Potential impacts of an autumn oil spill on polar bears summering on land in northern Alaska
Ryan H. Wilson, Deborah French-Mckay, Craig J Perham, Susannah P. Woodruff, Todd C. Atwood, George M. Durner
2024, Biological Conservation (292)
Demand for oil and natural gas continues to increase, leading to the development of remote regions where it is riskier to operate. Many of these regions have had limited development, so understanding potential impacts to wildlife could inform management decisions....
Timing and source of recharge to the Columbia River Basalt groundwater system in northeastern Oregon
Henry M. Johnson, Kate E. Ely, Anna-Turi Maher
2024, Groundwater (62) 761-777
Recharge to and flow within the Columbia River Basalt Group (CRBG) groundwater flow system of northeastern Oregon were characterized using isotopic, gas, and age-tracer samples from wells completed in basalt, springs, and stream base flow. Most groundwater samples were late-Pleistocene to early-Holocene; median age of...
Inbuilt age, residence time, and inherited age from radiocarbon dates of modern fires and late Holocene deposits, Western Transverse Ranges, California
Katherine M. Scharer, Devin McPhillips, Jenifer Amy Leidelmeijer, Matthew Kirby
2024, Earth Surface Processes and Landforms (49) 2309-2582
Radiocarbon dates of sedimentary deposits include the elapsed time between formation of the organic material and deposition at the sample site, known as the inherited age. Long inherited ages reduce the accuracy of estimates of the timing of depositional events used to infer paleoclimate change, fire histories, and paleoearthquake...
Evaluation of the characteristics, discharge, and water quality of selected springs at Fort Irwin National Training Center, San Bernardino County, California
Jill N. Densmore, Drew C. Thayer, Meghan C. Dick, Peter W. Swarzenski, Lyndsay B. Ball, Celia Z. Rosecrans, Cordell Johnson
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2023-5142
Eight springs and seeps at Fort Irwin National Training Center were described and categorized by their general characteristics, discharge, geophysical properties, and water quality between 2015 and 2017. The data collected establish a modern (2017) baseline of hydrologic conditions at the springs. Two types of springs were identified: (1) precipitation-fed...
Genetic Connectivity in the Arizona toad (Anaxyrus microscaphus): implications for conservation of a stream dwelling amphibian in the arid Southwestern U.S.
Sara J. Oyler-McCance, Mason J. Ryan, Brian K. Sullivan, Jennifer A. Fike, Robert S. Cornman, J. T. Giermakowski, Shawna J Zimmerman, R. L. Harrow, S.J. Hedwell, Blake R. Hossack, I. M. Latella, R. E. Lovish, S. Siefken, Brent H. Sigafus, Erin L. Muths
2024, Conservation Genetics (25) 835-848
The Arizona Toad (Anaxyrus microscaphus) is restricted to riverine corridors and adjacent uplands in the arid southwestern United States. As with numerous amphibians worldwide, populations are declining and face various known or suspected threats, from disease to habitat modification resulting from climate change. The Arizona Toad has been petitioned to...
Post-wildfire debris flows
Joseph Gartner, Jason W. Kean, Francis K. Rengers, Scott W. McCoy, Nina S. Oakley, Gary J. Sheridan
2024, Book chapter, Advances in Debris-flow Science and Practice
Post-wildfire debris flows pose severe hazards to communities and infrastructure near and within recently burned mountainous terrain. Intense heat of wildfires changes the runoff characteristics of a watershed by combusting the vegetative canopy, litter, and duff, introducing ash into the soil and creating water repellant soils. Following wildfire, rainfall on...
Lahars: Origins, behavior and hazards
James W. Vallance
Matthias Jakob, Scott McDougall, Paul Santi, editor(s)
2024, Book chapter, Advances in debris-flow science and practice
Volcanic debris flows that originate at potentially active volcanoes are called lahars. Lahars are like debris flows in non-volcanic terrain but can most notably differ in origin and size. Primary lahars occur during eruptions and may have novel origins such as turbulent mixing of hot rock moving across ice- and...
How diverse is the toolbox? A review of management actions to conserve or restore coregonines
David Bunnell, Orlane Anneville, Jan Baer, Colin Bean, Kimmo Kahlilainen, Alfred Sandstrom, Oliver Selz, Pascal Vonlanthen, Josef Wanzenbock, Brian Weidel
2024, International Journal of Limnology (60)
Over the past centuries, coregonines have been exposed to a range of stressors that have led to extinctions, extirpations, and speciation reversals. Given that some populations remain at risk and fishery managers have begun restoring coregonines where they have been extirpated, we reviewed the primary and gray literature to describe...
