Spatial variability in vertical accretion and carbon sequestration in salt marsh soils of an urban estuary
Hongqing Wang, Gregg Snedden, Ellen K. Hartig, Q. Chen
2023, Wetlands (43)
Salt marshes in New York City’s Jamaica Bay have been disappearing and deteriorating since early 1900s, resulting in the loss of long-term accumulated carbon storage. However, the spatial variations and mechanisms in vertical accretion and soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration across this highly urbanized estuary remains unclear. In this study,...
Breaking plates: Creation of the East Anatolian fault, the Anatolian plate, and a tectonic escape system
Donna Whitney, Jonathan Delph, Stuart N. Thomson, Susan L. Beck, Gilles Brocard, M. Cosca, Michael H. Darin, Nuretdin Kaymakci, Maud J.M. Meijers, Aral Okay, Bora Rojay, Christian Teyssier, Paul J. Umhoefer
2023, Geology (51) 673-677
Lateral movement of lithospheric fragments along strike-slip faults in response to collision (escape tectonics) has characterized convergent settings since the onset of plate tectonics and is a mechanism for the formation of new plates. The Anatolian plate was created by the sequential connection of strike-slip faults following ≥10 m.y. of...
Rapid modeling of compound flooding across broad coastal regions and the necessity to include rainfall driven processes: A case study of Hurricane Florence (2018)
Tim Leijnse, Cornelis M. Nederhoff, Jennifer Anne Thomas, Kai Alexander Parker, Maarten van Ormondt, Li H. Erikson, Robert T. McCall, Ap van Dongeren, Andrea C. O'Neill, Patrick L. Barnard
Ping Wang, Elizabeth Royer, Julie D. Rosati, editor(s)
2023, Conference Paper, Coastal Sediments 2023: Proceedings of the Coastal Sediments 2023
In this work, we show that large-scale compound flood models developed for North and South Carolina, USA, can skillfully simulate multiple drivers of coastal flooding as confirmed by measurements collected during Hurricane Florence (2018). Besides the accuracy of representing observed water levels, the importance of individual processes was investigated. We...
Rift basins and intraplate earthquakes: New high-resolution aeromagnetic data provide insights into buried structures of the Charleston, South Carolina seismic zone
Anjana K. Shah, Thomas L. Pratt, J. Wright Horton, Jr.
2023, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (24)
The delineation of faults that pose seismic risk in intraplate seismic zones and the mapping of features associated with failed rift basins can help our understanding of links between the two. We use new high-resolution aeromagnetic data, previous borehole sample information, and reprocessed seismic reflection profiles to image subsurface structures...
Incorporating wave climate complexity into modeling lower shoreface morphology and transport
Megan Gillen, Andrew D. Ashton, Jennifer L. Miselis, Daniel J. Ciarletta, Emily A. Wei, Christopher R. Sherwood
Ping Wang, Elizabeth Royer, Julie D. Rosati, editor(s)
2023, Conference Paper, Coastal Sediments 2023, proceedings of the 10th international conference
The lower shoreface, a transitional subaqueous region extending from the seaward limit of the surf zone to beyond the closure depth, serves as a sediment reservoir and pathway in sandy beach environments over annual to millennial time scales. Despite the important role this region plays in shoreline dynamics, the morphodynamics...
Guidance for parameterizing post-fire hydrologic models with in situ infiltration measurements
T. Liu, Luke A. McGuire, Ann Youberg, Alexander N. Gorr, Francis K. Rengers
2023, Earth Surface Processes and Landforms (48) 2368-2386
Wildfire can alter soil-hydraulic properties, often resulting in an increased prevalence of infiltration-excess overland flow and greater potential for debris-flow hazards. Mini disk tension infiltrometers (MDIs) can be used to estimate soil hydraulic properties, such as field-saturated hydraulic conductivity (Kfs) and wetting front potential...
Assessing environmental oil spill based on fluorescence images of water samples and deep learning
D. P. Liu, Ming Liu, Guangyu Sun, Zhiqian Zhou, Duolin Wang, Fei He, Jiaxin Li, Jiacheng Xie, Ryan Gettler, Eric Brunson, Jeffery A. Steevens, Dong Xu
2023, Journal of Environmental Informatics (42) 1-12
Measuring oil concentration in the aquatic environment is essential for determining the potential exposure, risk, or injury for oil spill response and natural resource damage assessment. Conventional analytical chemistry methods require samples to be collected in the field, shipped, and processed in the laboratory, which is also rather time-consuming, laborious,...
