Short-term variability of 7Be atmospheric deposition and watershed response in a Pacific coastal stream, Monterey Bay, California, USA
Christopher H. Conaway, Curt D. Storlazzi, Amy E. Draut, Peter W. Swarzenski
2013, Journal of Environmental Radioactivity (120) 94-103
Beryllium-7 is a powerful and commonly used tracer for environmental processes such as watershed sediment provenance, soil erosion, fluvial and nearshore sediment cycling, and atmospheric fallout. However, few studies have quantified temporal or spatial variability of 7Be accumulation from atmospheric fallout, and parameters that would better define the uses and...
Investigations of groundwater system and simulation of regional groundwater flow for North Penn Area 7 Superfund site, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
Lisa A. Senior, Daniel J. Goode
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5045
Groundwater in the vicinity of several industrial facilities in Upper Gwynedd Township and vicinity, Montgomery County, in southeast Pennsylvania has been shown to be contaminated with volatile organic compounds (VOCs), the most common of which is the solvent trichloroethylene (TCE). The 2-square-mile area was placed on the National Priorities List...
Local-area-enhanced, 2.5-meter resolution natural-color and color-infrared satellite-image mosaics of the South Bamyan mineral district in Afghanistan
Philip A. Davis
Philip A. Davis, editor(s)
2013, Data Series 709-AA
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Defense Task Force for Business and Stability Operations, prepared databases for mineral-resource target areas in Afghanistan. The purpose of the databases is to (1) provide useful data to ground-survey crews for use in performing detailed assessments of the...
Seasonal comparison of aquatic macroinvertebrate assemblages in a flooded coastal freshwater marsh
Sung-Ryong Kang, Sammy L. King
2013, Open Journal Of Ecology (3) 94-101
Marsh flooding and drying may be important factors affecting aquatic macroinvertebrate density and distribution in coastal freshwater marshes. Limited availability of water as a result of drying in emergent marsh may decrease density, taxonomic diversity, and taxa richness. The principal objectives of this study are to characterize the seasonal aquatic...
Radiometric and geometric assessment of data from the RapidEye constellation of satellites
Gyanesh Chander, Obaidul Haque, Aparajithan Sampath, A. Brunn, G. Trosset, D. Hoffmann, S. Roloff, M. Thiele, C. Anderson
2013, International Journal of Remote Sensing (34) 5905-5925
To monitor land surface processes over a wide range of temporal and spatial scales, it is critical to have coordinated observations of the Earth's surface using imagery acquired from multiple spaceborne imaging sensors. The RapidEye (RE) satellite constellation acquires high-resolution satellite images covering the entire globe within a very short...
Annual modulation of non-volcanic tremor in northern Cascadia
Frederick Pollitz, Aaron G. Wech, Honn Kao, Roland Burgmann
2013, Journal of Geophysical Research B: Solid Earth (118) 2445-2459
Two catalogs of episodic tremor events in northern Cascadia, one from 2006 to 2012 and the other from 1997 to 2011, reveal two systematic patterns of tremor occurrence in southern Vancouver Island: (1) most individual events tend to occur in the third quarter of the year; (2) the number of...
Reconstructing satellite images to quantify spatially explicit land surface change caused by fires and succession: A demonstration in the Yukon River Basin of interior Alaska
Shengli Huang, Suming Jin, Devendra Dahal, Xuexia Chen, Claudia Young, Heping Liu, Shuguang Liu
2013, ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (79) 94-105
Land surface change caused by fires and succession is confounded by many site-specific factors and requires further study. The objective of this study was to reveal the spatially explicit land surface change by minimizing the confounding factors of weather variability, seasonal offset, topography, land cover, and drainage. In a pilot...
Assessing the potential of reservoir outflow management to reduce sedimentation using continuous turbidity monitoring and reservoir modelling
Casey J. Lee, Guy M. Foster
2013, Hydrological Processes (27) 1426-1439
In-stream sensors are increasingly deployed as part of ambient water quality-monitoring networks. Temporally dense data from these networks can be used to better understand the transport of constituents through streams, lakes or reservoirs. Data from existing, continuously recording in-stream flow and water quality monitoring stations were coupled with the two-dimensional...
