polar Biology (47) 551-568
Rapid changes in sea ice extent and changes in freshwater inputs from land are rapidly changing the nature of Arctic estuarine ecosystems. In the Beaufort Sea, these nearshore habitats are known for their high productivity and mix of marine resident and diadromous fishes that have great...
Fairweather transform boundary Oligocene to present orogenesis: Fairweather Range vertical extrusion and rotation of the Yakutat microplate at ca. 3 Ma
Jeff Benowitz, Richard O. Lease, Peter J. Haeussler, Terry Pavlis, Michael Mann
2024, Tectonophysics (880)
Oblique-slip along transform fault boundaries is often partitioned between a strike-slip system and thrust faults that accommodate contraction. However, topography along the Yakutat-North American transform (Fairweather fault), is asymmetric with low-terrain above active thrusts on the western, Yakutat side of the...
A great tsunami earthquake component of the 1957 Aleutian Islands earthquake
Yoshiki Yamazaki, Thorne Lay, Kwok Fai Cheung, Robert C. Witter, SeanPaul La Selle, Bruce E. Jaffe
2024, Earth and Planetary Science Letters (637)
The great 1957 Aleutian Islands earthquake ruptured ∼1200 km of the plate boundary along the Aleutian subduction zone and produced a destructive tsunami across Hawaiʻi. Early seismic and tsunami analyses indicated that large megathrust fault slip was concentrated in the western Aleutian Islands, but tsunami...
Deep-water first occurrences of Ediacara biota prior to the Shuram carbon isotope excursion in the Wernecke Mountains, Yukon, Canada
Thomas H. Boag, James F. Busch, Jared T. Gooley, Justin Strauss, Erik A Sperling
2024, Geobiology (22)
Ediacara-type macrofossils appear as early as ~575 Ma in deep-water facies of the Drook Formation of the Avalon Peninsula, Newfoundland, and the Nadaleen Formation of Yukon and Northwest Territories, Canada. Our ability to assess whether a deep-water origination of the Ediacara biota is a...
Annual review 2023: Critical minerals
Graham W. Lederer, James V. Jones III, Darcy McPhee, Jeffrey L. Mauk, Robert R. Seal, II, Kate M. Campbell, Jane M. Hammarstrom, Paul A. Bedrosian, Patricia Grace Macqueen, Garth E. Graham, Federico Solano, George N.D. Case, David George Pineault
2024, Mining Engineering (76) 29-42
No abstract available....
Drought, fire, and archeology in the Jemez Mountains, New Mexico
Anastasia Steffen, Jamie Civitello, Rachel A. Loehman, Robert Parmenter
2024, Intermountain Park Science (2)
In the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico, cultural resources and traditional cultural landscapes are vulnerable to compounded impacts of changing climate and wildfires. Here, we discuss impacts to archeological resources observed in recent, high-severity fires, including at Bandelier National Monument and Valles Caldera National Preserve, and describe an interdisciplinary effort...
Snow avalanches are a primary climate-linked driver of mountain ungulate populations
Kevin White, Eran Hood, Gabriel Wolken, Erich H. Peitzsch, Yves Buhler, Katreen Wikstrom Jones, Chris Darimont
2024, Nature Communications Biology (7)
Snow is a major, climate-sensitive feature of the Earth’s surface and catalyst of fundamentally important ecosystem processes. Understanding how snow influences sentinel species in rapidly changing mountain ecosystems is particularly critical. Whereas effects of snow on food availability, energy expenditure, and predation are well documented, we...
Automatic identification and quantification of volcanic hotspots in Alaska using HotLINK: The hotspot learning and identification network
Pablo Saunders-Shultz, Taryn Lopez, Hannah R. Dietterich, Tarsilo Girona
2024, Frontiers in Earth Science (12)
An increase in volcanic thermal emissions can indicate subsurface and surface processes that precede, or coincide with, volcanic eruptions. Space-borne infrared sensors can detect hotspots—defined here as localized volcanic thermal emissions—in near-real-time. However, automatic hotspot detection systems are needed to efficiently analyze the large quantities of data produced....
Detrital zircons and the magmatic history of Viti Levu, Fiji
Allen Stork, James B Gill, Erin Todd, Elizabeth Kathleen Drewes-Todd
2024, Australian Journal of Earth Sciences (71) 600-614
We integrate the existing detrital zircon data from multiple modern river sediment samples on Viti Levu, Fiji, with the most current available geological and topographic mapping of the respective river drainage basins to compare detrital populations with potential bedrock sources. The temporal and spatial variations in zircon geochemistry supplement what...
