Observations from borehole dilution logging experiments in fractured crystalline rock under variable hydraulic conditions
Philip T. Harte, J. Alton Anderson, John H. Williams
2014, Conference Paper, Symposium on the application of geophysics to engineering and environmental problems 2014
Identifying hydraulically active fractures in low permeability, crystalline-bedrock aquifers requires a variety of geophysical and hydrogeophysical borehole tools and approaches. One such approach is Single Borehole Dilution Tests (SBDT), which in some low flow cases have been shown to provide greater resolution of borehole flow than other logging procedures, such...
Learning rate and temperament in a high predation risk environment
C. DePasquale, Tyler Wagner, G.A. Archard, B. Ferguson, V.A. Braithwaite
2014, Oecologia (176) 661-667
Living in challenging environments can influence the behavior of animals in a number of ways. For instance, populations of prey fish that experience frequent, nonlethal interactions with predators have a high proportion of individuals that express greater reaction to risk and increased activity and exploration—collectively known as temperament traits. Temperament...
Applying threshold concepts to conservation management of dryland ecosystems: Case studies on the Colorado Plateau
Matthew A. Bowker, Mark E. Miller, Steven L. Garman, Travis Belote
Glenn R. Guntenspergen, editor(s)
2014, Book chapter, Application of threshold concepts in natural resource decision making
Ecosystems may occupy functionally distinct alternative states, some of which are more or less desirable from a management standpoint. Transitions from state to state are usually associated with a particular trigger or sequence of triggers, such as the addition or subtraction of a disturbance. Transitions are often not linear, rather...
Changes in vegetation and biological soil crust communities on sand dunes stabilizing after a century of grazing on San Miguel Island, Channel Island National Park, California
Kristine L. Zellman
2014, Monographs of the Western North American Naturalist (7) 225-245
San Miguel Island is the westernmost of the California Channel Islands and one of the windiest areas on the west coast of North America. The majority of the island is covered by coastal sand dunes, which were stripped of vegetation and subsequently mobilized due to droughts and sheep ranching during...
Utilizing multi-sensor fire detections to map fires in the United States
Stephen M. Howard, Joshua J. Picotte, Michael Coan
2014, Conference Paper, The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Volume XL-1,
In 2006, the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) project began a cooperative effort between the US Forest Service (USFS) and the U.S.Geological Survey (USGS) to map and assess burn severity all large fires that have occurred in the United States since 1984. Using Landsat imagery, MTBS is mandated to...
The curved 14C vs. δ13C relationship in dissolved inorganic carbon: A useful tool for groundwater age- and geochemical interpretations
Liang-Feng Han, Niel Plummer, Pradeep Aggarwal
2014, Chemical Geology (387) 111-125
Determination of the 14C content of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) is useful for dating of groundwater. However, in addition to radioactive decay, the 14C content in DIC (14CDIC) can be affected by many geochemical and physical processes and numerous models have been proposed to refine radiocarbon ages of DIC in...
Correlations in distribution and concentration of calcium, copper and iron with zinc in isolated extracellular deposits associated with age-related macular degeneration
Jane M Flinn, Peter Kakalec, Ryan Tappero, Blair F. Jones, Imre Lengyel
2014, Metallomics (6) 1223-1228
Zinc (Zn) is abundantly enriched in sub-retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) deposits, the hallmarks of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), and is thought to play a role in the formation of these deposits. However, it is not known whether Zn is the only metal relevant for sub-RPE deposit formation. Because of their...
Preliminary testing of flow-ecology hypotheses developed for the GCP LCC region
Shannon K. Brewer, Mary Davis
2014, Cooperator Science Series FWS/CSS-108-2014
The Ecological Limits of Hydrological Alteration (ELOHA) framework calls for the development of flow-ecology hypotheses to support protection of the flow regime from ecologically harmful alteration due to human activities. As part of a larger instream flow project for the Gulf Coast Prairie Landscape Conservation Cooperative (GCP LCC), regional flow-ecology...
