Fire clay
R.L. Virta
2012, Mining Engineering (64) 50-51
Five companies mined fire clay in four states in 2011. Production, based on a preliminary survey of the fire clay industry, was estimated to be 240 kt (265,000 st), valued at $7.68 million, an increase from 216 kt (238,000 st), valued at $6.12 million in 2010. Missouri was the leading...
Luna B. Leopold--pioneer setting the stage for modern hydrology
Randall J. Hunt, Curt Meine
2012, Ground Water (50) 966-970
In 1986, during the first year of graduate school, the lead author was sampling the water from a pitcher pump in front of “The Shack,” the setting of the opening essays in Aldo Leopold's renowned book A Sand County Almanac. The sampling was part of my Master's work that included...
Late Pleistocene Colus stimpsoni (Mörch, 1868) (Gastropoda: Buccinidae) from a seabed core (2520 m) in the western North Atlantic
Michael Rex, Jason D. Chaytor, Carol Stuart
2012, The Nautilus (126) 86-87
Heat flow in vapor dominated areas of the Yellowstone Plateau volcanic field: implications for the thermal budget of the Yellowstone Caldera
Shaul Hurwitz, Robert Harris, Cynthia Anne Werner, Fred Murphy
2012, Journal of Geophysical Research B: Solid Earth (117)
Characterizing the vigor of magmatic activity in Yellowstone requires knowledge of the mechanisms and rates of heat transport between magma and the ground surface. We present results from a heat flow study in two vapor dominated, acid-sulfate thermal areas in the Yellowstone Caldera, the 0.11 km2 Obsidian Pool Thermal Area...
Evolution of the chemistry of Fe bearing waters during CO2 degassing
J.N. Geroni, C.A. Cravotta III, D.J. Sapsford
2012, Applied Geochemistry (27) 2335-2347
The rates of Fe(II) oxidation and precipitation from groundwater are highly pH dependent. Elevated levels of dissolved CO2 can depress pH and cause difficulty in removing dissolved Fe and associated metals during treatment of ferruginous water. This paper demonstrates interdependent changes in pH, dissolved inorganic C species, and Fe(II) oxidation...
Impact disruption and recovery of the deep subsurface biosphere
Charles S. Cockell, Mary A. Voytek, Aaron L. Gronstal, Kai Finster, Julie D. Kirshtein, Kieren Howard, Joachim Reitner, Gregory S. Gohn, Ward E. Sanford, J. Wright Horton Jr., Jens Kallmeyer, Laura Kelly, David S. Powars
2012, Astrobiology (12) 231-246
Although a large fraction of the world's biomass resides in the subsurface, there has been no study of the effects of catastrophic disturbance on the deep biosphere and the rate of its subsequent recovery. We carried out an investigation of the microbiology of a 1.76 km drill core obtained from the...
A half-million-year record of paleoclimate from the Lake Manix Core, Mojave Desert, California
Marith C. Reheis, Jordon Bright, Steve P. Lund, David M. Miller, Gary Skipp, Robert J. Fleck
2012, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology (365-366) 11-37
Pluvial lakes in the southwestern U.S. responded sensitively to past climate through effects on rainfall, runoff, and evaporation. Although most studies agree that pluvial lakes in the southwestern U.S. reached their highest levels coeval with glacial stages, the specific timing of increased effective moisture and lake-level rise is debated, particularly...
Direct U-Pb dating of Cretaceous and Paleocene dinosaur bones, San Juan Basin, New Mexico: COMMENT
Alan E. Koenig, Spencer G. Lucas, Leonid A. Neymark, Andrew B. Heckert, Robert M. Sullivan, Steven E. Jasinski, Denver W. Fowler
2012, Geology (40) e262-e262
Based on U-Pb dating of two dinosaur bones from the San Juan Basin of New Mexico (United States), Fassett et al. (2011) claim to provide the first successful direct dating of fossil bones and to establish the presence of Paleocene dinosaurs. Fassett et al. ignore previously published work that directly...
