Very high-temperature impact melt products as evidence for cosmic airbursts and impacts 12,900 years ago
Ted E. Bunch, Robert E. Hermes, Andrew Moore, Douglas J. Kennett, James C. Weaver, James H. Wittke, Paul S. DeCarli, James L. Bischoff, Gordon C. Hillman, George A. Howard, David R. Kimbel, Gunther Kletetschka, Carl P. Lipo, Sachiko Sakai, Zsolt Revay, Allen West, Richard B. Firestone, James P. Kennett
2012, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (109) E1903-E1912
It has been proposed that fragments of an asteroid or comet impacted Earth, deposited silica-and iron-rich microspherules and other proxies across several continents, and triggered the Younger Dryas cooling episode 12,900 years ago. Although many independent groups have confirmed the impact evidence, the hypothesis remains controversial because some groups have...
Paleoseismic and geomorphologic evidence of recent tectonic activity of the Pozohondo Fault (Betic Cordillera, SE Spain)
M.A. Rodriguez-Pascua, R. Perez-Lopez, V.H. Garduño-Monroy, J. L. Giner-Robles, P.G. Silva, M.A. Perucha-Atienza, V.M. Hernandez-Madrigal, J. Bischoff
2012, Journal of Iberian Geology (38) 255-267
Instrumental and historical seismicity in the Albacete province (External Prebetic Zone) has been scarcely recorded. However, major strike-slip faults showing NW-SE trending provide geomorphologic and paleoseismic evidence of recent tectonic activity (Late Pleistocene to Present). Moreover, these faults are consistently well oriented under the present stress tensor and therefore, they...
A multiproxy reconstruction of the palaeoenvironment and palaeoclimate of the Late Pleistocene in northeastern Iberia: Cova dels Xaragalls, Vimbodí-Poblet, Paratge Natural de Poblet, Catalonia
Juan Manuel Lopez-Garcia, Hugues-Alexandre Blain, Maria Bennasar, Itxaso Euba, Sandra Banuls, James Bischoff, Esther Lopez-Ortega, Palmira Saladie, Paloma Uzquiano, Josep Vallverdu
2012, Boreas (41) 235-249
The Cova dels Xaragalls is a small open karst system, located in the municipality of Vimbodí-Poblet (Tarragona, Catalonia, NE Spain). It is an important Holocene archaeological site that was inspected in the 1970s but from which little has been published. New excavations starting in 2008 have exposed a deep Late...
Evidence from central Mexico supporting the Younger Dryas extraterrestrial impact hypothesis
Isabel Israde-Alcántara, James L. Bischoff, Gabriela Dominguez-Vazquez, Hong-Chun Li, Paul S. DeCarli, Ted E. Bunch, James H. Wittke, James C. Weaver, Richard B. Firestone, Allen West, James P. Kennett, Chris Mercer, Sujing Xie, Eric K. Richman, Charles R. Kinzie, Wendy S. Wolbach
Steven M. Stanley, editor(s)
2012, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (109) E738-E747
We report the discovery in Lake Cuitzeo in central Mexico of a black, carbon-rich, lacustrine layer, containing nanodiamonds, microspherules, and other unusual materials that date to the early Younger Dryas and are interpreted to result from an extraterrestrial impact. These proxies were found in a 27-m-long core as part of...
Introduction: CRevolution 2: origin and evolution of the Colorado River System II
Karl E. Karlstrom, L. Sue Beard, Kyle House, Richard A. Young, Andres Aslan, George Billingsley, Joel Pederson
2012, Geosphere (8) 1170-1176
A 2010 Colorado River symposium held in Flagstaff, Arizona, in May 2010, had 70 participants who engaged in intense debate about the origin and evolution of the Colorado River system. This symposium, built on two previous decadal scientific meetings, focused on forging scientific consensus where possible, while also articulating continued...
Development and application of methods used to source prehistoric Southwestern maize: a review
Larry V. Benson
2012, Journal of Archaeological Science (39) 791-807
Archaeological cobs free of mineral contaminants should be used to source the soils in which they were grown. Mineral contaminants often contain much higher concentrations of metals than vegetal materials and can alter a cob’s apparent metal and heavy-isotope content. Cleaning a cob via immersion in an acid solution for...
StreamStats in North Carolina: a water-resources Web application
J. Curtis Weaver, Silvia Terziotti, Katharine R. Kolb, Chad R. Wagner
2012, Fact Sheet 2012-3137
A statewide StreamStats application for North Carolina was developed in cooperation with the North Carolina Department of Transportation following completion of a pilot application for the upper French Broad River basin in western North Carolina (Wagner and others, 2009). StreamStats for North Carolina, available at http://water.usgs.gov/osw/streamstats/north_carolina.html, is a Web-based Geographic...