Mammoth Mountain and its mafic periphery—A late Quaternary volcanic field in eastern California
Wes Hildreth, Judith Fierstein, Duane E. Champion, Andrew T. Calvert
2014, Geosphere (10) 1315-1365
The trachydacite complex of Mammoth Mountain and an array of contemporaneous mafic volcanoes in its periphery together form a discrete late Pleistocene magmatic system that is thermally and compositionally independent of the adjacent subalkaline Long Valley system (California, USA). The Mammoth system first erupted ca. 230 ka, last erupted ca....
The Devonian Marcellus Shale and Millboro Shale
Daniel J. Soeder, Catherine B. Enomoto, John A. Chermak
2014, GSA Field Guides (35) 129-160
The recent development of unconventional oil and natural gas resources in the United States builds upon many decades of research, which included resource assessment and the development of well completion and extraction technology. The Eastern Gas Shales Project, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy in the 1980s, investigated the...
Arsenic speciation and sorption in natural environments
Kate M. Campbell, D. Kirk Nordstrom
2014, Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry (79) 185-216
Aqueous arsenic speciation, or the chemical forms in which arsenic exists in water, is a challenging, interesting, and complicated aspect of environmental arsenic geochemistry. Arsenic has the ability to form a wide range of chemical bonds with carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and sulfur, resulting in a large variety of compounds that...
Groundwater conditions in Utah, spring of 2014
Carole B. Burden
2014, Cooperative Investigations Report 55
This is the fifty-first in a series of annual reports that describe groundwater conditions in Utah. Reports in this series, published cooperatively by the U.S. Geological Survey and the Utah Department of Natural Resources, Division of Water Rights, and the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, Division of Water Quality, provide...
Segmentation of plate coupling, fate of subduction fluids, and modes of arc magmatism in Cascadia, inferred from magnetotelluric resistivity
Philip E. Wannamaker, Rob L. Evans, Paul A. Bedrosian, Martyn J. Unsworth, Virginie Maris, R. Shane McGary
2014, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (15) 4230-4253
Five magnetotelluric (MT) profiles have been acquired across the Cascadia subduction system and transformed using 2-D and 3-D nonlinear inversion to yield electrical resistivity cross sections to depths of ∼200 km. Distinct changes in plate coupling, subduction fluid evolution, and modes of arc magmatism along the length of Cascadia are...
Age estimation of burbot using pectoral fin rays, brachiostegal rays, and otoliths
Zachary B. Klein, Marc M. Terrazas, Michael C. Quist
2014, Intermountain Journal of Sciences (20) 57-67
Throughout much of its native distribution, burbot (Lota lota) is a species of conservation concern. Understanding dynamic rate functions is critical for the effective management of sensitive burbot populations, which necessitates accurate and precise age estimates. Managing sensitive burbot populations requires an accurate and precise non-lethal alternative. In an effort...
Northern Pintail
Robert G. Clark, Joseph P. Fleskes, Karla L. Guyn, David A. Haukos, Jane E. Austin, Michael R. Miller
2014, The Birds of North America
This medium-sized dabbling duck of slender, elegant lines and conservative plumage coloration is circumpolar in distribution and abundant in North America, with core nesting habitat in Alaska and the Prairie Pothole Region of southern Canada and the northern Great Plains. Breeders favor shallow wetlands interspersed throughout prairie grasslands or arctic...
Adult survival, apparent lamb survival, and body condition of desert bighorn sheep in relation to habitat and precipitation on the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge, Arizona
Matthew Overstreet, Colleen A. Caldwell, James W. Cain III
2014, Cooperator Science Series 109-2014
The decline of desert bighorn sheep on the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge (KNWR) beginning in 2003 stimulated efforts to determine the factors limiting survival and recruitment. We 1) determined pregnancy rates, body fat, and estimated survival rates of adults and lambs; 2) investigated the relationship between precipitation, forage conditions, previous...
"Report a Landslide” A website to engage the public in identifying geologic hazards
Rex L. Baum, Lynn M. Highland, Peter T. Lyttle, Jeremy Fee, Eric Martinez, Lisa A. Wald
2014, Conference Paper, Landslide science for a safer geoenvironment, Vol.1: The International Programme on Landslides (IPL)
Direct observation by people is the most practical way of identifying, locating, and describing most damaging landslides. In an effort to increase public awareness of landslide hazards and encourage public participation in collecting basic data about landslides, the USGS recently launched a website called “Report a landslide.” The website is...