Paleogene sedimentary basin development in southern Nevada, USA
Jens-Erik Lundstern, Theresa Maude Schwartz, Cameron Mark Mercer, Joseph P. Colgan, Jeremiah B. Workman, Leah E. Morgan
2024, Lithosphere (2024) 1-34
The cause of the transition from Mesozoic and early Cenozoic crustal shortening to later extension in the western United States is debated. In many parts of the extant Sevier hinterland, now the Basin and Range Province, the sedimentary sections that provide the most direct record of that transition remain poorly...
Evaluation of data collected by Guam Division of Aquatic and Wildlife Resources during population establishment and monitoring of ko'ko' (Hypotaenidia owstoni) on Rota, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and wildlife monitoring datasets on Cocos Island and Guam
Richard J. Camp, Sarah A B Nash, Kristina L. Paxton
2024, Report
Efforts to recover the critically endangered ko’ko’ (Guam rail, Hypotaenidia owstoni) through establishing an experimental population on the island of Rota in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands have been ongoing for three decades. The U.S. Geological Survey collaborated with the Guam Division of...
A new database of giant impacts over a wide range of masses and with material strength: A first analysis of outcomes
Alexandre Emsenhuber, Erik Asphaug, Saverio Cambioni, Travis S.J. Gabriel, Stephen R. Schwartz, Robert E. Melikyan, C. Adeene Denton
2024, The Planetary Science Journal (5)
In the late stage of terrestrial planet formation, planets are predicted to undergo pairwise collisions known as giant impacts. Here, we present a high-resolution database of giant impacts for differentiated colliding bodies of iron–silicate composition, with target masses ranging from 1 × 10−4M⊕ up to super-Earths (5 M⊕). We vary the...
Numerical modeling of debris flows: A conceptual assessment
Richard M. Iverson, David L. George
2024, Book chapter, Advances in Debris-flow Science and Practice
Real-world hazard evaluation poses many challenges for the development and application of numerical models of debris flows. In this chapter we provide a conceptual overview of physically based, depth-averaged models designed to simulate debris-flow motion across three-dimensional terrain. When judiciously formulated and applied, these models can...
A comparison of contemporary and historical hydrology and water quality in the foothills and coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Arctic Slope, northern Alaska
Joshua C. Koch, Heather Best, Carson Baughman, Charles Couvillion, Michael P. Carey, Jeff Conaway
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5008
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a unique landscape in northern Alaska with limited water resources, substantial biodiversity of rare and threatened species, as well as oil and gas resources. The region has unique hydrology related to perennial springs, and the formation of large aufeis fields—sheets of ice that grow...
Canopy cover and microtopography control precipitation-enhanced thaw of ecosystem-protected permafrost
Joel Eklof, Benjamin M. Jones, Baptiste Dafflon, Elise Devoie, Katie M. Ring, Marie English, Mark Waldrop, Rebecca Neumann
2024, Journal of Geophysical Research-Biogeosciences (19)
Northern high-latitudes are projected to get warmer and wetter, which will affect rates of permafrost thaw and mechanisms by which thaw occurs. To better understand the impact of rain, as well as other factors such as snow depth, canopy cover, and microtopography, we instrumented a degrading permafrost plateau in south-central...
Evaluation of an impulse-response emulator for groundwater contaminant transport modeling
Brent Porter Heerspink, Michael N. Fienen, Howard W. Reeves
2024, Groundwater (62) 945-956
There is a significant need to develop decision support tools capable of delivering accurate representations of environmental conditions, such as ground and surface water solute concentrations, in a timely and computationally efficient manner. Such tools can be leveraged to assess a large number of potential management strategies for mitigating non-point...
Performance-based earthquake early warning for tall buildings
S. Farid Ghahari, Khachik Sargsyan, Grace Alexandra Parker, Dan Swensen, Mehmet Celebi, Hamid Haddadi, Ertugrul Taciroglu
2024, Earthquake Spectra (40) 1425-1451
The ShakeAlert Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) system aims to issue an advance warning to residents on the West Coast of the United States seconds before the ground shaking arrives, if the expected ground shaking exceeds a certain threshold. However, residents in tall buildings may experience much greater...
New uses for ancient middens: Bridging ecological and evolutionary perspectives
Katie M. Becklin, Julio L. Betancourt, Joseph Braasch, Olivier Dezerald, Francisca Díaz, Angelica L. Gonzalez, Robert Harbert, Camille A. Holmgren, Angela D. Hornsby, Claudio L. Latorre, Marjorie D. Matocq, Felisa A. Smith
2024, Trends in Ecology and Evolution (39) 479-493
Rodent middens provide a fine-scale spatiotemporal record of plant and animal communities over the late Quaternary. In the Americas, middens have offered insight into biotic responses to past environmental changes and historical factors influencing the distribution and diversity of species. However, few studies have used middens to investigate...