Ambient response of a unique performance-based design building with dynamic response modification features
Mehmet Çelebi, Moh Huang, Antony Shakal, John Hooper, Ron Klemencic
2012, Conference Paper, Proceedings of SMIP12 seminar on utilization of strong-motion data
A 64-story, performance-based design building with reinforced concrete core shear-walls and unique dynamic response modification features (tuned liquid sloshing dampers and buckling-restrained braces) has been instrumented with a monitoring array of 72 channels of accelerometers. Ambient vibration data recorded are analyzed to identify modes and associated frequencies and damping. The...
Note: Rotaphone, a new self-calibrated six-degree-of-freedom seismic sensor
Johana Brokesova, Jiri Malek, John R. Evans
2012, Review of Scientific Instruments (83)
We have developed and tested (calibration, linearity, and cross-axis errors) a new six-degree-of-freedom mechanical seismic sensor for collocated measurements of three translational and three rotational ground motion velocity components. The device consists of standard geophones arranged in parallel pairs to detect spatial gradients. The instrument operates in a high-frequency range...
Detection of tamarisk defoliation by the northern tamarisk beetle based on multitemporal Landsat 5 thematic mapper imagery.
Ran Meng, Philip E. Dennison, Levi Jamison, Charles van Riper III, Pamela L Nagler, Kevin Hultine, Dan W. Bean, Tom Dudley
2012, GIScience & Remote Sensing (49) 510-537
The spread of tamarisk (Tamarix spp., also known as saltcedar) is a significant ecological disturbance in western North America and has long been targeted for control, leading to the importation of the northern tamarisk beetle (Diorhabda carinulata) as a biological control agent. Following its initial release along the Colorado River near...
Strategies for soil quality assessment using VNIR gyperspectral spectroscopy in a western Kenya Chronosequence
Rintaro Kinoshita, Bianca N. Moebius-Clune, Harold M. van Es, W. Dean Hively, A. Volkan Bilgilis
2012, Soil Science Society of America Journal (76) 1776-1788
Visible and near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (VNIRS) is a rapid and nondestructive method that can predict multiple soil properties simultaneously, but its application in multidimensional soil quality (SQ) assessment in the tropics still needs to be further assessed. In this study, VNIRS (350–2500 nm) was employed to analyze 227 air-dried soil...
Harvest and dynamics of duck populations
James S. Sedinger, Mark P. Herzog
2012, Journal of Wildlife Management (76) 1108-1116
The role of harvest in the dynamics of waterfowl populations continues to be debated among scientists and managers. Our perception is that interested members of the public and some managers believe that harvest influences North American duck populations based on calls for more conservative harvest regulations. A recent review of...
Global trophic position comparison of two dominant mesopelagic fish families (Myctophidae, Stomiidae) using amino acid nitrogen isotopic analyses
C. Anela Choy, Peter C. Davison, Jeffrey C. Drazen, Adrian Flynn, Elizabeth J. Gier, Joel C. Hoffman, Jennifer P. McClain-Counts, Todd W. Miller, Brian N. Popp, Steve W. Ross, Tracey T. Sutton
2012, PLoS ONE (7) 1-8
The δ15N values of organisms are commonly used across diverse ecosystems to estimate trophic position and infer trophic connectivity. We undertook a novel cross-basin comparison of trophic position in two ecologically well-characterized and different groups of dominant mid-water fish consumers using amino acid nitrogen isotope compositions. We found that trophic...
High-resolution geophysical data from the inner continental shelf—Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts
Seth D. Ackerman, Brian D. Andrews, David S. Foster, Wayne E. Baldwin, William C. Schwab
2012, Open-File Report 2012-1002
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management (CZM) have cooperated to map approximately 410 square kilometers (km²) of the inner continental shelf in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts. This report contains geophysical data collected by the USGS on three cruises conducted in 2009, 2010, and 2011,...
Development of the Landsat Data Continuity Mission cloud-cover assessment algorithms
Pat Scaramuzza, M.A. Bouchard, John L. Dwyer
2012, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing (50) 1140-1154
The upcoming launch of the Operational Land Imager (OLI) will start the next era of the Landsat program. However, the Automated Cloud-Cover Assessment (CCA) (ACCA) algorithm used on Landsat 7 requires a thermal band and is thus not suited for OLI. There will be a thermal instrument on the Landsat...
Bathymetry and acoustic backscatter data collected in 2010 from Cat Island, Mississippi
Noreen A. Buster, William R. Pfeiffer, Jennifer L. Miselis, Jack L. Kindinger, Dana S. Wiese, B.J. Reynolds
2012, Data Series 739
Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center (SPCMSC), in collaboration with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), conducted geophysical and sedimentological surveys around Cat Island, the westernmost island in the Mississippi-Alabama barrier island chain (fig. 1). The objectives of the study were...
