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Widespread lake shrinkage in cold regions has been linked to climate warming and permafrost thaw. Permafrost aggradation, however, has been observed within the margins of recently receded lakes, in seeming contradiction of climate warming. Here permafrost aggradation dynamics are examined at Twelvemile Lake, a retreating lake in interior Alaska. Observations...

Dynamic stresses carried by transient seismic waves have been found capable of triggering earthquakes instantly in various tectonic settings. Delayed triggering may be even more common, but the mechanisms are not well understood. Catalogs of repeating earthquakes, earthquakes that recur repeatedly at the same location, provide ideal data sets to...

The USGS Great Lakes Science Center (GLSC) conducted acoustic and midwater trawl surveys of Lake Huron during 1997 and annually during 2004-2013. The 2013 survey was conducted during September and October and included transects in Lake Huron’s main basin, Georgian Bay, and North Channel. Pelagic fish density was 1,033 fish/ha...

Magnetite (Fe3O4) is a well-recognized petrogenetic indicator and is a common accessory mineral in many ore deposits and their host rocks. Recent years have seen an increased interest in the use of hydrothermal magnetite for provenance studies and as a pathfinder for mineral exploration. A number of studies have investigated...

Research on the effects of exposure of stream biota to complex mixtures of pharmaceuticals and other organic compounds associated with wastewater requires the development of additional analytical capabilities for these compounds in water samples. Two gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) analytical methods used at the U.S. Geological Survey National Water Quality...

Continuous real-time information on streams, lakes, and groundwater is an important Kansas resource that can safeguard lives and property, and ensure adequate water resources for a healthy State economy. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) operates approximately 230 water-monitoring stations at Kansas streams, lakes, and groundwater sites. Most of these stations...

Elevation data are essential to a broad range of applications, including forest resources management, wildlife and habitat management, national security, recreation, and many others. For the State of Maine, elevation data are critical for natural resources conservation, flood risk management, forest resources management, agriculture and precision farming, coastal zone management,...

Water, bed sediment, and biota were sampled in streams from Butte to near Missoula, Montana, as part of a monitoring program in the upper Clark Fork Basin of western Montana. The sampling program was conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to characterize...

The USGS Great Lakes Science Center has conducted trawl surveys to assess annual changes in the offshore demersal fish community of Lake Huron since 1973. Sample sites include five ports in U.S. waters with less frequent sampling near Goderich, Ontario. The 2013 fall bottom trawl survey was carried out between...

Coastal marine organisms experience dynamic pH and dissolved oxygen (DO) conditions in their natural habitats, which may impact their susceptibility to long-term anthropogenic changes. Robust characterizations of all temporal scales of natural pH and DO fluctuations in different marine habitats are needed; however, appropriate time series of pH and DO...

(Introduction) Microbe-mineral interactions and biosignature preservation in oxidized sulfidic ore bodies (gossans) are prime candidates for astrobiological study. Such oxidized iron systems have been proposed as analogs for some Martian environments. Recent studies identified microbial fossils preserved as mineral-coated filaments. This study documents microbially-mediated mineral biosignatures in hydrous ferric oxide...

Few studies have evaluated the rate of infection or mode of transmission for wildlife diseases, and the implications of alternative management strategies. We used hunter harvest data from 2002 to 2013 to investigate chronic wasting disease (CWD) infection rate and transmission modes, and address how alternative management approaches affect disease...

The recent boom in the volume of digital data returned by international planetary science missions continues to both delight and confound users of those data. In just the past decade, the Planetary Data System (PDS), NASA’s official archive of scientific results from U.S. planetary missions, has seen a nearly 50-fold...

A former bulk fuel terminal in North Carolina is a groundwater phytoremediation demonstration site where 3,250 hybrid poplars, willows, and pine trees were planted from 2006 to 2008 over approximately 579,000 L of residual gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. Since 2011, the groundwater altitude is lower in the area with...

Various types of evidence have been promulgated as proof for the effects of feral cats on wildlife, typically including numerous studies on predation inferred from diet, mortality attributed to pathogens, and photographic or videographic documentation. The strength of these types of evidence is often short of conclusive. For example, studies...

A One Health approach that achieves optimal outcomes requires that nontraditional partners come to a common table to identify solutions that transcend organization-specific mandates. This collaboration requires individuals to go beyond their accustomed comfort zones and function on teams with partners who very likely come from unfamiliar organizational, disciplinary, and...

Geophysical and geochemical surveys were conducted to understand groundwater discharge to Great Salt Lake (GSL) and assess the potential significance of groundwater discharge as a source of selenium (Se). Continuous resistivity profiling (CRP) focusing below the sediment/water interface and fiber-optic distributed temperature sensing (FO-DTS) surveys were conducted along the south...

The northern madtom (Noturus stigmosus or NOM) is a small catfish, native to North America. It is globally vulnerable and endangered in Canada, Ontario, and Michigan. In 1994 and 1996, it was found in the St. Clair River and in Lake St. Clair, respectively. However, it had not been found...

An analysis of recent and historical U.S. Geological Survey streamgage information was used to assess geomorphic changes caused by the 2011 flood, in comparison to selected historical floods, at three streamgage sites along the lower Missouri River—Sioux City, Iowa; Omaha, Nebraska; and Kansas City, Missouri. Channel-width change was not evident...

Reliable estimates of the magnitude and frequency of floods are essential for the design of transportation and water-conveyance structures, flood-insurance studies, and flood-plain management. Such estimates are particularly important in densely populated urban areas. In order to increase the number of streamflow-gaging stations (streamgages) available for analysis, expand the geographical...

Laboratory experiments were conducted to assess if exposure to atmospheric African dust stimulates or inhibits the growth of four putative bacterial coral pathogens. Atmospheric dust was collected from a dust-source region (Mali, West Africa) and from Saharan Air Layer masses over downwind sites in the Caribbean [Trinidad and Tobago and...

Topographic data at selected areas within the Alabama River flood plain near Montgomery, Alabama, were collected using a truck-mounted mobile terrestrial light detection and ranging system. These data were collected for inclusion in a flood inundation model developed by the National Weather Service in Birmingham, Alabama. Data are presented as...

Bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) were not known to live on Tiburón Island, the largest island in the Gulf of California and Mexico, prior to the surprisingly successful introduction of 20 individuals as a conservation measure in 1975. Today, a stable island population of ~500 sheep supports limited big game hunting...

Quality-control (QC) samples were collected from 2002 through 2008 by the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Energy, to ensure data robustness by documenting the variability and bias of water-quality data collected at surface-water and groundwater sites at and near the Idaho National Laboratory. QC samples...

During 2011, excess precipitation resulted in widespread flooding in the Central United States with 33 fatalities and approximately $4.2 billion in damages reported in the Red River of the North, Souris, and Mississippi River Basins. At different times from late February 2011 through September 2011, various rivers in these basins...