Evaluation of in vitro treatments against the causative agent of Diadema antillarum scuticociliatosis (DaSc)
James S. Evans, Julie Jenice Voelschow, Isabella T. Ritchie, Mya Breitbart, Ian Hewson, Christina A. Kellogg
2024, Diseases of Aquatic Organisms (157) 107-112
ABSTRACT: In the 1980s, a mass die-off of the long-spined sea urchin Diadema antillarum occurred on Florida and Caribbean coral reefs. D. antillarum populations largely did not recover, and in 2022, remaining populations experienced another mass mortality event. A ciliate most similar to Philaster apodigitiformis was identified as the causative agent of the 2022 event,...
Assessing influence from wastewater treatment facilities on Glorieta Creek and the Pecos River within Pecos National Historical Park, New Mexico, February–October 2022
K. Wilkins, K.R. Beisner, R.E. Travis
2024, Open-File Report 2024-1014
The Pecos National Historical Park protects 2.9 miles of the Pecos River and part of Glorieta Creek within the park boundaries. Updated water-quality data can assist resource managers in determining if effluent from two nearby wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) is affecting the quality of the water in the Pecos River...
Integrated distance sampling models for simple point counts
Marc Kery, Andy Royle, Tyler Hallman, Doug Robinson, Nicolas Strebel, Kenneth F. Kellner
2024, Ecology (105)
Point counts (PCs) are widely used in biodiversity surveys but, despite numerous advantages, simple PCs suffer from several problems: detectability, and therefore abundance, is unknown; systematic spatiotemporal variation in detectability yields biased inferences, and unknown survey area prevents formal density estimation and scaling-up to the landscape level. We introduce integrated...
Metagenomic sequencing sheds light on microbes putatively associated with pneumonia-related fatalities of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus)
Melanie B. Prentice, Marie L.J. Gilbertson, Daniel J. Storm, Allison H. Roy, Daniel P. Walsh, Marie E. Pinkerton, Pauline L. Kamath
2024, Microbial Genomics (10)
With emerging infectious disease outbreaks in human, domestic and wild animal populations on the rise, improvements in pathogen characterization and surveillance are paramount for the protection of human and animal health, as well as the conservation of ecologically and economically important wildlife. Genomics offers a range of suitable tools to...
Preface to focus section on new frontiers and advances in global seismology
Robert E. Anthony, Nicolas Leroy, Robert Mellors, Adam T. Ringler, Joachim Saul, Martin Vallee, David C. Wilson
2024, Seismological Research Letters (95) 1473-1477
Over the last century, many of the fundamental advances in our understanding of the solid Earth have been underpinned by seismic observations recorded on long‐running networks of globally distributed seismic instruments (e.g., Agnew et al., 1976; Romanowicz et al., 1984; Hanka and Kind, 1994; Peterson and Hutt,...
Seabirds and humpback whales give early warning to marine heatwaves
Lauren Bien, Rob Suryan, Mayumi L. Arimitsu, John Moran
2024, Open Access Government
Between 2014 and 2016, an extreme marine heatwave struck the North Pacific Ocean, affecting nearshore and pelagic (offshore, open ocean) ecosystems from southern California to Alaska. This unprecedented event, characterized by unusually warm ocean temperatures over a large area, was the longest-duration marine heatwave recorded to date. The Gulf of...
Water cycle processes [poster]
Eliza Anderson, Sophie Hill, Ryan Nixon, Benjamin Abbott, Raymond Lee, Rachel Wood, Gregory Carling, Bryan Hopkins, Hayley R. Corson-Dosch, Cee S. Nell, Elizabeth Bailey
2024, General Information Product 235
DescriptionThe water cycle describes how water moves from Earth’s surface into the atmosphere, then back to the surface again or to below Earth’s surface. This educational poster depicts five key water-cycle processes that transport or transform water between states: evaporation, transpiration, condensation, precipitation, and infiltration. It illustrates examples of natural...
Where is the water? Coast [poster]
Simona Love, Sophie Hill, Richard Gill, Benjamin Abbott, Raymond Lee, Rachel Wood, Elizabeth Bailey, Hayley R. Corson-Dosch, Cee S. Nell, Ryan Nixon
2024, General Information Product 232
DescriptionWater is an integral part of how we interact with the environment and live our everyday lives. This educational poster illustrates where water is on the coast, how water moves, and different ways that water is used both naturally and through human interaction. This poster is intended for eighth-grade audiences...
