CO2 and CH4 emissions from streams in a lake-rich landscape: Patterns, controls, and regional significance
John T. Crawford, Noah R. Lottig, Emily H. Stanley, John F. Walker, Paul C. Hanson, Jacques C. Finlay, Robert G. Striegl
2014, Global Biogeochemical Cycles (28) 197-210
Aquatic ecosystems are important components of landscape carbon budgets. In lake-rich landscapes, both lakes and streams may be important sources of carbon gases (CO2 and CH4) to the atmosphere, but the processes that control gas concentrations and emissions in these interconnected landscapes have not been adequately addressed. We use multiple...
Geologic assessment of undiscovered oil and gas resources in Aptian carbonates, onshore northern Gulf of Mexico Basin, United States
Paul C. Hackley, Alexander W. Karlsen
2014, Cretaceous Research (48) 225-234
Carbonate lithofacies of the Lower Cretaceous Sligo Formation and James Limestone were regionally evaluated using established U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) assessment methodology for undiscovered conventional hydrocarbon resources. The assessed area is within the Upper Jurassic–Cretaceous–Tertiary Composite total petroleum system, which was defined for the assessment. Hydrocarbons reservoired in carbonate platform...
Reservoir floodplains support distinct fish assemblages
Leandro E. Miranda, S. L. Wigen, Jonah D. Dagel
2014, River Research and Applications (30) 338-346
Reservoirs constructed on floodplain rivers are unique because the upper reaches of the impoundment may include extensive floodplain environments. Moreover, reservoirs that experience large periodic water level fluctuations as part of their operational objectives seasonally inundate and dewater floodplains in their upper reaches, partly mimicking natural inundations of river floodplains....
Fish depth distributions in the Lower Mississippi River
K. J. Killgore, Leandro E. Miranda
2014, River Research and Applications (30) 347-359
A substantial body of literature exists about depth distribution of fish in oceans, lakes and reservoirs, but less is known about fish depth distribution in large rivers. Most of the emphasis on fish distributions in rivers has focused on longitudinal and latitudinal spatial distributions. Knowledge on depth distribution is necessary...
Mercury bioaccumulation in Southern Appalachian birds, assessed through feather concentrations
Rebecca Hylton Keller, Lingtian Xie, David B. Buchwalter, Kathleen E. Franzreb, Theodore R. Simons
2014, Ecotoxicology (23) 304-316
Mercury contamination in wildlife has rarely been studied in the Southern Appalachians despite high deposition rates in the region. From 2006 to 2008 we sampled feathers from 458 birds representing 32 species in the Southern Appalachians for total mercury and stable isotope δ 15N. Mercury concentrations (mean ± SE) averaged 0.46 ± 0.02 μg g−1 (range 0.01–3.74 μg g−1). Twelve...
Similar resilience attributes in lakes with different management practices
Didier L. Baho, Stina Drakare, Richard K. Johnson, Craig R. Allen, David G. Angeler
2014, PLoS ONE (9)
Liming has been used extensively in Scandinavia and elsewhere since the 1970s to counteract the negative effects of acidification. Communities in limed lakes usually return to acidified conditions once liming is discontinued, suggesting that liming is unlikely to shift acidified lakes to a state equivalent to pre-acidification conditions that requires...
Mineral Resource of the Month: Talc
Robert L. Virta, Bradley S. Van Gosen
2014, Earth (March 2014)
When people think of talc, they often think of talcum and baby powder. However, these uses of talc are minor compared to its use in industrial manufacturing. The leading use of talc in the United States is in the production of ceramics, where it is a source of magnesium oxide,...
Diet composition and fish consumption of double-crested cormorants from three St. Lawrence River colonies in 2013
James H. Johnson, James F. Farquhar, Irene M. Mazzocchi, Anne Bendig
2014, NYSDEC Lake Ontario Annual Report 2013-15
Double-crested Cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus) were first observed nesting in the upper St. Lawrence River at Strachan Island in 1992. Cormorants now nest at a number of islands in the Thousand Islands section of the river. Griswold, McNair, and Strachan islands are among the largest colonies in the upper river. Until...
