Regional seismic-wave propagation from the M5.8 23 August 2011, Mineral, Virginia, earthquake
Frederick Pollitz, Walter D. Mooney
2015, GSA Special Papers (509) 95-116
The M5.8 23 August 2011 Mineral, Virginia, earthquake was felt over nearly the entire eastern United States and was recorded by a wide array of seismic broadband instruments. The earthquake occurred ~200 km southeast of the boundary between two distinct geologic belts, the Piedmont and Blue Ridge terranes to the...
Gold-silver mining districts, alteration zones, and paleolandforms in the Miocene Bodie Hills Volcanic Field, California and Nevada
Peter G. Vikre, David A. John, Edward A. du Bray, Robert J. Fleck
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5012
The Bodie Hills is a ~40 by ~30 kilometer volcanic field that straddles the California-Nevada state boundary between Mono Lake and the East Walker River. Three precious metal mining districts and nine alteration zones are delineated in Tertiary-Quaternary volcanic and Mesozoic granitic and metamorphic rocks that comprise the volcanic field....
Aleutian basin oceanic crust
Gail L. Christeson, Ginger A. Barth
2015, Earth and Planetary Science Letters (426) 167-175
We present two-dimensional P-wave velocity structure along two wide-angle ocean bottom seismometer profiles from the Aleutian basin in the Bering Sea. The basement here is commonly considered to be trapped oceanic crust, yet there is a change in orientation of magnetic lineations and gravity features within the basin that might...
Early-Holocene warming in Beringia and its mediation by sea-level and vegetation changes
P. J. Bartlein, M. E. Edwards, Steven W. Hostetler, Sarah Shafer, P. M. Anderson, L. B Brubaker, A. V Lozhkin
2015, Climate of the Past (11) 1197-1222
Arctic land-cover changes induced by recent global climate change (e.g., expansion of woody vegetation into tundra and effects of permafrost degradation) are expected to generate further feedbacks to the climate system. Past changes can be used to assess our understanding of feedback mechanisms through a combination of process modeling and...
National assessment of nor’easter-induced coastal erosion hazards: mid- and northeast Atlantic coast
Justin J. Birchler, P. Soupy Dalyander, Hilary F. Stockdon, Kara S. Doran
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1154
Beaches serve as a natural buffer between the ocean and inland communities, ecosystems, and natural resources. However, these dynamic environments move and change in response to winds, waves, and currents. During extreme storms, changes to beaches can be great, and the results are sometimes catastrophic. Lives may be lost, communities...
Geology of Joshua Tree National Park geodatabase
Robert E. Powell, Jonathan C. Matti, Pamela M. Cossette
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1175
The database in this Open-File Report describes the geology of Joshua Tree National Park and was completed in support of the National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and in cooperation with the National Park Service (NPS). The geologic observations and interpretations represented in the database...
Landslides and megathrust splay faults captured by the late Holocene sediment record of eastern Prince William Sound, Alaska
S.P. Finn, Lee M. Liberty, Peter J. Haeussler, Thomas L. Pratt
2015, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (105) 2343-2353
We present new marine seismic‐reflection profiles and bathymetric maps to characterize Holocene depositional patterns, submarine landslides, and active faults beneath eastern and central Prince William Sound (PWS), Alaska, which is the eastern rupture patch of the 1964 Mw 9.2 earthquake. We show evidence that submarine landslides, many of which are...
Fire patterns in the range of the greater sage-grouse, 1984-2013 - Implications for conservation and management
Matthew L. Brooks, John R. Matchett, Douglas J. Shinneman, Peter S. Coates
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1167
Fire ranks among the top three threats to the greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) throughout its range, and among the top two threats in the western part of its range. The national research strategy for this species and the recent U.S. Department of the Interior Secretarial Order 3336 call for science-based...
Ground motion simulation for the 23 August 2011, Mineral, Virginia earthquake using physics-based and stochastic broadband methods
Xiaodan Sun, Stephen H. Hartzell, Sanaz Rezaeian
2015, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (105) 2641-2661
Three broadband simulation methods are used to generate synthetic ground motions for the 2011 Mineral, Virginia, earthquake and compare with observed motions. The methods include a physics‐based model by Hartzell et al. (1999, 2005), a stochastic source‐based model by Boore (2009), and a stochastic site‐based model by Rezaeian and Der...