New capabilities in MT3D-USGS for simulating unsaturated-zone heat transport
Eric D. Morway, Daniel T. Feinstein, Randall J. Hunt, Richard W. Healy
2023, Groundwater (61) 330-345
Changes in climate and land use will alter groundwater heat transport dynamics in the future. These changes will in turn affect watershed processes (e.g., nutrient cycling) as well as watershed characteristics (e.g., distribution and persistence of cold-water habitat). Thus, groundwater flow and heat transport models at watershed scales that...
A multi-level modeling approach to guide management of female feral hogs in Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Frances E. Buderman, Patrick J. Helm, Joseph D. Clark, Ryan H. Williamson, Joseph G. Yarkovich, Jennifer M. Mullinax
2023, Biological Invasions (25) 3065-3082
We trapped, anesthetized, and fit 16 female feral swine (Sus scrofa) with Global Positioning System (GPS) collars in Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GRSM) to develop predictive summer and winter models for more effective population control efforts. Given the highly diverse habitat and topography in GRSM...
Assessing potential effects of changes in water use in the middle Carson River Basin with a numerical groundwater-flow model, Eagle, Dayton, and Churchill Valleys, west-central Nevada
Eric D. Morway, Susan G. Buto, Richard G. Niswonger, Justin L. Huntington
2023, Scientific Investigations Report 2023-5008
During the economic boom of the mid part of the first decade of the 2000s in northwestern Nevada, municipal and housing growth increased use of the water resources of this semi-arid region. In 2008, when the economy slowed, new housing development stopped, and immediate pressure on groundwater resources abated. The...
Flushing time variability in a short, low-inflow estuary
Mohsen Taherkhani, Sean Vitousek, Ryan K. Walter, Jennifer O’Leary, Amid P. Khodadoust
2023, Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science (284)
Flushing time, the time scale for exchange and mixing between embayed and oceanic waters in an estuary, plays an integral role in determining water quality and aquatic ecosystem health. Here, we investigated the spatiotemporal variability of flushing times throughout Morro Bay, a short, low-inflow estuary (LIE) on the California coast, using a calibrated...
Assessment and characterization of ephemeral stream channel stability in the Grand Valley, Colorado, 2018-22
Joel William Homan
2023, Conference Paper, Proceedings of SEDHYD 2023
The purpose of this study is to provide information regarding the stability of ephemeral streams on the north side of the Grand Valley, Colorado. The ungaged ephemeral streams in this semiarid region are of particular interest because (1) the underlying bedrock geology, Mancos Shale, is a sedimentary rock deposit that...
A numerical investigation of the mechanisms controlling salt intrusion in the Delaware Bay Estuary
Salme Ellen Cook, John C. Warner, Kendra L. Russell
2023, Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science (283)
Salinity intrusion in coastal systems is mainly controlled by freshwater inflows. However, extreme events like drought, low-pressure storms, and longer-term sea level rise can exacerbate the landward salt migration and threaten economic infrastructure and ecological health. Along the eastern seaboard of the United States, approximately 13 million people rely on the water...
Environmental, morphological, and molecular data reveal a new species of freshwater mussel, Strophitus howellsi, endemic to the Edwards Plateau in Texas
Chase H. Smith, Alexander H. Kiser, Nathan Johnson, Charles R. Randklev
2023, Conservation Genetics (24) 629-647
Freshwater mussels are considered the most imperiled group of organisms in North America and systematics research has played an integral role in the development and implementation of their conservation. Despite the importance of systematics in conservation planning, the evolutionary relationships between many mussel taxa remain poorly...
Implications of fire-induced evapotranspiration shifts for recharge-runoff generation and vegetation conversion in the western United States
Natalie M. Collar, Brian A. Ebel, Samuel Saxe, Ashley J. Rust, Terri S. Hogue
2023, Journal of Hydrology X (621)
Wildfire has been shown to increase, decrease, or have no detectable effect on actual evapotranspiration (ETa) fluxes in the western United States. Where disturbance-induced shifts are significant, source-water hydrology may be impacted as ETa constitutes the largest outgoing water flux in...
Named landforms of the World: A geomorphological and physiographic compilation
Charlie Frye, Roger Sayre, Alexander Murphy, Deniz Karagulle, Moira Pippi, Mark Gilbert, Jaynya Richards
2023, Annals of the AAG (113) 1762-1780
Prior to the current era of digital geomorphological mapping, global and regional-scale land surface characterization was advanced by qualitative interpretations that relied on human visualization aided by disciplinary knowledge of geophysical processes combined with extensive field study. In the early twentieth century, Fenneman proposed to devise systematic...