Arsenic speciation in food chains from mid-Atlantic hydrothermal vents
Vivien F. Taylor, Brian P. Jackson, Matthew R. Siegfried, Jana Navratilova, Kevin A. Francesconi, Julie Kirshtein, Mary Voytek
2012, Environmental Chemistry (9) 130-138
Arsenic concentration and speciation were determined in benthic fauna collected from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge hydrothermal vents. The shrimp species, Rimicaris exoculata, the vent chimney-dwelling mussel, Bathymodiolus azoricus, Branchipolynoe seepensis, a commensal worm of B. azoricus and the gastropod Peltospira smaragdina showed variations in As concentration and in stable isotope (δ13C...
Directional connectivity in hydrology and ecology
Laurel G. Larsen, Jungyill Choi, Martha K. Nungesser, Judson W. Harvey
2012, Ecological Applications (22) 2204-2220
Quantifying hydrologic and ecological connectivity has contributed to understanding transport and dispersal processes and assessing ecosystem degradation or restoration potential. However, there has been little synthesis across disciplines. The growing field of ecohydrology and recent recognition that loss of hydrologic connectivity is leading to a global decline in biodiversity underscore...
Food security in a changing climate
Roger Pulwarty, Gary Eilerts, James Verdin
2012, Solutions Journal (3) 31-34
By 2080 the effects of climate change—on heat waves, floods, sea level rise, and drought—could push an additional 600 million people into malnutrition and increase the number of people facing water scarcity by 1.8 billion. The precise impacts will, however, strongly depend on socioeconomic conditions such as local markets and...
Ecological effects of climate change on salt marsh wildlife: a case study from a highly urbanized estuary
Karen M. Thorne, John Y. Takekawa, Deborah L. Elliott-Fisk
2012, Journal of Coastal Research (28) 1477-1487
Coastal areas are high-risk zones subject to the impacts of global climate change, with significant increases in the frequencies of extreme weather and storm events, and sea-level rise forecast by 2100. These physical processes are expected to alter estuaries, resulting in loss of intertidal wetlands and their component wildlife species....
Early indications of soil recovery from acidic deposition in U.S. red spruce forests
Gregory B. Lawrence, Walter C. Shortle, Mark B. David, Kevin T. Smith, Richard A.F. Warby, Andrei G. Lapenis
2012, Soil Science Society of America Journal (76) 1407-1417
Forty to fifty percent decreases in acidic deposition through the 1980s and 1990s led to partial recovery of acidified surface waters in the northeastern United States; however, the limited number of studies that have assessed soil change found increased soil acidification during this period. From existing data, it's not clear...
Habitat use by fishes of Lake Superior. I. Diel patterns of habitat use in nearshore and offshore waters of the Apostle Islands region
O. T. Gorman, D.L. Yule, J.D. Stockwell
2012, Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Management (15) 333-354
Diel patterns of distribution of fishes in nearshore (15–80 m depth) and offshore (>80 m) waters of the Apostle Islands region of Lake Superior were described using bottom trawls, mid-water trawls, and acoustic gear during day and night sampling. These data revealed three types of diel migration: diel vertical migration (DVM), diel...
Developing spatially explicit footprints of plausible land-use scenarios in the Santa Cruz Watershed, Arizona and Sonora
Laura M. Norman, Mark Feller, Miguel L. Villarreal
2012, Landscape and Urban Planning (107) 225-235
The SLEUTH urban growth model is applied to a binational dryland watershed to envision and evaluate plausible future scenarios of land use change into the year 2050. Our objective was to create a suite of geospatial footprints portraying potential land use change that can be used to aid binational decision-makers...
Mineral resource of the month: boron
Robert D. Crangle Jr.
2012, Earth (57) 23-23
The article offers information on the mineral, boron. Boron compounds, particularly borates, have more commercial applications than its elemental relative which is a metalloid. Making up the 90% of the borates that are used worldwide are colemanite, kernite, tincal, and ulexite. The main borate deposits are located in the Mojave...
Thresholds of flow-induced bed disturbances and their effects on stream metabolism in an agricultural river
Ben L. O’Connor, Judson W. Harvey, Lauren E. McPhillips
2012, Water Resources Research (48)
Storm-driven flow pulses in rivers destroy and restructure sediment habitats that affect stream metabolism. This study examined thresholds of bed disturbances that affected patch- and reach-scale sediment conditions and metabolism rates. A 4 year record of discharge and diel changes in dissolved oxygen concentrations (ΔDO) was analyzed for disturbances and...