Credible occurrence probabilities for extreme geophysical events: earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, magnetic storms
Jeffrey J. Love
2012, Geophysical Research Letters (39)
Statistical analysis is made of rare, extreme geophysical events recorded in historical data -- counting the number of events $k$ with sizes that exceed chosen thresholds during specific durations of time $\tau$. Under transformations that stabilize data and model-parameter variances, the most likely Poisson-event occurrence rate, $k/\tau$, applies for frequentist...
Monitoring storm tide and flooding from Hurricane Isaac along the Gulf Coast of the United States, August 2012
Brian E. McCallum, Benton D. McGee, Dustin R. Kimbrow, Michael S. Runner, Jaime A. Painter, Eric R. Frantz, Anthony J. Gotvald
2012, Open-File Report 2012-1263
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) deployed a temporary monitoring network of water-level and barometric pressure sensors at 127 locations along the gulf coast from Alabama to Louisiana to record the timing, areal extent, and magnitude of hurricane storm tide and coastal flooding generated by Hurricane Isaac. This deployment was undertaken...
Expansion of an exotic species and concomitant disease outbreaks: Pigeon paramyxovirus in free-ranging Eurasian collared doves
Krysten L. Schuler, David E. Green, Anne E. Justice-Allen, Rosemary Jaffe, Mark Cunningham, Nancy J. Thomas, Marilyn G. Spalding, S. Ip
2012, EcoHealth (9) 163-170
Eurasian collared doves (Streptopelia decaocto) have expanded their range across the United States since their introduction several decades ago. Recent mortality events in Eurasian collared doves in Arizona and Montana, USA, during the winter of 2009–2010 were the result of pigeon paramyxovirus (PPMV), a novel disease...
A low-cost method to measure the timing of post-fire flash floods and debris flows relative to rainfall
Jason W. Kean, Dennis M. Staley, Robert J. Leeper, Kevin Michael Schmidt, Joseph E. Gartner
2012, Water Resources Research (48)
Data on the specific timing of post-fire flash floods and debris flows are very limited. We describe a method to measure the response times of small burned watersheds to rainfall using a low-cost pressure transducer, which can be installed quickly after a fire. Although the pressure transducer is not designed...
GeoChip-based analysis of microbial functional gene diversity in a landfill leachate-contaminated aquifer
Zhenmei Lu, Zhili He, Victoria A. Parisi, Sanghoon Kang, Ye Deng, Joy D. Van Nostrand, Jason R. Masoner, Isabelle M. Cozzarelli, Joseph M. Suflita, Jizhong Zhou
2012, Environmental Science & Technology (46) 5824-5833
The functional gene diversity and structure of microbial communities in a shallow landfill leachate-contaminated aquifer were assessed using a comprehensive functional gene array (GeoChip 3.0). Water samples were obtained from eight wells at the same aquifer depth immediately below a municipal landfill or along the predominant downgradient groundwater flowpath. Functional...
Genetic analysis of a novel nidovirus from fathead minnows
William N. Batts, Andrew E. Goodwin, James R. Winton
2012, Journal of General Virology (93) 1247-1252
A bacilliform virus was isolated from diseased fathead minnows (Pimephales promelas). Analysis of the complete genome coding for the polyprotein (pp1ab), spike (S), membrane (M) and nucleocapsid (N) proteins revealed that the virus was most like white bream virus (WBV), another bacilliform virus isolated from white bream (Blicca bjoerkna L.) and...
Transcriptional profiling of the parr–smolt transformation in Atlantic salmon
Laura S. Robertson, Stephen D. McCormick
2012, Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology, Part D: Genomics and Proteomics (7) 351-360
The parr–smolt transformation in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) is a complex developmental process that culminates in the ability to migrate to and live in seawater. We used GRASP 16K cDNA microarrays to identify genes that are differentially expressed in the liver, gill, hypothalamus, pituitary, and olfactory rosettes of smolts compared...
Carbon dioxide stripping in aquaculture -- part II: development of gas transfer models
John Colt, Barnaby Watten, Tim Pfeiffer
2012, Aquacultural Engineering (47) 38-46
The basic mass transfer equation for gases such as oxygen and carbon dioxide can be derived from integration of the driving force equation. Because of the physical characteristics of the gas transfer processes, slightly different models are used for aerators tested under the non steady-state procedures, than for packed columns,...
Influence of water temperature on rainbow smelt spawning and early life history dynamics in St. Martin Bay, Lake Huron
Timothy P. O’Brien, William W. Taylor, Andrew S. Briggs, Edward F. Roseman
2012, Journal of Great Lakes Research (38) 776-785
Rainbow smelt are an important prey species for native and introduced salmonines in the Great Lakes. In Lake Huron, rainbow smelt populations are characterized by variable recruitment and year-class strength. To understand the influence of water temperature on reproduction, growth, and survival during larval-fish stages, we sampled spawning tributaries and...