The composition of Io
Laszlo P. Keszthelyi, Terry-Ann Suer
2023, Book chapter, Astrophysics and Space Science Library
Io is unlike any other body in the Solar System making questions about its chemical composition especially interesting and challenging. This chapter examines the many different, but frustratingly indirect, constraints we have on the bulk composition of this restless moon. A detailed consideration of Io’s lavas...
Trends and population estimate of the threatened Buff-breasted Sandpiper Calidris subruficollis wintering in coastal grasslands of southern Brazil
Fernando A. Faria, Rafael A. Dias, Glayson A. Bencke, Leandro Bugoni, Nathan R. Senner, Juliana Bose de Almeida, Guilherme Tavares Nunes, Maycon S. S. Goncalves, James E. Lyons
2023, Bird Conservation International (33)
Information about population sizes, trends, and habitat use is key for species conservation and management. The Buff-breasted Sandpiper Calidris subruficollis (BBSA) is a long-distance migratory shorebird that breeds in the Arctic and migrates to south-eastern South America, wintering in the grasslands of southern Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina. Most studies of Nearctic...
Survival of Common Loon chicks appears unaffected by Bald Eagle recovery in northern Minnesota
Jennyffer Cruz, Steve K. Windels, Wayne E. Thogmartin, Shawn M. Crimmins, Benjamin Zuckerberg
2023, Avian Conservation and Ecology (18)
Recovering species are not returning to the same environments or communities from which they disappeared. Conservation researchers and practitioners are thus faced with additional challenges in ensuring species resilience in these rapidly changing ecosystems. Assessing the resilience of species in these novel systems can still be guided by species’ ecology,...
Machine-learning model to delineate sub-surface agricultural drainage from satellite imagery
Fleford Santos Redoloza, Tanja N. Williamson, Alexander O. Headman, Barry J. Allred
2023, Journal of Environmental Quality (52) 907-921
Knowing subsurface drainage (tile-drain) extent is integral to understanding how landscapes respond to precipitation events and subsequent days of drying, as well as how soil characteristics and land management influence stream response. Consequently, a time series of tile-drain extent would inform one aspect of...
The use of historical data and global climate models to assess historical and future surface water and groundwater availability in the Trinity River Basin in Texas
Molly J. Milmo, Jeremy McDowell, Monica Veale Yesildirek, Glenn R. Harwell
2023, Texas Water Journal (14) 34-61
This paper describes the results of a study that was done by the USGS to assess recent (2017) water availability, forecast long-term trends in water availability, assess changes in water availability, and forecast future water availability in the Trinity River Basin in Texas. The Trinity River Basin surface water model...
Exploring the influence of input feature space on CNN-based geomorphic feature extraction from digital terrain data
Aaron E. Maxwell, William Elijah Odom, Charles M. Shobe, Daniel H. Doctor, Michelle S. Bester, Tobi Ore
2023, Earth and Space Science (10)
Many studies of Earth surface processes and landscape evolution rely on having accurate and extensive data sets of surficial geologic units and landforms. Automated extraction of geomorphic features using deep learning provides an objective way to consistently map landforms over large spatial extents. However, there is no consensus on the...
Evaluation of Copernicus DEM and comparison to the DEM used for Landsat collection-2 processing
Shannon Franks, Rajagopalan Rengarajan
2023, Remote Sensing (15)
Having highly accurate and reliable Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) of the Earth’s surface is critical to orthorectify Landsat imagery. Without such accuracy, pixel locations reported in the data are difficult to assure as accurate, especially in more mountainous landscapes, where the orthorectification process is the most challenging. To this...
Using seasonal climate scenarios in the ForageAhead annual forage production model for early drought impact assessment
Marketa Podebradska, Bruce K. Wylie, Michael J. Hayes, Deborah J. Bathke, Yared A. Bayissa, Stephen P. Boyte, Jesslyn F. Brown, Brian D. Wardlow
2023, Ecosphere (14)
High interannual variability of forage production in semiarid grasslands leads to uncertainties when livestock producers make decisions, such as buying additional feed, relocating animals, or using flexible stocking. Within-season predictions of annual forage production (i.e., yearly production) can provide specific boundaries for producers to...
Genetic mark–recapture analysis reveals large annual variation in pre-breeding sex ratio of greater sage-grouse
Jessica E. Shyvers, Brett L Walker, Sara J. Oyler-McCance, Jennifer A. Fike, Barry R. Noon
2023, Wildlife Biology (2023)
Sex ratio, and the extent to which it varies over time, is an important factor in the demography, management, and conservation of wildlife populations. Greater sage-grouse Centrocercus urophasianus populations in western North America are monitored using counts of males at leks in spring. Population estimates derived from...