A conceptual framework and monitoring strategy for movement of saltwater in the coastal plain aquifer system of Virginia
E. Randolph Mcfarland
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5117
A conceptual framework synthesizes previous studies to provide an understanding of conditions, processes, and relations of saltwater to groundwater withdrawal in the Virginia Coastal Plain aquifer system. A strategy for monitoring saltwater movement is based on spatial relations between the saltwater-transition zone and 612 groundwater-production wells that were regulated during...
Status and trends of land change in the Great Plains of the United States--1973 to 2000
Janis Taylor, William Acevedo, Roger F. Auch, Mark A. Drummond, editor(s)
2015, Professional Paper 1794-B
Preface U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Professional Paper 1794–B is the second in a four-volume series on the status and trends of the Nation’s land use and land cover, providing an assessment of the rates and causes of land-use and land-cover change in the Great Plains of the United States between 1973...
Flood-inundation Maps for the Deerfield River, Franklin County, Massachusetts, from the Confluence with the Cold River Tributary to the Connecticut River
Pamela J. Lombard, Gardner C. Bent
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5104
The U.S. Geological Survey developed flood elevations in cooperation with the Federal Emergency Management Agency for a 30-mile reach of the Deerfield River from the confluence of the Cold River tributary to the Connecticut River in the towns of Charlemont, Buckland, Shelburne, Conway, Deerfield, and Greenfield in Franklin County, Massachusetts...
Effects of urbanization and stormwater control measures on streamflows in the vicinity of Clarksburg, Maryland, USA
Lee Rhea, Taylor Jarnagin, Dianna M. Hogan, J. V. Loperfido, William Shuster
2015, Hydrological Processes (29) 4413-4426
Understanding the efficacy of revised watershed management methods is important to mitigating the impacts of urbanization on streamflow. We evaluated the influence of land use change, primarily as urbanization, and stormwater control measures on the relationship between precipitation and stream discharge over an 8-year period for five catchments near Clarksburg,...
Estimating the short-term recovery potential of little brown bats in the eastern United States in the face of White-nose syndrome
Robin E. Russell, Wayne E. Thogmartin, Richard A. Erickson, Jennifer A. Szymanski, Karl Tinsley
2015, Ecological Modelling (314) 111-117
White-nose syndrome (WNS) was first detected in North American bats in New York in 2006. Since that time WNS has spread throughout the northeastern United States, southeastern Canada, and southwest across Pennsylvania and as far west as Missouri. Suspect WNS cases have been identified in Minnesota and Iowa, and the...
Evaluation of the toxicity of sediments from the Anniston PCB Site to the mussel Lampsilis siliquoidea
Allison Schein, Jesse A. Sinclair, Donald D. MacDonald, Christopher G. Ingersoll, Nile E. Kemble, James L. Kunz
2015, Report
The Anniston Polychlorinated Biphenyl (PCB) Site is located in the vicinity of the municipality of Anniston in Calhoun County, in the north-eastern portion of Alabama. Although there are a variety of land-use activities within the Choccolocco Creek watershed, environmental concerns in the area have focused mainly on releases of PCBs...
Developing nondestructive techniques for managing conflicts between fisheries and double-crested cormorant colonies
Yasuko Suzuki, Daniel D. Roby, Donald E. Lyons, Karen Courtot, Ken Collis
2015, Wildlife Society Bulletin (39) 764-771
Double-crested cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus) have been identified as the source of significant mortality to juvenile salmonids (Oncorhynchus spp.) in the Columbia River Basin. Management plans for reducing the size of a large colony on East Sand Island (OR, USA) in the Columbia River estuary are currently being developed. We evaluated habitat...
The Centennial Trends Greater Horn of Africa precipitation dataset
Chris Funk, Sharon E. Nicholson, Martin F. Landsfeld, Douglas Klotter, Pete J. Peterson, Laura Harrison
2015, Scientific Data (2)
East Africa is a drought prone, food and water insecure region with a highly variable climate. This complexity makes rainfall estimation challenging, and this challenge is compounded by low rain gauge densities and inhomogeneous monitoring networks. The dearth of observations is particularly problematic over the past decade, since the number...
