Variance partitioning of stream diatom, fish, and invertebrate indicators of biological condition
Robert E. Zuellig, Daren M. Carlisle, Michael R. Meador, Marina Potapova
2012, Freshwater Science (31) 182-190
Stream indicators used to make assessments of biological condition are influenced by many possible sources of variability. To examine this issue, we used multiple-year and multiple-reach diatom, fish, and invertebrate data collected from 20 least-disturbed and 46 developed stream segments between 1993 and 2004 as part of the US Geological...
Comparison of concentrations and profiles of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon metabolites in bile of fishes from offshore oil platforms and natural reefs along the California coast
Robert W. Gale, Michael J. Tanner, Milton S. Love, Mary M. Nishimoto, Donna M. Schroeder
2012, Open-File Report 2012-1248
To determine the environmental consequences of decommissioning offshore oil platforms on local and regional fish populations, contaminant loads in reproducing adults were investigated at seven platform sites and adjacent, natural sites. Specimens of three species (Pacific sanddab, Citharichthys sordidus; kelp rockfish, Sebastes atrovirens; and kelp bass, Paralabrax clathratus) residing at...
Should ground-motion records be rotated to fault-normal/parallel or maximum direction for response history analysis of buildings?
Juan C. Reyes, Erol Kalkan
2012, Open-File Report 2012-1261
In the United States, regulatory seismic codes (for example, California Building Code) require at least two sets of horizontal ground-motion components for three-dimensional (3D) response history analysis (RHA) of building structures. For sites within 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) of an active fault, these records should be rotated to fault-normal and...
Occurrence model for volcanogenic beryllium deposits
Nora K. Foley, Albert H. Hofstra, David A. Lindsey, Robert R. Seal II, Brian W. Jaskula, Nadine M. Piatak
2012, Scientific Investigations Report 2010-5070-F
Current global and domestic mineral resources of beryllium (Be) for industrial uses are dominated by ores produced from deposits of the volcanogenic Be type. Beryllium deposits of this type can form where hydrothermal fluids interact with fluorine and lithophile-element (uranium, thorium, rubidium, lithium, beryllium, cesium, tantalum, rare earth elements, and...
The occurrence of trace elements in bed sediment collected from areas of varying land use and potential effects on stream macroinvertebrates in the conterminous western United States, Alaska, and Hawaii, 1992-2000
Angela P. Paul, Nicholas V. Paretti, Dorene E. MacCoy, Anne M.D. Brasher
2012, Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5272
As part of the National Water-Quality Assessment Program of the U.S. Geological Survey, this study examines the occurrence of nine trace elements in bed sediment of varying mineralogy and land use and assesses the possible effects of these trace elements on aquatic-macroinvertebrate community structure. Samples of bed sediment and macroinvertebrates...
Land Capability Potential Index (LCPI) and geodatabase for the Lower Missouri River Valley
Kimberly A. Chojnacki, Matthew A. Struckhoff, Robert B. Jacobson
2012, Data Series 736
The Land Capacity Potential Index (LCPI) is a coarse-scale index intended to delineate broad land-capability classes in the Lower Missouri River valley bottom from the Gavins Point Dam near Yankton, South Dakota to the mouth of the Missouri River near St. Louis, Missouri (river miles 811–0). The LCPI provides a...
Local-area-enhanced, 2.5-meter resolution natural-color and color-infrared satellite-image mosaics of the Zarkashan mineral district in Afghanistan: Chapter G in Local-area-enhanced, high-resolution natural-color and color-infrared satellite-image mosaics of mineral districts in Afghanistan
Philip A. Davis, Laura E. Cagney
2012, Data Series 709-G
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...
Program SPACECAP: software for estimating animal density using spatially explicit capture-recapture models
Arjun M. Gopalaswamy, J. Andrew Royle, James E. Hines, Pallavi Singh, Devcharan Jathanna, N. Samba Kumar, K. Ullas Karanth
2012, Methods in Ecology and Evolution (3) 1067-1072
1. The advent of spatially explicit capture-recapture models is changing the way ecologists analyse capture-recapture data. However, the advantages offered by these new models are not fully exploited because they can be difficult to implement. 2. To address this need, we developed a user-friendly software package,...
