National assessment of hurricane-induced coastal erosion hazards: Mid-Atlantic Coast
Kara S. Doran, Hilary F. Stockdon, Kristin L. Sopkin, David M. Thompson, Nathaniel G. Plant
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1131
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 large, and the results are sometimes catastrophic. Lives may be lost, communities...
Application of a hydrodynamic and sediment transport model for guidance of response efforts related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Northern Gulf of Mexico along the coast of Alabama and Florida
Nathaniel G. Plant, Joseph W. Long, P. Soupy Dalyander, David M. Thompson, Ellen A. Raabe
2013, Open-File Report 2012-1234
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists have provided a model-based assessment of transport and deposition of residual Deepwater Horizon oil along the shoreline within the northern Gulf of Mexico in the form of mixtures of sand and weathered oil, known as surface residual balls (SRBs). The results of this USGS research,...
Protocol for analysis of volcanic ash samples for assessment of hazards from leachable elements
C. Stewart, C. Horwell, Geoffrey S. Plumlee, Shane Cronin, P. Delmelle, P. Baxter, J. Calkins, David Damby, Suzette A. Morman, Clive Oppenheimer
2013, Report
Volcanic eruptions can produce a wide range of hazards. Although phenomena such as pyroclastic density currents and surges, sector collapses, lahars and ballistic blocks are the most destructive and dangerous, volcanic ash is by far the most widely distributed eruption product1 and the most likely to be encountered by the...
Framing scenarios of binational water policy with a tool to visualize, quantify and valuate changes in ecosystem services
Laura M. Norman, Miguel L. Villarreal, Rewati Niraula, Thomas Meixner, George Frisvold, William Labiosa
2013, Water (5) 852-874
In the Santa Cruz Watershed, located on the Arizona-Sonora portion of the U.S.-Mexico border, an international wastewater treatment plant treats wastewater from cities on both sides of the border, before discharging it into the river in Arizona. These artificial flows often subsidize important perennial surface water ecosystems in the region....
ARRA-funded VS30 measurements using multi-technique approach at strong-motion stations in California and central-eastern United States
Alan Yong, Antony Martin, Kenneth Stokoe, John Diehl
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1102
Funded by the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), we conducted geophysical site characterizations at 191 strong-motion stations: 187 in California and 4 in the Central-Eastern United States (CEUS). The geophysical methods used at each site included passive and active surface-wave and body-wave techniques. Multiple techniques were used at...
Monitoring restoration impacts to endemic plant communities in soil inclusions of arid environments
Mounir Louhaichi, David A. Pyke, Scott E. Shaff, Douglas E. Johnson
2013, International Journal of Agriculture & Biology (15) 767-771
Soil inclusions are small patches of soil with different properties than the surrounding, dominant soil. In arid areas of western North America, soil inclusions called slickspot soils are saltier than adjacent soil and support different types of native vegetation. Traditional sagebrush restoration efforts, such as using drills to plant seeds...
Conceptual and numerical models of groundwater flow in the Ogallala aquifer in Gregory and Tripp Counties, South Dakota, water years 1985--2009
Kyle W. Davis, Larry D. Putnam
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5069
The Ogallala aquifer is an important water resource for the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in Gregory and Tripp Counties in south-central South Dakota and is used for irrigation, public supply, domestic, and stock water supplies. To better understand groundwater flow in the Ogallala aquifer, conceptual and numerical models of groundwater flow...
The Regional Salmon Outmigration Study--survival and migration routing of juvenile Chinook salmon in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta during the winter of 2008-09
Jason G. Romine, Russell W. Perry, Scott J. Brewer, Noah S. Adams, Theresa L. Liedtke, Aaron R. Blake, Jon R. Burau
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1142
Juvenile Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) emigrating from natal tributaries of the Sacramento River may use a number of migration routes to navigate the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta (hereafter called “the Delta”), each of which may influence their probability of surviving. We applied a mark-recapture model to data from acoustically tagged...
Landscape influences on climate-related lake shrinkage at high latitudes
Jennifer K. Roach, Brad Griffith, David Verbyla
2013, Global Change Biology (19) 2276-2284
Climate-related declines in lake area have been identified across circumpolar regions and have been characterized by substantial spatial heterogeneity. An improved understanding of the mechanisms underlying lake area trends is necessary to predict where change is most likely to occur and to identify implications for high latitude reservoirs of carbon....