Global patterns and environmental controls of perchlorate and nitrate co-occurrence in arid and semi-arid environments
W Andrew Jackson, J.K. Bohlke, Brian J. Andraski, Lynne S. Fahlquist, Laura M. Bexfield, Frank D. Eckardt, John B. Gates, Alfonso F. Davila, Christopher P. McKay, Balaji Rao, Ritesh Sevanthi, Srinath Rajagopalan, Nubia Estrada, Neil C. Sturchio, Paul B. Hatzinger, Todd A. Anderson, Greta J. Orris, Julio L. Betancourt, David A. Stonestrom, Claudio Latorre, Yanhe Li, Gregory J. Harvey
2015, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (164) 502-522
Natural perchlorate (ClO4−) is of increasing interest due to its wide-spread occurrence on Earth and Mars, yet little information exists on the relative abundance of ClO4− compared to other major anions, its stability, or long-term variations in production that may impact the observed distributions. Our objectives were to evaluate the...
Estimating annualized earthquake losses for the conterminous United States
Kishor S. Jaiswal, Douglas Bausch, Rui Chen, Jawhar Bouabid, Hope Seligson
2015, Earthquake Spectra (31) 221-243
We make use of the most recent National Seismic Hazard Maps (the years 2008 and 2014 cycles), updated census data on population, and economic exposure estimates of general building stock to quantify annualized earthquake loss (AEL) for the conterminous United States. The AEL analyses were performed using the Federal Emergency...
Groundwater quality data in 15 GAMA study units: results from the 2006–10 Initial sampling and the 2009–13 resampling of wells, California GAMA Priority Basin Project
Robert Kent
2015, Data Series 919
The Priority Basin Project (PBP) of the Groundwater Ambient Monitoring and Assessment (GAMA) program was developed in response to the Groundwater Quality Monitoring Act of 2001 and is being conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in cooperation with the California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB). From May...
Geochemical and mineralogical characteristics of REE in granite-derived regolith: a model for the Southeast United States
Nora K. Foley, Carleton R. Bern, Robert A. Ayuso, Bernard E. Hubbard, Anjana K. Shah
2015, Conference Paper, Proceeding of the 13th Biennial SGA Meeting
Rare earth element (REE) ion-adsorption clay deposits are of global economic importance because they currently supply a significant portion of the world’s annual production of both light (LREE) and heavy REE (HREE). There is considerable ambiguity regarding the origin of this deposit type: The main criteria include the presence...
Relations between well-field pumping and induced canal leakage in east-central Miami-Dade County, Florida, 2010-2011
Katherine Nemec, Dominick J. Antolino, Michael Turtora, Adam Foster
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5095
An extensive canal and water management system exists in south Florida to prevent flooding, replenish groundwater, and impede saltwater intrusion. The unconfined Biscayne aquifer, which underlies southeast Florida and provides water for millions of residents, interacts with the canal system. The Biscayne aquifer is composed of a highly transmissive karst...
Geologic framework for the national assessment of carbon dioxide storage resources─South Florida Basin: Chapter L in Geologic framework for the national assessment of carbon dioxide storage resources
Tina L. Roberts-Ashby, Sean T. Brennan, Matthew D. Merrill, Madalyn S. Blondes, P.A. Freeman, Steven M. Cahan, Christina A. DeVera, Celeste D. Lohr
Peter D. Warwick, M.D. Corum, editor(s)
2015, Open-File Report 2012-1024-L
This report presents five storage assessment units (SAUs) that have been identified as potentially suitable for geologic carbon dioxide sequestration within a 35,075-square-mile area that includes the entire onshore and State-water portions of the South Florida Basin. Platform-wide, thick successions of laterally extensive carbonates and evaporites deposited in highly cyclic...
Plugs or flood-makers? the unstable landslide dams of eastern Oregon
Elizabeth B. Safran, Jim E. O'Connor, Lisa L. Ely, Kyle House, Gordon E. Grant, Kelsey Harrity, Kelsey Croall, Emily Jones
2015, Geomorphology (248) 237-251
Landslides into valley bottoms can affect longitudinal profiles of rivers, thereby influencing landscape evolution through base-level changes. Large landslides can hinder river incision by temporarily damming rivers, but catastrophic failure of landslide dams may generate large floods that could promote incision. Dam stability therefore strongly modulates the effects of landslide...
Flood-inundation maps for Grand River, Red Cedar River, and Sycamore Creek near Lansing, Michigan
Matthew Whitehead, Chad J. Ostheimer
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5101
Digital flood-inundation maps for a total of 19.7 miles of the Grand River, the Red Cedar River, and Sycamore Creek were created by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in cooperation with the City of Lansing, Michigan, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The flood-inundation maps, which can be accessed...