Where east meets west: Phylogeography of the high Arctic North American brant goose
Robert Wilson, Sean Boyd, Sarah A. Sonsthagen, David H. Ward, Preben Clausen, Kathryn Dickson, Bartwolt Ebbinge, Gudmundur Gudmundsson, George Sage, Jolene Rearick, Dirk V. Derksen, Sandra Talbot
2024, Ecology and Evolution (14)
Genetic variation in Arctic species is often influenced by vicariance during the Pleistocene, as ice sheets fragmented the landscape and displaced populations to low- and high-latitude refugia. The formation of secondary contact or suture zones during periods of ice sheet retraction has important consequences...
2021 Volcanic activity in Alaska and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands—Summary of events and response of the Alaska Volcano Observatory
Tim R. Orr, Hannah R. Dietterich, David Fee, Tarsilo Girona, Ronni Grapenthin, Matthew M. Haney, Matthew W. Loewen, John J. Lyons, John A. Power, Hans F. Schwaiger, David J. Schneider, Darren Tan, Liam Toney, Valerie K. Wasser, Christopher F. Waythomas
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5014
In 2021, the Alaska Volcano Observatory responded to eruptions, volcanic unrest or suspected unrest, increased seismicity, and other significant activity at 15 volcanic centers in Alaska and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Eruptive activity in Alaska consisted of repeated small, ash-producing, phreatomagmatic explosions from Mount Young on Semisopochnoi...
2020 Volcanic activity in Alaska—Summary of events and response of the Alaska Volcano Observatory
Tim R. Orr, Cheryl Cameron, Hannah R. Dietterich, Matthew W. Loewen, Taryn Lopez, John J. Lyons, Jenny Nakai, John A. Power, Cheryl Searcy, Gabrielle Tepp, Christopher F. Waythomas
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5004
The Alaska Volcano Observatory responded to eruptions, volcanic unrest or suspected unrest, increased seismicity, and other significant activity at nine volcanic centers in Alaska in 2020. The most notable volcanic activity in 2020 was an eruption of Shishaldin Volcano, which produced lava flows, lahars, and ash. Mount Cleveland had one...
A high-resolution, daily hindcast (1990-2021) of Alaskan river discharge and temperature from coupled and optimized physical models
Dylan Blaskey, Michael Gooseff, Yifan Cheng, Andrew Newman, Joshua C. Koch, Keith Musselman
2024, Water Resources Research (60)
Water quality and freshwater ecosystems are affected by river discharge and temperature. Models are frequently used to estimate river temperature on large spatial and temporal scales due to limited observations of discharge and temperature. In this study, we use physically based river routing and temperature models to...
Predator disturbance contributed to Common Murre Uria aalge breeding failures in Cook Inlet, Alaska following the 2014–2016 Pacific marine heatwave
Caitlin Elizabeth Marsteller, Mayumi L. Arimitsu, Sarah K. Schoen, Samuel B Stark, John F. Piatt
2024, Marine Onithology (52) 129-139
The 2014-2016 Pacific marine heatwave caused unprecedented die-offs and multi-year reproductive failures for Common Murres Uria aalge along the west coast of North America. Lingering impacts, such as declines in colony attendance and productivity, have persisted at some colonies following the heatwave and are attributed largely to changes in prey availability...
Versatile modeling of deformation (VMOD) inversion framework: Application to 20 years of observations at Westdahl Volcano and Fisher Caldera, Alaska, US
Mario Angarita, Ronni Grapenthin, Scott Henderson, Michael S Christoffersen, Kyle R. Anderson
2024, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (25)
We developed an open source, extensible Python-based framework, that we call the Versatile Modeling of Deformation (VMOD), for forward and inverse modeling of crustal deformation sources. VMOD abstracts from specific source model implementations, data types and inversion methods. We implement the most common geodetic source models which can be combined...
Variability in coastal habitat available for Longfin Smelt Spirinchus thaleichthys in the northeastern Pacific Ocean
Matthew J. Young, Frederick V. Feyrer, Steven T Lindley, David D. Huff
2024, Frontiers in Marine Science (11)
An understanding of oceanographic conditions and processes important to marine animal ecology is fundamental to the development of effective management and conservation actions. Longfin Smelt (Spirinchus thaleichthys) is a pelagic forage fish found in coastal and estuarine waters along the Pacific coast of North America from Alaska to central...