Estimating risks to aquatic life using quantile regression
Travis S. Schmidt, William H. Clements, Brian S. Cade
2012, Freshwater Science (31) 709-723
One of the primary goals of biological assessment is to assess whether contaminants or other stressors limit the ecological potential of running waters. It is important to interpret responses to contaminants relative to other environmental factors, but necessity or convenience limit quantification of all factors that influence ecological potential. In...
Response by anglers to a differential harvest regulation on three black bass species at Skiatook Lake, Oklahoma
James M. Long, Randy G. Hyler, William L. Fisher
2012, Proceedings of the Oklahoma Academy of Science (92) 9-20
Angler responses to a differential harvest regulation on black bass, Micropterus spp. at Skiatook Lake, Oklahoma was assessed from 1997 to 1999. This regulation allowed anglers to harvest 15 spotted bass, M. punctulatus (Rafinesque) of any size and six largemouth bass, M. salmoides (Lacepède) and smallmouth bass, M. dolomieu Lacepède...
Interactive terrain visualization enables virtual field work during rapid scientific response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake
Eric Cowgill, Tony S. Bernardin, Michael E. Oskin, Christopher Bowles, M. Burak Yikilmaz, Oliver Kreylos, Austin J. Elliott, Scott Bishop, Ryan D. Gold, Alexander Morelan, Gerald W. Bawden, Bernd Hamann, Louise Kellogg
2012, Geosphere (8) 787-804
The moment magnitude (Mw) 7.0 12 January 2010 Haiti earthquake is the first major earthquake for which a large-footprint LiDAR (light detection and ranging) survey was acquired within several weeks of the event. Here, we describe the use of virtual reality data visualization to analyze massive amounts (67 GB on...
Bibliography of Dreissena polymorpha (zebra mussels) and Dreissena rostriformis Bugensis (QUAGGA mussels): 1989 to 2011
Don W. Schloesser, Christine Schmuckal
2012, Journal of Shellfish Research (31) 1205-1263
Dreissenid mussels invaded and colonized waters of the Laurentian Great Lakes during the late 1980s. Their colonization and resulting impact have been characterized as one of the most important ecological changes in freshwater systems in North America. The need for information on dreissenid mussels has grown during the past 2...
Complementarity of ResourceSat-1 AWiFS and Landsat TM/ETM+ sensors
S.N. Goward, G. Chander, M. Pagnutti, A. Marx, R. Ryan, N. Thomas, R. Tetrault
2012, Remote Sensing of Environment (123) 41-56
Considerable interest has been given to forming an international collaboration to develop a virtual moderate spatial resolution land observation constellation through aggregation of data sets from comparable national observatories such as the US Landsat, the Indian ResourceSat and related systems. This study explores the complementarity of India's ResourceSat-1 Advanced Wide...
Exceptional warming in the Western Pacific-Indian Ocean warm pool has contributed to more frequent droughts in eastern Africa
Christopher C. Funk
Thomas C. Peterson, Peter A. Stott, Stephanie Herring, editor(s)
2012, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (93) 1049-1051
In 2011, East Africa faced a tragic food crisis that led to famine conditions in parts of Somalia and severe food shortages in parts of Ethiopia and Somalia. While many nonclimatic factors contributed to this crisis (high global food prices, political instability, and chronic poverty, among others) failed rains in...
Airborne LiDAR analysis and geochronology of faulted glacial moraines in the Tahoe-Sierra frontal fault zone reveal substantial seismic hazards in the Lake Tahoe region, California-Nevada USA
James F. Howle, Gerald W. Bawden, Richard A. Schweickert, Robert C. Finkel, Lewis E. Hunter, Ronn S. Rose, Brent von Twistern
2012, GSA Bulletin (124) 1087-1101
We integrated high-resolution bare-earth airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) imagery with field observations and modern geochronology to characterize the Tahoe-Sierra frontal fault zone, which forms the neotectonic boundary between the Sierra Nevada and the Basin and Range Province west of Lake Tahoe. The LiDAR imagery clearly delineates active normal...
Foraging optimally for home ranges
Michael S. Mitchell, Roger A. Powell
2012, Journal of Mammalogy (93) 917-928
Economic models predict behavior of animals based on the presumption that natural selection has shaped behaviors important to an animal's fitness to maximize benefits over costs. Economic analyses have shown that territories of animals are structured by trade-offs between benefits gained from resources and costs of defending them. Intuitively, home...