Metals, organic compounds, and nutrients in Long Island Sound: sources, magnitudes, trends, and impacts
John R. Mullaney, J.C. Varekamp, A.E. MCElroy, V.T. Brsslin
2014, Book chapter, Long Island Sound
Long Island Sound (LIS) is a relatively shallow estuary with a mean depth of 20 m (maximum depth 49 m) and a unique hydrology and history of pollutant loading. Those factors have contributed to a wide variety of contamination problems in its muddy sediments, aquatic life and water column....
Evaluation and prioritization of stream habitat monitoring in the Lower Columbia Salmon and Steelhead Recovery Domain as related to the habitat monitoring needs of ESA recovery plans
Amy L. Puls, Kara Anlauf Dunn, Bernadette Graham Hudson
2014, Report
The lower Columbia River and its tributaries once supported abundant runs of salmon and steelhead; however, there are five species currently listed under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). The National Marine Fisheries Service has completed, and is proposing for adoption, a comprehensive ESA Recovery Plan for the Lower Columbia...
Science is the first step to siting nuclear waste repositories
Christopher E. Neuzil
2014, Eos, Earth and Space Science News (95) 71-71
As Shaw [2014] notes, U.S. research on shale as a repository host was halted before expending anything close to the effort devoted to studying crystalline rock, salt, and - most notably - tuff at Yucca Mountain. The new political reality regarding Yucca Mountain may allow reconsideration of the decision to...
Landsat: Sustaining earth observations beyond Landsat 8
Francis P. Kelly, Thomas M. Holm
2014, Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing (80) 15-15
The Landsat series of Earth-observing satellites began 41-years ago as a partnership between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) of the Department of the Interior (DOI) and The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). For the past 41 years, Landsat satellites and associated U.S. Government ground processing, distribution, and archiving systems...
Let’s agree on the casing of Lidar
Carol Deering, Jason M. Stoker
2014, LiDAR Magazine (4) 48-51
Is it lidar, Lidar, LiDAR, LIDAR, LiDar, LiDaR, or liDAR? A comprehensive review of the scientific/technical literature reveals seven different casings of this short form for light detection and ranging. And there could be more....
The Wallula fault and tectonic framework of south-central Washington, as interpreted from magnetic and gravity anomalies
Richard J. Blakely, Brian L. Sherrod, Craig S. Weaver, Ray E. Wells, Alan C. Rohay
2014, Tectonophysics (624-625) 32-45
The Yakima fold and thrust belt (YFTB) in central Washington has accommodated regional, mostly north-directed, deformation of the Cascadia backarc since prior to emplacement of Miocene flood basalt of the Columbia River Basalt Group (CRBG). The YFTB consists of two structural domains. Northern folds of the YFTB strike eastward and...
Well log and 2D seismic data character of the Wilcox Group in south-central Louisiana
Catherine B. Enomoto
2014, Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies Transactions (64) 105-118
Well logs and 2D seismic data were used to interpret the depth and morphology of potential Paleocene and lower Eocene Wilcox Group slope and basin-floor reservoirs in south-central Louisiana. These may occur in a poorly explored area previously estimated by the U.S. Geological Survey to contain a mean undiscovered conventional...
Predicting connectivity of green turtles at Palmyra Atoll, central Pacific: a focus on mtDNA and dispersal modelling
Eugenia Naro-Maciel, Stephen J. Gaughran, Nathan Freeman Putman, George Amato, Felicity Arengo, Peter H. Dutton, Katherine W. McFadden, Erin C. Vintinner, Eleanor J. Sterling
2014, Journal of the Royal Society Interface (11)
Population connectivity and spatial distribution are fundamentally related to ecology, evolution and behaviour. Here, we combined powerful genetic analysis with simulations of particle dispersal in a high-resolution ocean circulation model to investigate the distribution of green turtles foraging at the remote Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, central Pacific. We analysed...