Chromophoric dissolved organic matter export from U.S. rivers
Robert G. M. Spencer, George R. Aiken, Mark M. Dornblaser, Kenna D. Butler, R. Max Holmes, Greg Fiske, Paul J. Mann, Aron Stubbins
2013, Geophysical Research Letters (40) 1575-1579
Chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) fluxes and yields from 15 major U.S. rivers draining an assortment of terrestrial biomes are presented. A robust relationship between CDOM and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) loads is established (e.g., a350 versus DOC; r2 = 0.96, p < 0.001). Calculated CDOM yields are also correlated to watershed percent wetland...
A novel approach to surveying sturgeon using side-scan sonar and occupancy modeling
H. Jared Flowers, Joseph E. Hightower
2013, Marine and Coastal Fisheries: Dynamics, Management, and Ecosystem Science (5) 211-223
Technological advances represent opportunities to enhance and supplement traditional fisheries sampling approaches. One example with growing importance for fisheries research is hydroacoustic technologies such as side-scan sonar. Advantages of side-scan sonar over traditional techniques include the ability to sample large areas efficiently and the potential to survey fish without physical...
Incorporating harvest rates into the sex-age-kill model for white-tailed deer
Andrew S. Norton, Duane R. Diefenbach, Christopher S. Rosenberry, Bret D. Wallingford
2013, Journal of Wildlife Management (77) 606-615
Although monitoring population trends is an essential component of game species management, wildlife managers rarely have complete counts of abundance. Often, they rely on population models to monitor population trends. As imperfect representations of real-world populations, models must be rigorously evaluated to be applied appropriately. Previous research has evaluated population...
The role of farfield tectonic stress in oceanic intraplate deformation, Gulf of Alaska
Robert S. Reece, Sean P. S. Gulick, Gail L. Christesen, Brian K. Horton, Harm J. VanAvendonk, Ginger Barth
2013, Journal of Geophysical Research B: Solid Earth (118) 1862-1872
An integration of geophysical data from the Pacific Plate reveals plate bending anomalies, massive intraplate shearing and deformation, and a lack of oceanic crust magnetic lineaments in different regions across the Gulf of Alaska. We argue that farfield stress from the Yakutat Terrane collision with North America is the major...
Habitat use of breeding green turtles Chelonia mydas tagged in Dry Tortugas National Park: Making use of local and regional MPAs
Kristen Hart, David G. Zawada, Ikuko Fujisaki, Barbara H. Lidz
2013, Biological Conservation (161) 142-154
Use of existing marine protected areas (MPAs) by far-ranging marine turtles can be determined using satellite telemetry. Because of a lack of information on MPA use by marine turtles in the Gulf of Mexico, we used satellite transmitters in 2010 and 2011 to track movements of 11 adult female breeding...
Local-area-enhanced, 2.5-meter resolution natural-color and color-infrared satellite-image mosaics of the North Bamyan mineral district in Afghanistan
Philip A. Davis
Philip A. Davis, editor(s)
2013, Data Series 709-BB
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Defense Task Force for Business and Stability Operations, prepared databases for mineral-resource target areas in Afghanistan. The purpose of the databases is to (1) provide useful data to ground-survey crews for use in performing detailed assessments of the...
Colloid transport in saturated porous media: Elimination of attachment efficiency in a new colloid transport model
Lee L. Landkamer, Ronald W. Harvey, Timothy D. Scheibe, Joseph N. Ryan
2013, Water Resources Research (49) 2952-2965
A colloid transport model is introduced that is conceptually simple yet captures the essential features of colloid transport and retention in saturated porous media when colloid retention is dominated by the secondary minimum because an electrostatic barrier inhibits substantial deposition in the primary minimum. This model is based on conventional...
Mineral resource of the month: diatomite
Water Resources Division, U.S. Geological Survey
2013, Earth (58) 57-57
The article discusses the properties and applications of the mineral diatomite. According to the author, diatomite is a soft, friable and very fine-grained siliceous sedimentary rock made of the remains of fossilized diatoms. The author adds that its properties make diatomite very useful as a filtration medium and as a...
Estimated rates of groundwater recharge to the Chicot, Evangeline and Jasper aquifers by using environmental tracers in Montgomery and adjacent counties, Texas, 2008 and 2011
Timothy D. Oden, Margot Truini
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5024
Montgomery County is in the northern part of the Houston, Texas, metropolitan area, the fourth most populous metropolitan area in the United States. As populations have increased since the 1980s, groundwater has become an important resource for public-water supply and industry in the rapidly growing area of Montgomery County. Groundwater...