Current and projected flood exposure for Alaska coastal communities
Richard Michael Buzard, Christopher V. Maio, Li H. Erikson, Jacquelyn R. Overbeck, Nicole E. M. Kinsman, Benjamin M. Jones
2024, Scientific Reports (14)
Globally, coastal communities experience flood hazards that are projected to worsen from climate change and sea level rise. The 100-year floodplain or record flood are commonly used to identify risk areas for planning purposes. Remote communities often lack measured flood elevations and require innovative approaches to...
Potential impacts of an autumn oil spill on polar bears summering on land in northern Alaska
Ryan H. Wilson, Deborah French-Mckay, Craig J Perham, Susannah P. Woodruff, Todd C. Atwood, George M. Durner
2024, Biological Conservation (292)
Demand for oil and natural gas continues to increase, leading to the development of remote regions where it is riskier to operate. Many of these regions have had limited development, so understanding potential impacts to wildlife could inform management decisions....
A comparison of contemporary and historical hydrology and water quality in the foothills and coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Arctic Slope, northern Alaska
Joshua C. Koch, Heather Best, Carson Baughman, Charles Couvillion, Michael P. Carey, Jeff Conaway
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5008
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a unique landscape in northern Alaska with limited water resources, substantial biodiversity of rare and threatened species, as well as oil and gas resources. The region has unique hydrology related to perennial springs, and the formation of large aufeis fields—sheets of ice that grow...
Canopy cover and microtopography control precipitation-enhanced thaw of ecosystem-protected permafrost
Joel Eklof, Benjamin M. Jones, Baptiste Dafflon, Elise Devoie, Katie M. Ring, Marie English, Mark Waldrop, Rebecca Neumann
2024, Journal of Geophysical Research-Biogeosciences (19)
Northern high-latitudes are projected to get warmer and wetter, which will affect rates of permafrost thaw and mechanisms by which thaw occurs. To better understand the impact of rain, as well as other factors such as snow depth, canopy cover, and microtopography, we instrumented a degrading permafrost plateau in south-central...
Seabirds and humpback whales give early warning to marine heatwaves
Lauren Bien, Rob Suryan, Mayumi L. Arimitsu, John Moran
2024, Open Access Government
Between 2014 and 2016, an extreme marine heatwave struck the North Pacific Ocean, affecting nearshore and pelagic (offshore, open ocean) ecosystems from southern California to Alaska. This unprecedented event, characterized by unusually warm ocean temperatures over a large area, was the longest-duration marine heatwave recorded to date. The Gulf of...
Database and time series of nearshore waves along the Alaskan coast from the United States-Canada border to the Bering Sea
Anita C. Engelstad, Li H. Erikson, Borja G. Reguero, Ann E. Gibbs, Kees Nederhoff
2024, Open-File Report 2023-1094
Alaska’s Arctic coast has some of the highest coastal erosion rates in the world, primarily driven by permafrost thaw and increasing wave energy. In the Arctic, a warming climate is driving sea ice cover to decrease in space and time. A lack of long-term observational wave data along Alaska’s coast...
Quantifying spatiotemporal variation of nearshore forage fish schools with aerial surveys in Prince William Sound, Alaska
Daniel Stephen Donnelly, Mayumi L. Arimitsu, Scott Pegau, John F. Piatt
2024, Marine and Coastal Fisheries: Dynamics, Management, and Ecosystem Science (16)
ObjectiveChanges in abundance and distribution of schooling forage fish, such as the Pacific Sand Lance Ammodytes hexapterus and Pacific Herring Clupea pallasii, can be difficult to document using traditional boat-based methods, especially in the shallow, nearshore habitats frequented by these species. In contrast, nearshore fish schools are easily observed and...
Sulphide petrology and ore genesis of the stratabound Sheep Creek sediment-hosted Zn–Pb–Ag–Sn prospect, and U–Pb zircon constraints on the timing of magmatism in the northern Alaska Range
Cynthia Dusel-Bacon, John N. Aleinikoff, Suzanne Paradise, John F. Slack
2024, Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences (61) 471-504
The Sheep Creek prospect is a stratabound Zn–Pb–Ag–Sn massive sulfide occurrence in the Bonnifield mining district, northern Alaska Range. The prospect is within a quartz–sericite–graphite–chlorite schist unit associated with Devonian carbonaceous and siliceous metasedimentary rocks. Volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) deposits in the district are hosted in felsic...