Mortality estimate of Chinese mystery snail, Bellamya chinensis (Reeve, 1863) in a Nebraska reservoir
Danielle M. Haak, Noelle M. Chaine, Bruce J. Stephen, Alec Wong, Craig R. Allen
2013, BioInvasions Records (2) 137-139
The Chinese mystery snail (Bellamya chinensis) is an aquatic invasive species found throughout the USA. Little is known about this species’ life history or ecology, and only one population estimate has been published, for Wild Plum Lake in southeast Nebraska. A recent die-off event occurred at this same reservoir and...
Brookian sequence well log correlation sections and occurrence of gas hydrates, north-central North Slope, Alaska
Kristen A. Lewis, Timothy S. Collett
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5050
Gas hydrates are naturally occurring crystalline, ice-like substances that consist of natural gas molecules trapped in a solid-water lattice. Because of the compact nature of their structure, hydrates can effectively store large volumes of gas and, consequently, have been identified as a potential unconventional energy source. First recognized to exist...
Assessing the use of existing data to compare plains fish assemblages collected from random and fixed sites in Colorado
Robert E. Zuellig, Harry J. Crockett
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1115
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with Colorado Parks and Wildlife, assessed the potential use of combining recently (2007 to 2010) and formerly (1992 to 1996) collected data to compare plains fish assemblages sampled from random and fixed sites located in the South Platte and Arkansas River Basins in Colorado....
A volcanic activity alert-level system for aviation: Review of its development and application in Alaska
Marianne C. Guffanti, Thomas Miller
2013, Natural Hazards (69) 1519-1533
An alert-level system for communicating volcano hazard information to the aviation industry was devised by the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) during the 1989–1990 eruption of Redoubt Volcano. The system uses a simple, color-coded ranking that focuses on volcanic ash emissions: Green—normal background; Yellow—signs of unrest; Orange—precursory unrest or minor ash...
SSR_pipeline--computer software for the identification of microsatellite sequences from paired-end Illumina high-throughput DNA sequence data
Mark P. Miller, Brian J. Knaus, Thomas D. Mullins, Susan M. Haig
2013, Data Series 778
SSR_pipeline is a flexible set of programs designed to efficiently identify simple sequence repeats (SSRs; for example, microsatellites) from paired-end high-throughput Illumina DNA sequencing data. The program suite contains three analysis modules along with a fourth control module that can be used to automate analyses of large volumes of data....
Marine radiocarbon reservoir age variation in Donax obesulus shells from northern Peru: Late Holocene evidence for extended El Niño
Miguel F. Etayo-Cadavid, C. Fred T. Andrus, Kevin B. Jones, Gregory W. L. Hodgins, Daniel H. Sandweiss, Sandiago Uceda-Castillo, Jeffrey Quilter
2013, Geology (41) 599-602
For at least 6 m.y., El Niño events have posed the greatest environmental risk on the Peruvian coast. A better understanding of El Niño is essential for predicting future risk and growth in this tropical desert. To achieve this we analyzed archaeological and modern pre-bomb shells from the surf clam Donax for...
Geophysical logging and geologic mapping data in the vicinity of the GMH Electronics Superfund site near Roxboro, North Carolina
Melinda J. Chapman, Timothy W. Clark, John Williams
2013, Data Series 762
Geologic mapping, the collection of borehole geophysical logs and images, and passive diffusion bag sampling were conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey North Carolina Water Science Center in the vicinity of the GMH Electronics Superfund site near Roxboro, North Carolina, during March through October 2011. The study purpose was to...
Introduction to the special issue on “Understanding and predicting change in the coastal ecosystems of the northern Gulf of Mexico”
John Brock, John A. Barras, S. Jeffress Williams
2013, Journal of Coastal Research (63) 1-5
The coastal region of the northern Gulf of Mexico owes its current landscape structure to an array of tectonic, erosional and depositional, climatic, geochemical, hydrological, ecological, and human processes that have resulted in some of the world's most complex, dynamic, productive, and threatened ecosystems. Catastrophic hurricane landfalls, ongoing subsidence and...
