Benthos and plankton community data for selected rivers and harbors along Wisconsin's Lake Michigan shoreline, 2012
Barbara C. Scudder Eikenberry, Amanda H. Bell, Daniel J. Burns, Hayley T. Olds
2014, Data Series 824
Four river systems on the Wisconsin shoreline of Lake Michigan are designated Areas of Concern (AOCs) because of severe environmental degradation: the Lower Menominee River, Lower Green Bay and Fox River, Sheboygan River, and Milwaukee Estuary. Each AOC has one or more Beneficial Use Impairments (BUIs) that form the basis...
Magnetic resonance sounding survey data collected in the North Platte, Twin Platte, and South Platte Natural Resource Districts, Western Nebraska, Fall 2012
Mason A. Kass, Benjamin R. Bloss, Trevor P. Irons, James C. Cannia, Jared D. Abraham
2014, Open-File Report 2014-1138
This report is a release of digital data and associated survey descriptions from a series of magnetic resonance soundings (MRS, also known as surface nuclear magnetic resonance) that was conducted during October and November of 2012 in areas of western Nebraska as part of a cooperative hydrologic study by the...
Evidence of Absence software
Daniel Dalthorp, Manuela M. P. Huso, David Dail, Jessica Kenyon
2014, Data Series 881
Evidence of Absence software (EoA) is a user-friendly application used for estimating bird and bat fatalities at wind farms and designing search protocols. The software is particularly useful in addressing whether the number of fatalities has exceeded a given threshold and what search parameters are needed to give assurance that...
Base of principal aquifer for parts of the North Platte, South Platte, and Twin Platte Natural Resources Districts, western Nebraska
Christopher M. Hobza, Jared D. Abraham, James C. Cannia, Michaela R. Johnson, Steven S. Sibray
2014, Scientific Investigations Map 3310
Water resources in the North and South Platte River valleys of Nebraska, including the valley of Lodgepole Creek, are critical to the social and economic health of the area, and for the recovery of threatened and endangered species in the Platte River Basin. Groundwater and surface water are heavily used...
Near-field receiving water monitoring of trace metals and a benthic community near the Palo Alto Regional Water Quality Control Plant in South San Francisco Bay, California: 2013
Jessica Dyke, Daniel J. Cain, Janet K. Thompson, Amy E. Kleckner, Francis Parcheso, Michelle I. Hornberger, Samuel N. Luoma
2014, Open-File Report 2014-1174
Trace-metal concentrations in sediment and in the clam Macoma petalum (formerly reported as Macoma balthica), clam reproductive activity, and benthic macroinvertebrate community structure were investigated in a mudflat 1 kilometer south of the discharge of the Palo Alto Regional Water Quality Control Plant (PARWQCP) in South San Francisco Bay, Calif....
Stochastic ground motion simulation
Sanaz Rezaeian, Sun Xiaodan
Michael Beer, Ioannis A. Kougioumtzoglou, Edoardo Patelli, Ivan Siu-Kui Au, editor(s)
2014, Book chapter, Encyclopedia of Earthquake Engineering
Strong earthquake ground motion records are fundamental in engineering applications. Ground motion time series are used in response-history dynamic analysis of structural or geotechnical systems. In such analysis, the validity of predicted responses depends on the validity of the input excitations. Ground motion records are also used to develop <span...
One-Water Hydrologic Flow Model (MODFLOW-OWHM)
Randall T. Hanson, Scott E. Boyce, Wolfgang Schmid, Joseph D. Hughes, Steffen W. Mehl, Stanley A. Leake, Thomas Maddock III, Richard G. Niswonger
2014, Techniques and Methods 6-A51
The One-Water Hydrologic Flow Model (MF-OWHM) is a MODFLOW-based integrated hydrologic flow model (IHM) that is the most complete version, to date, of the MODFLOW family of hydrologic simulators needed for the analysis of a broad range of conjunctive-use issues. Conjunctive use is the combined use of groundwater and surface...
Stream classification of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River System to support modeling of aquatic habitat response to climate change
Caroline M. Elliott, Robert B. Jacobson, Mary Freeman
2014, Scientific Investigations Report 2014-5080
A stream classification and associated datasets were developed for the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin to support biological modeling of species response to climate change in the southeastern United States. The U.S. Geological Survey and the Department of the Interior’s National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center established the Southeast Regional Assessment...