Testing ecological tradeoffs of a new tool for removing fine sediment in a spring-fed stream
Adam J. Sepulveda, Juddson D. Sechrist, Laurie B Marczak
2014, Ecological Restoration (31) 68-77
Excessive fine sediment is a focus of stream restoration work because it can impair the structure and function of streams, but few methods exist for removing sediment in spring-fed streams. We tested a novel method of sediment removal with the potential to have minimal adverse effects on the biological community...
Effects of soil temperature and depth to ground water on first-year growth of a dryland riparian phreatophyte, Glycyrrhiza lepidota (American licorice)
Douglas C. Andersen, S. Mark Nelson
2014, Southwestern Naturalist (59) 56-65
We investigated the effects of soil temperature and depth to ground water on first-year growth of a facultative floodplain phreatophyte, Glycyrrhiza lepidota, in a 2-×-2 factorial greenhouse experiment. We grew plants in mesocosms subirrigated with water low in dissolved oxygen, mimicking natural systems, and set depth of ground water at 63...
Wildland fire ash: Production, composition and eco-hydro-geomorphic effects
Merche B. Bodi, Deborah A. Martin, Victoria N. Balfour, Cristina Santin, Stefan H. Doerr, Paulo Pereira, Artemi Cerda, Jorge Mataix-Solera
2014, Earth-Science Reviews (130) 103-127
Fire transforms fuels (i.e. biomass, necromass, soil organic matter) into materials with different chemical and physical properties. One of these materials is ash, which is the particulate residue remaining or deposited on the ground that consists of mineral materials and charred organic components. The quantity and characteristics of ash...
Early to Middle Ordovician back-arc basin in the southern Appalachian Blue Ridge: characteristics, extent, and tectonic significance
James Tull, Christopher S. Holm-Denoma, Clinton I. Barineau
2014, GSA Bulletin (126) 990-1015
Fault-dismembered segments of a distinctive, extensive, highly allochthonous, and tectonically significant Ordovician (ca. 480–460 Ma) basin, which contains suites of bimodal metavolcanic rocks, associated base metal deposits, and thick immature deep-water (turbiditic) metasediments, occur in parts of the southern Appalachian Talladega belt, eastern Blue Ridge, and Inner Piedmont of Alabama,...
Detection of the emerging amphibian pathogens Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis and ranavirus in Russia
Andrey N. Reshetnikov, Tara E. Chestnut, Jesse L. Brunner, Kaylene M. Charles, Emily E. Nebergall, Deanna H. Olson
2014, Diseases of Aquatic Organisms (110) 235-240
In a population of the European common toad Bufo bufo from a rural pond in the region of Lake Glubokoe Regional Reserve in Moscow province, Russia, unexplained mass mortality events involving larvae and metamorphs have been observed over a monitoring period of >20 yr. We tested toads from this and a nearby...
Relative contribution of lipid sources to eggs of lesser scaup
Kyle A. Cutting, Keith A. Hobson, Jay J. Rotella, Jeffrey M. Warren, John Y. Takekawa, Susan E.W. De La Cruz, Michael Parker
2014, Journal of Avian Biology (45) 197-201
Studies of how birds mobilize nutrients to eggs have traditionally considered a continuum of possible allocation strategies ranging from income breeding (rely on food sources found on the breeding grounds) to capital breeding (rely on body reserves stored prior to the breeding season). For capital breeding, stored body reserves can...
Can antibrowsing defense regulate the spread of woody vegetation in arctic tundra?
John P. Bryant, Kyle Joly, F. Stuart Chapin III, Donald L. DeAngelis, Knut Kielland
2014, Ecography (37) 204-211
Global climate warming is projected to promote the increase of woody plants, especially shrubs, in arctic tundra. Many factors may affect the extent of this increase, including browsing by mammals. We hypothesize that across the Arctic the effect of browsing will vary because of regional variation in antibrowsing chemical defense....
Ambient tremors in a collisional orogenic belt
Lindsay Yuling Chuang, Kate Huihsuan Chen, Aaron G. Wech, Timothy Byrne, Wei Peng
2014, Geophysical Research Letters (41) 1485-1491
Deep-seated tectonic tremors have been regarded as an observation tied to interconnected fluids at depth, which have been well documented in worldwide subduction zones and transform faults but not in a collisional mountain belt. In this study we explore the general features of collisional tremors in Taiwan and discuss the...