Measuring the relative resilience of subarctic lakes to global change: redundancies of functions within and across temporal scales
David G. Angeler, Craig R. Allen, Richard K. Johnson
2013, Journal of Applied Ecology (50) 572-584
1. Ecosystems at high altitudes and latitudes are expected to be particularly vulnerable to the effects of global change. We assessed the responses of littoral invertebrate communities to changing abiotic conditions in subarctic Swedish lakes with long-term data (1988–2010) and compared the responses of subarctic lakes with those of more...
The relative contribution of methanotrophs to microbial communities and carbon cycling in soil overlying a coal-bed methane seep
Christopher T. Mills, Gregory F. Slater, Robert F. Dias, Stephanie A. Carr, Christopher M. Reddy, Raleigh Schmidt, Kevin W. Mandernack
2013, FEMS Microbiology Ecology (84) 474-494
Seepage of coal-bed methane (CBM) through soils is a potential source of atmospheric CH4 and also a likely source of ancient (i.e. 14C-dead) carbon to soil microbial communities. Natural abundance 13C and 14C compositions of bacterial membrane phospholipid fatty acids (PLFAs) and soil gas CO2 and CH4 were used to...
Estimates of the volume of water in five coal aquifers, Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, southeastern Montana
L.K. Tuck, Daniel K. Pearson, M. R. Cannon, DeAnn M. Dutton
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5209
The Tongue River Member of the Tertiary Fort Union Formation is the primary source of groundwater in the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in southeastern Montana. Coal beds within this formation generally contain the most laterally extensive aquifers in much of the reservation. The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the...
Meeting Asia's future gas import demand with stranded natural gas from central Asia, Russia, Southeast Asia, and Australia
Emil Attanasi, P.A. Freeman
2013, SPE Economics & Management (5)
This analysis shows the important contribution that stranded gas from central Asia, Russia, Southeast Asia, and Australia can make in meeting the projected demand for gas imports of China, India, Japan, and South Korea from 2020 to 2040. The estimated delivered costs of pipeline gas from stranded fields in Russia...
Human-caused mortality influences spatial population dynamics: pumas in landscapes with varying mortality risks
Jesse R. Newby, L. Scott Mills, Toni K. Ruth, Daniel H. Pletscher, Michael S. Mitchell, Howard B. Quigley, Kerry M. Murphy, Rich DeSimone
2013, Biological Conservation (159) 230-239
An understanding of how stressors affect dispersal attributes and the contribution of local populations to multi-population dynamics are of immediate value to basic and applied ecology. Puma (Puma concolor) populations are expected to be influenced by inter-population movements and susceptible to human-induced source–sink dynamics. Using long-term datasets we quantified the...
Toxic exposure of songbirds to lead in the Southeast Missouri Lead Mining District
W. Nelson Beyer, J. Christian Franson, John B. French, Thomas May, Barnett A. Rattner, Valerie I. Shearn-Bochsler, Sarah E. Warner, John Weber, David Mosby
2013, Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology (65) 598-610
Mining and smelting in the Southeast Missouri Lead Mining District has caused widespread contamination of soils with lead (Pb) and other metals. Soils from three study sites sampled in the district contained from approximately 1,000–3,200 mg Pb/kg. Analyses of earthworms [33–4,600 mg Pb/kg dry weight (dw)] collected in the district...
Water-level altitudes 2013 and water-level changes in the Chicot, Evangeline, and Jasper aquifers and compaction 1973--2012 in the Chicot and Evangeline aquifers, Houston-Galveston region, Texas
Mark C. Kasmarek, Michaela R. Johnson, Jason K. Ramage
2013, Scientific Investigations Map 3263
Most of the subsidence in the Houston-Galveston region, Texas, has occurred as a direct result of groundwater withdrawals for municipal supply, commercial and industrial use, and irrigation that depressured and dewatered the Chicot and Evangeline aquifers, thereby causing compaction mostly in the clay and silt layers of the aquifer sediments....
National wildlife refuge visitor survey 2012--Individual refuge results
Alia M. Dietsch, Natalie R. Sexton, Lynne M. Koontz, Shannon J. Conk
2013, Data Series 754
The National Wildlife Refuge System (Refuge System), established in 1903 and managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), is the leading network of protected lands and waters in the world dedicated to the conservation of fish, wildlife and their habitats. There are 560 national wildlife refuges and 38...