Insights for empirically modeling evapotranspiration influenced by riparian and upland vegetation in semiarid regions
Daniel P. Bunting, Shirley A. Kurc, Edward P. Glenn, Pamela L. Nagler, Russell L. Scott
2014, Journal of Arid Environments (111) 42-52
Water resource managers aim to ensure long-term water supplies for increasing human populations. Evapotranspiration (ET) is a key component of the water balance and accurate estimates are important to quantify safe allocations to humans while supporting environmental needs. Scaling up ET measurements from small spatial scales has been problematic due...
The influence of controlled floods on fine sediment storage in debris fan-affected canyons of the Colorado River basin
Erich R. Mueller, Paul E. Grams, John C. Schmidt, Joseph E. Hazel Jr., Jason S. Alexander, Matt Kaplinski
2014, Geomorphology (226) 65-75
Prior to the construction of large dams on the Green and Colorado Rivers, annual floods aggraded sandbars in lateral flow-recirculation eddies with fine sediment scoured from the bed and delivered from upstream. Flows greater than normal dam operations may be used to mimic this process in an attempt to increase...
Frequency-dependent effects of rupture for the 2004 Parkfield mainshock, results from UPSAR
Jon B. Fletcher
2014, Journal of Geophysical Research B: Solid Earth (119) 7195-7208
The frequency-dependent effects of rupture propagation of the Parkfield, California earthquake (Sept. 28, 2004, M6) to the northwest along the San Andreas fault can be seen in acceleration records at UPSAR (USGS Parkfield Seismic Array) in at least two ways. First, we can see the effects of directivity in the...
Indicators of the statuses of amphibian populations and their potential for exposure to atrazine in four midwestern U.S. conservation areas
Walter Sadinski, Mark Roth, Tyrone Hayes, Perry Jones, Alisa Gallant
2014, PLoS ONE (9)
Extensive corn production in the midwestern United States has physically eliminated or fragmented vast areas of historical amphibian habitat. Midwestern corn farmers also apply large quantities of fertilizers and herbicides, which can cause direct and indirect effects on amphibians. Limited field research regarding the statuses of midwestern amphibian populations near...
Integrated hydrologic model of Pajaro Valley, Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties, California
Randall T. Hanson, Wolfgang Schmid, Claudia C. Faunt, Jonathan Lear, Brian Lockwood
2014, Scientific Investigations Report 2014-5111
Increasing population, agricultural development (including shifts to more water-intensive crops), and climate variability are placing increasingly larger demands on available groundwater resources in the Pajaro Valley, one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world. This study provided a refined conceptual model, geohydrologic framework, and integrated hydrologic model of...
The role of conflict minerals, artisanal mining, and informal trading networks in African intrastate and regional conflicts
Peter G. Chirico, Katherine C. Malpeli
2014, Small Wars Journal
The relationship between natural resources and armed conflict gained public and political attention in the 1990s, when it became evident that the mining and trading of diamonds were connected with brutal rebellions in several African nations. Easily extracted resources such as alluvial diamonds and gold have been and continue to...
Energetic demands of immature sea otters from birth to weaning: Implications for maternal costs, reproductive behavior and population-level trends
N. M. Thometz, M. T. Tinker, M. M. Staedler, K. A. Mayer, T. M. Williams
2014, Journal of Experimental Biology (217) 2053-2061
Sea otters (Enhydra lutris) have the highest mass-specific metabolic rate of any marine mammal, which is superimposed on the inherently high costs of reproduction and lactation in adult females. These combined energetic demands have been implicated in the poor body condition and increased mortality of female sea otters nearing the...
Interpreting the paleozoogeography and sea level history of thermally anomalous marine terrace faunas: A case study from the the last interglacial complex of San Clemente Island, California
Daniel R. Muhs, Lindsey T. Groves, R. Randall Schumann
2014, Monographs of the Western North American Naturalist (7) 82-108
Marine invertebrate faunas with mixtures of extralimital southern and extralimital northern faunal elements, called thermally anomalous faunas, have been recognized for more than a century in the Quaternary marine terrace record of the Pacific Coast of North America. Although many mechanisms have been proposed to explain this phenomenon, no single...