Density estimation in tiger populations: combining information for strong inference
Arjun M. Gopalaswamy, J. Andrew Royle, Mohan Delampady, James D. Nichols, K. Ullas Karanth, David W. Macdonald
2012, Ecology (93) 1741-1751
A productive way forward in studies of animal populations is to efficiently make use of all the information available, either as raw data or as published sources, on critical parameters of interest. In this study, we demonstrate two approaches to the use of multiple sources of information on a parameter...
Advanced earthquake monitoring system for U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs medical buildings--instrumentation
Erol Kalkan, Krishna Banga, Hasan S. Ulusoy, Jon Peter B. Fletcher, William S. Leith, Shahneam Reza, Timothy Cheng
2012, Open-File Report 2012-1241
In collaboration with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the National Strong Motion Project (NSMP; http://nsmp.wr.usgs.gov/) of the U.S. Geological Survey has been installing sophisticated seismic systems that will monitor the structural integrity of 28 VA hospital buildings located in seismically active regions of the conterminous United...
Mars global digital dune database: MC-30
R.K. Hayward, L.K. Fenton, T.N. Titus, A. Colaprete, P. R. Christensen
2012, Open-File Report 2012-1259
The Mars Global Digital Dune Database (MGD3) provides data and describes the methodology used in creating the global database of moderate- to large-size dune fields on Mars. The database is being released in a series of U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Reports. The first report (Hayward and others, 2007) included dune...
Interbasin water transfer, riverine connectivity, and spatial controls on fish biodiversity
Evan H. Campbell Grant, Heather J. Lynch, Rachata Muneepeerakul, Arunachalam Muthukumarasamy, Ignacio Rodríguez-Iturbe, William F. Fagan
2012, PLoS ONE (7)
Background Large-scale inter-basin water transfer (IBWT) projects are commonly proposed as solutions to water distribution and supply problems. These problems are likely to intensify under future population growth and climate change scenarios. Scarce data on the distribution of freshwater fishes frequently limits the ability to assess the potential implications of...
Balancing precision and risk: should multiple detection methods be analyzed separately in N-mixture models?
Tabitha A. Graves, J. Andrew Royle, Katherine C. Kendall, Paul Beier, Jeffrey B. Stetz, Amy C. Macleod
2012, PLoS ONE (7)
Using multiple detection methods can increase the number, kind, and distribution of individuals sampled, which may increase accuracy and precision and reduce cost of population abundance estimates. However, when variables influencing abundance are of interest, if individuals detected via different methods are influenced by the landscape differently, separate analysis of...
Future scenarios of land-use and land-cover change in the United States--the Marine West Coast Forests Ecoregion
Tamara S. Wilson, Benjamin M. Sleeter, Terry L. Sohl, Glenn Griffith, William Acevedo, Stacie Bennett, Michelle Bouchard, Ryan R. Reker, Christy Ryan, Kristi L. Sayler, Rachel Sleeter, Christopher E. Soulard
2012, Open-File Report 2012-1252
Detecting, quantifying, and projecting historical and future changes in land use and land cover (LULC) has emerged as a core research area for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Changes in LULC are important drivers of changes to biogeochemical cycles, the exchange of energy between the Earth’s surface and atmosphere, biodiversity,...
Species, functional groups, and thresholds in ecological resilience
Shana M. Sundstrom, Craig R. Allen, Chris Barichievy
2012, Conservation Biology (26) 305-314
The cross-scale resilience model states that ecological resilience is generated in part from the distribution of functions within and across scales in a system. Resilience is a measure of a system's ability to remain organized around a particular set of mutually reinforcing processes and structures, known as a regime. We...
Building on previous OSL dating techniques for gypsum: a case study from Salt Basin playa, New Mexico and Texas
Shannon Mahan, John Kay
2012, Quaternary Geochronology (10) 345-352
The long term stability and reliability of the luminescence signal for gypsum has not been well documented or systematically measured until just recently. A review of the current literature for luminescence dating of gypsum is compiled here along with original efforts at dating an intact and in-situ bed of selenite...
Earthquake recurrence models fail when earthquakes fail to reset the stress field
Thessa Tormann, Stefan Wiemer, Jeanne L. Hardebeck
2012, Geophysical Research Letters (39)
Parkfield's regularly occurring M6 mainshocks, about every 25 years, have over two decades stoked seismologists' hopes to successfully predict an earthquake of significant size. However, with the longest known inter-event time of 38 years, the latest M6 in the series (28 Sep 2004) did not conform to any of the...