Method- and species-specific detection probabilities of fish occupancy in Arctic lakes: Implications for design and management
Trevor B. Haynes, Amanda E. Rosenberger, Mark S. Lindberg, Matthew Whitman, Joel A. Schmutz
2013, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (70) 1055-1062
Studies examining species occurrence often fail to account for false absences in field sampling. We investigate detection probabilities of five gear types for six fish species in a sample of lakes on the North Slope, Alaska. We used an occupancy modeling approach to provide estimates of detection probabilities for each...
To stock or not to stock? Assessing restoration potential of a remnant American shad spawning run with hatchery supplementation
Michael M. Bailey, Joseph D. Zydlewski
2013, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (33) 459-467
Hatchery supplementation has been widely used as a restoration technique for American Shad Alosa sapidissima on the East Coast of the USA, but results have been equivocal. In the Penobscot River, Maine, dam removals and other improvements to fish passage will likely reestablish access to the majority of this species’ historic spawning...
Rupture history of the 2011 M 9 Tohoku Japan earthquake determined from strong‐motion and high‐rate GPS recordings: Subevents radiating energy in different frequency bands
Arthur D. Frankel
2013, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (103) 1290-1306
Strong‐motion records from KiK‐net and K‐NET, along with 1 sample/s Global Positioning System (GPS) records from GEONET, were analyzed to determine the location, timing, and slip of subevents of the M 9 2011 Tohoku earthquake. Timing of arrivals on stations along the coast shows that the first subevent was located closer to the...
Community-based water-quality monitoring in the Yukon River Basin and the Kuskokwim Watershed
Nicole M. Herman-Mercer
2013, Witness the Arctic (2)
The unique partnership between the USGS and the YRITWC provides mutual benefits by fostering outreach efforts that have been essential for community empowerment and by generating scientific data for prohibitively large and remote regions that would be challenging for USGS scientists to sample as robustly alone. The addition of a...
Total nutrient and sediment loads, trends, yields, and nontidal water-quality indicators for selected nontidal stations, Chesapeake Bay Watershed, 1985–2011
Michael J. Langland, Joel D. Blomquist, Douglas Moyer, Kenneth Hyer, Jeffrey G. Chanat
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1052
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) partners, routinely reports long-term concentration trends and monthly and annual constituent loads for stream water-quality monitoring stations across the Chesapeake Bay watershed. This report documents flow-adjusted trends in sediment and total nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations for 31 stations in...
Assessment of undiscovered oil resources in the Bakken and Three Forks Formations, Williston Basin Province, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota, 2013
Stephanie B. Gaswirth, Kristen R. Marra, Troy A. Cook, Ronald R. Charpentier, Donald L. Gautier, Debra K. Higley, Timothy R. Klett, Michael D. Lewan, Paul G. Lillis, Christopher J. Schenk, Marilyn E. Tennyson, Katherine J. Whidden
2013, Fact Sheet 2013-3013
Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated mean undiscovered volumes of 7.4 billion barrels of oil, 6.7 trillion cubic feet of associated/dissolved natural gas, and 0.53 billion barrels of natural gas liquids in the Bakken and Three Forks Formations in the Williston Basin Province of Montana, North...
Simulation of groundwater flow, effects of artificial recharge, and storage volume changes in the Equus Beds aquifer near the city of Wichita, Kansas well field, 1935–2008
Brian P. Kelly, Linda L. Pickett, Cristi V. Hansen, Andrew C. Ziegler
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5042
The Equus Beds aquifer is a primary water-supply source for Wichita, Kansas and the surrounding area because of shallow depth to water, large saturated thickness, and generally good water quality. Substantial water-level declines in the Equus Beds aquifer have resulted from pumping groundwater for agricultural and municipal needs, as well...
Input-form data for the U.S. Geological Survey assessment of the Devonian and Mississippian Bakken and Devonian Three Forks Formations of the U.S. Williston Basin Province, 2013
U.S. Geological Survey Bakken-Three Forks Assessment Team, Stephanie B. Gaswirth, Kristen R. Marra, Troy A. Cook, Ronald R. Charpentier, Donald L. Gautier, Debra K. Higley, Timothy R. Klett, Michael D. Lewan, Paul G. Lillis, Christopher J. Schenk, Marilyn E. Tennyson, Katherine J. Whidden
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1094
In 2013, the U.S. Geological Survey assessed the technically recoverable oil and gas resources of the Bakken and Three Forks Formations of the U.S. portion of the Williston Basin. The Bakken and Three Forks Formations were assessed as continuous and hypothetical conventional oil accumulations using a methodology similar to that...