USGS ecosystem research for the next decade: advancing discovery and application in parks and protected areas through collaboration
Charles van Riper III, James D. Nichols, G. Lynn Wingard, Jeffrey L. Kershner, James E. Cloern, Robert B. Jacobson, Robin P. White, Anthony D. McGuire, Byron K. Williams, Guy Gelfenbaum, Carl D. Shapiro
2014, The George Wright Forum (31)
Ecosystems within parks and protected areas in the United States and throughout the world are being transformed at an unprecedented rate. Changes associated with natural hazards, greenhouse gas emissions, and increasing demands for water, food, land, energy and mineral resources are placing urgency on sound decision making that will help...
Sapronosis: a distinctive type of infectious agent
Armand M. Kuris, Kevin D. Lafferty, Susanne H. Sokolow
2014, Trends in Parasitology (30) 386-393
Sapronotic disease agents have evolutionary and epidemiological properties unlike other infectious organisms. Their essential saprophagic existence prevents coevolution, and no host–parasite virulence trade-off can evolve. However, the host may evolve defenses. Models of pathogens show that sapronoses, lacking a threshold of transmission, cannot regulate host populations, although they can reduce...
Legacy data for a northern prairie grassland: Woodworth Study Area, North Dakota, 1963-89
Shelby H. Williams, Jane E. Austin
2014, Open-File Report 2014-1188
Ecological data commonly become more valuable through time. Such legacy data provide baseline records of past biological, physical, and social information that provide historical perspective and are necessary for assessment of stasis or change. Legacy data collected at the Woodworth Study Area (WSA), a contiguous block of grasslands, croplands, and...
Deposit model for heavy-mineral sands in coastal environments
Bradley S. Van Gosen, David L. Fey, Anjana K. Shah, Philip L. Verplanck, Todd M. Hoefen
2014, Scientific Investigations Report 2010-5070-L
This report provides a descriptive model of heavy-mineral sands, which are sedimentary deposits of dense minerals that accumulate with sand, silt, and clay in coastal environments, locally forming economic concentrations of the heavy minerals. This deposit type is the main source of titanium feedstock for the titanium dioxide (TiO2) pigments...
Incubation stage and polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) congener patterns in an altricial and precocial bird species
Christine M. Custer, Thomas W. Custer, Stefan Thyen, Peter H. Becker
2014, Environmental Pollution (195) 109-114
The composition of polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) congeners was compared between non-incubated and embryonated eggs of tree swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) and little terns (Sterna albifrons) to determine if measurable changes in PCB congeners occurred during the embryonic period. There was no indication of changes in PCB congener patterns over the incubation...
Toxicity of smelter slag-contaminated sediments from Upper Lake Roosevelt and associated metals to early life stage White Sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus Richardson, 1836)
E. E. Little, R.D. Calfee, G. Linder
2014, Journal of Applied Ichthyology (30) 1497-1507
The toxicity of five smelter slag-contaminated sediments from the upper Columbia River and metals associated with those slags (cadmium, copper, zinc) was evaluated in 96-h exposures of White Sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus Richardson, 1836) at 8 and 30 days post-hatch. Leachates prepared from slag-contaminated sediments were evaluated for toxicity. Leachates yielded...
Ecoregions of the conterminous United States: Evolution of a hierarchical spatial framework
James M. Omernik, Glenn E. Griffith
2014, Environmental Management (54) 1249-1266
A map of ecological regions of the conterminous United States, first published in 1987, has been greatly refined and expanded into a hierarchical spatial framework in response to user needs, particularly by state resource management agencies. In collaboration with scientists and resource managers from numerous agencies and institutions in the...
Common raven occurrence in relation to energy transmission line corridors transiting human-altered sagebrush steppe
Peter S. Coates, Kristy B. Howe, Michael L. Casazza, David J. Delehanty
2014, Journal of Arid Environments (111) 68-78
Energy-related infrastructure and other human enterprises within sagebrush steppe of the American West often results in changes that promote common raven (Corvus corax; hereafter, raven) populations. Ravens, a generalist predator capable of behavioral innovation, present a threat to many species of conservation concern. We evaluate the effects of detailed features...
A comprehensive analysis of small-passerine fatalities from collisions with turbines at wind energy facilities
Wallace P. Erickson, Melissa M. Wolfe, Kimberly J. Bay, Douglas H. Johnson, Joelle L. Gehring
2014, PLoS ONE (9)
Small passerines, sometimes referred to as perching birds or songbirds, are the most abundant bird group in the United States (US) and Canada, and the most common among bird fatalities caused by collision with turbines at wind energy facilities. We used data compiled from 39 studies conducted in the US...