Northwestern salamanders Ambystoma gracile in mountain lakes: record oviposition depths among salamanders
R. Hoffman Jr., C.A. Pearl, G.L. Larson, B. Samora
2012, Herpetological Review (43) 553-556
Oviposition timing, behaviors, and microhabitats of ambystomatid salamanders vary considerably (Egan and Paton 2004; Figiel and Semlitsch 1995; Howard and Wallace 1985; Mac-Cracken 2007). Regardless of species, however, females typically oviposit using sites conducive to embryo development and survival. For example, the results of an experiment by Figiel and Semlitsch...
Do Daphnia use metalimnetic organic matter in a north temperate lake? An analysis of vertical migration
Chase Julian Brosseau, Timothy J. Cline, Jonathan J. Cole, James R. Hodgson, Michael L. Pace, Brian Weidel
2012, Inland Waters (2) 193-198
Diel vertical migration of zooplankton is influenced by a variety of factors including predation, food, and temperature. Research has recently shifted from a focus on factors influencing migration to how migration affects nutrient cycling and habitat coupling. Here we evaluate the potential for Daphnia migrations to incorporate metalimnetic productivity in...
Fire in Mediterranean climate ecosystems-A comparative overview
Jon E. Keeley
2012, Israel Journal of Ecology and Evolution (58) 123-135
Four regions of the world share a similar climate and structurally similar plant communities with the Mediterranean Basin. These five areas, known collectively as "mediterranean-type climate (MTC) regions", are dominated by evergreen sclerophyllous-leaved shrublands, semi-deciduous scrub, and woodlands, all of which are prone to widespread crown fires. Summer droughts produce...
Igneous activity, metamorphism, and deformation in the Mount Rogers area of SW Virginia and NW North Carolina: A geologic record of Precambrian tectonic evolution of the southern Blue Ridge Province
Richard P. Tollo, John N. Aleinikoff, Roland Mundil, C. Scott Southworth, Michael A. Cosca, Douglas W. Rankin, Allison E. Rubin, Adrienne Kentner, Christopher A. Parendo, Molly S. Ray
2012, Book chapter, From the Blue Ridge to the Coastal Plain: Field Excursions in the Southeastern United States
Mesoproterozoic basement in the vicinity of Mount Rogers is characterized by considerable lithologic variability, including major map units composed of gneiss, amphibolite, migmatite, meta-quartz monzodiorite and various types of granitoid. SHRIMP U-Pb geochronology and field mapping indicate that basement units define four types of occurrences, including (1) xenoliths of ca....
Spring onset variations and trends in the continental United States: past and regional assessment using temperature-based indices
Mark D. Schwartz, Toby R. Ault, Julio L. Betancourt
2012, International Journal of Climatology
Phenological data are simple yet sensitive indicators of climate change impacts on ecosystems, but observations have not been made routinely or extensively enough to evaluate spatial and temporal patterns across most continents, including North America. As an alternative, many studies use weather-based algorithms to simulate specific phenological responses. Spring Indices...
Five new records of ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) for Nebraska
Kristine T. Nemec, James C. Trager, Elizabeth Manley, Craig R. Allen
2012, Prairie Naturalist (44) 63-65
Ants are ubiquitous and influential organisms in terrestrial ecosystems. About 1,000 ant species occur in North America, where they are found in nearly every habitat (Fisher and Cover 2007). Ants are critical to ecological processes and structure. Ants affect soils via tunneling activity (Baxter and Hole 1967), disperse plant seeds...
Saliendo del circulo vicioso: Gestiones alternativas para garantizar la sostenibilidad de la pesca
D.G. Angeler, K.L. Pope, Craig R. Allen
2012, Revista Latinoamericana de Recursos Naturales (8) 76-89
The management of fisheries has historically focused on maintaining maximum sustained yields of single species. This approach generally ignored the broader social-ecological context that consists of coupled systems of people and nature, and resulted in the overexploitation of many fisheries globally, including many in Latin America. There are severe negative...
Copper-nickel-rich, amalgamated ferromanganese crust-nodule deposits from Shatsky Rise, NW Pacific
J.R. Hein, T.A. Conrad, M. Frank, M. Christl, W.W. Sager
2012, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (13)
A unique set of ferromanganese crusts and nodules collected from Shatsky Rise (SR), NW Pacific, were analyzed for mineralogical and chemical compositions, and dated using Be isotopes and cobalt chronometry. The composition of these midlatitude, deep-water deposits is markedly different from northwest-equatorial Pacific (PCZ) crusts, where most studies have been...