Compositional controls on early diagenetic pathways in fine-grained sedimentary rocks: Implications for predicting unconventional reservoir attributes of mudstones
Margaret A. Keller, Joe H.S. Macquaker, Kevin G. Taylor, David Polya
2014, AAPG Bulletin (98) 587-603
Diagenesis significantly impacts mudstone lithofacies. Processes operating to control diagenetic pathways in mudstones are poorly known compared to analogous processes occurring in other sedimentary rocks. Selected organic-carbon-rich mudstones, from the Kimmeridge Clay and Monterey Formations, have been investigated to determine how varying starting compositions influence diagenesis.The sampled Kimmeridge Clay...
Double-crested Cormorant studies at Little Galloo Island, Lake Ontario in 2013: Diet composition, fish consumption and the efficacy of management activities in reducing fish predation
James H. Johnson, Russ D. McCullough, Irene Mazzocchi
2014, NYSDEC Lake Ontario Annual Report 2013-14
For almost two decades Little Galloo Island (LGI) has supported a large colony of Double-crested Cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus) in the eastern basin of Lake Ontario. Cormorant nest counts on the island since the early 1990's have averaged 4,297 per year. However, less than 2,000 pairs have nested on the island...
Optical sensors for water quality
Brian A. Pellerin, Brian A. Bergamaschi
2014, Lakeline 13-17
Shifts in land use, population, and climate have altered hydrologic systems in the United States in ways that affect water quality and ecosystem function. Water diversions, detention in reservoirs, increased channelization, and changes in rainfall and snowmelt are major causes, but there are also more subtle causes such as changes...
Distinguishing between tectonic and lithologic controls on bedrock channel longitudinal profiles using cosmogenic 10Be erosion rates and channel steepness index
Andrew J. Cyr, Darryl E. Granger, Valerio Olivetti, Paola Molin
2014, Geomorphology (209) 27-38
Knickpoints in fluvial channel longitudinal profiles and channel steepness index values derived from digital elevation data can be used to detect tectonic structures and infer spatial patterns of uplift. However, changes in lithologic resistance to channel incision can also influence the morphology of longitudinal profiles. We compare the spatial patterns...
Reconstructing suspended sediment mercury contamination of a steep, gravel-bed river using reservoir theory
Katherine Skalak, James Pizzuto
2014, Environmental Geosciences (20) 17-35
We use sediment ages and mercury (Hg) concentrations to estimate past and future concentrations in the South River, Virginia, where Hg was released between 1930 and 1950 from a manufacturing process related to nylon production. In a previous study, along a 40 km (25 mi) reach, samples were collected from 26 of...
Productivity and linkages of the food web of the southern region of the western Antarctic Peninsula continental shelf
Tosca Ballerini, Eileen E. Hofmann, David G. Ainley, Kendra L. Daly, Marina Marrari, Christine A. Ribic, Walker O. Smith Jr., John H. Steele
2014, Progress in Oceanography (122) 10-29
The productivity and linkages in the food web of the southern region of the west Antarctic Peninsula continental shelf were investigated using a multi-trophic level mass balance model. Data collected during the Southern Ocean Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics field program were combined with data from...
The profound reach of the 11 April 2012 M 8.6 Indian Ocean earthquake: Short‐term global triggering followed by a longer‐term global shadow
Frederick Pollitz, Roland Burgmann, Ross S. Stein, Volkan Sevilgen
2014, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (104) 972-984
The 11 April 2012 M 8.6 Indian Ocean earthquake was an unusually large intraoceanic strike‐slip event. For several days, the global M≥4.5 and M≥6.5 seismicity rate at remote distances (i.e., thousands of kilometers from the mainshock) was elevated. The strike‐slip mainshock appears through its Love waves to have triggered a global...
Association, roost use and simulated disruption of Myotis septentrionalis maternity colonies
Alexander Silvis, W. Mark Ford, Eric R. Britzke, Joshua B. Johnson
2014, Behavioural Processes (103) 283-290
How wildlife social and resource networks are distributed on the landscape and how animals respond to resource loss are important aspects of behavioral ecology. For bats, understanding these responses may improve conservation efforts and provide insights into adaptations to environmental conditions. We tracked maternity colonies of northern bats (Myotis septentrionalis)...
When water, gravity and geology collide: Firsthand observations of the impacts of the 2013 Colorado floods
Geoffrey S. Plumlee
2014, Earth Magazine (59) 29-34
No abstract available....