Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) space to ground mission data architecture
Jack L. Nelson, J.A. Ames, J. Williams, R. Patschke, C. Mott, J. Joseph, H. Garon, G. Mah
2012, Conference Paper
The Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) is a scientific endeavor to extend the longest continuous multi-spectral imaging record of Earth's land surface. The observatory consists of a spacecraft bus integrated with two imaging instruments; the Operational Land Imager (OLI), built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation in Boulder, Colorado, and...
Conflicting research on the demography, ecology, and social behavior of Gunnison's prairie dogs (Cynomys gunnisoni)
John L. Hoogland, Jack F. Cully Jr., Linda S. Rayor, James P. Fitzgerald
2012, Journal of Mammalogy (93) 1075-1085
Gunnison's prairie dogs (Cynomys gunnisoni) are rare, diurnal, colonial, burrowing, ground-dwelling squirrels. Studies of marked individuals living under natural conditions in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s showed that males are heavier than females throughout the year; that adult females living in the same territory are consistently close kin; and that...
Recycling of water, carbon, and sulfur during subduction of serpentinites: A stable isotope study of Cerro del Almirez, Spain
Jeffrey C. Alt, Carlos J. Garrido, Wayne C. Shanks III, Alexandra Turchyn, Jose Alberto Padron-Navarta, Vicente Lopez Sanchez-Vizcaino, Maria Teresa Gomez Pugnaire, Claudio Marchesi
2012, Earth and Planetary Science Letters (327-328) 50-60
We use the concentrations and isotope compositions of water, carbon, and sulfur in serpentinites and their dehydration products to trace the cycling of volatiles during subduction. Antigorite serpentinites from the Cerro del Almirez complex, Spain, contain 9–12 wt.% H2O and 910 ± 730 ppm sulfur, and have bulk δ18O values...
Socio-environmental health analysis in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico
Laura M. Norman, Felipe Caldeira, James Callegary, Floyd Gray, Mary Kay O’ Rourke, Veronica Meranza, Saskia Van Rijn
2012, Water Quality, Exposure, and Health (4) 79-91
In Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, some neighborhoods, or colonias, have intermittent delivery of water through pipes from the city of Nogales’s municipal water-delivery system while other areas lack piped water and rely on water delivered by truck or pipas. This research examined how lifestyles, water quality, and potential disease response, such...
Significance of rotating ground motions on nonlinear behavior of symmetric and asymmetric buildings in near fault sites
Erol Kalkan, Juan Carlos Reyes
2012, Book
Building codes in the U.S. require at least two horizontal ground motion components for three-dimensional (3D) response history analysis (RHA) of structures. For sites within 5 km of an active fault, these records should be rotated to fault-normal/fault-parallel (FN/FP) directions, and two RHA analyses should be performed separately (when FN...
Demographic population model for American shad: will access to additional habitat upstream of dams increase population sizes?
Julianne E. Harris, Joseph E. Hightower
2012, Marine and Coastal Fisheries: Dynamics, Management, and Ecosystem Science (4) 262-283
American shad Alosa sapidissima are in decline in their native range, and modeling possible management scenarios could help guide their restoration. We developed a density-dependent, deterministic, stage-based matrix model to predict the population-level results of transporting American shad to suitable spawning habitat upstream of dams on the Roanoke River, North Carolina and...
Variation in spring harvest rates of male wild turkeys in New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania
Duane R. Diefenbach, Mary Jo Casalena, Michael V. Schiavone, Michael Reynolds, Robert Eriksen, Wendy C. Vreeland, Bryan L. Swift, Robert C. Boyd
2012, Journal of Wildlife Management (76) 514-522
Spring harvest rates of male wild turkeys (Meleagris gallapavo) influence the number and proportion of adult males in the population and turkey population models have treated harvest as additive to other sources of mortality. Therefore, hunting regulations and their effect on spring harvest rates have direct implications for hunter satisfaction....
Fish assemblage dynamics in a Neotropical floodplain relative to aquatic macrophytes and the homogenizing effect of a flood pulse
L.C. Gomes, C. K. Bulla, A. A. Agostinho, L. P. Vasconcelos, Leandro E. Miranda
2012, Hydrobiologia (685) 97-107
The presence of aquatic macrophytes is a key factor in the selection of habitats by fish in floodplain lakes because these plants enhance the physical and biological complexities of aquatic habitats. The seasonal flood pulse may influence this interaction, but there is no information in the literature about the effects...
Exploring the erodibility of sediments and harmful algal blooms in the Gulf of Maine
Bradford Butman, Patrick J. Dickhudt, Bruce A. Keafer
2012, EcoSystem Indicator Partnership Journal (March/April 2012)
Investigators at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) are cooperating with scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) to investigate harmful algal blooms along the New England coast in the Gulf of Maine. These blooms are caused by cysts of the dinoflagellate Alexandrium fundyense that overwinter in the bottom sediments and...
Urbanization eases water crisis in China
Yiping Wu, Shu-Guang Liu, Chen Ji
2012, Environmental Development (2) 142-144
Socioeconomic development in China has resulted in rapid urbanization, which includes a large amount of people making the transition from rural areas to cities. Many have speculated that this mass migration may have worsened the water crisis in many parts of the country. However, this study shows that the water...
Progressive failure of sheeted rock slopes: the 2009–2010 Rhombus Wall rock falls in Yosemite Valley, California, USA
Greg M. Stock, Stephen J. Martel, Brian D. Collins, Edwin L. Harp
2012, Earth Surface Processes and Landforms (37) 546-561
Progressive rock-fall failures in natural rock slopes are common in many environments, but often elude detailed quantitative documentation and analysis. Here we present high-resolution photography, video, and laser scanning data that document spatial and temporal patterns of a 15-month-long sequence of at least 14 rock falls from the Rhombus Wall,...
Species abundance and potential biological control services in shade vs. sun coffee in Puerto Rico
Rena R. Borkhataria, Jaime A. Collazo, Martha J. Groom
2012, Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment (151) 1-5
Birds, lizards and insects were surveyed in three sun and three shade coffee plantations in Puerto Rico to provide a comprehensive comparison of biodiversity between plantations types and to identify potential interrelationships (e.g., biological or natural control services) between members of each taxon and coffee pests. Abundance of avian species,...
Emerging prion disease drives host selection in a wildlife population
Stacie J. Robinson, Michael D. Samuel, Chad J. Johnson, Marie Adams, Debbie I. McKenzie
2012, Ecological Applications (22) 1050-1059
Infectious diseases are increasingly recognized as an important force driving population dynamics, conservation biology, and natural selection in wildlife populations. Infectious agents have been implicated in the decline of small or endangered populations and may act to constrain population size, distribution, growth rates, or migration patterns. Further, diseases may provide...
Using pad‐stripped acausally filtered strong‐motion data
David Boore, Aida Azari Sisi, Sinan Akkar
2012, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (102) 751-760
Most strong‐motion data processing involves acausal low‐cut filtering, which requires the addition of sometimes lengthy zero pads to the data. These padded sections are commonly removed by organizations supplying data, but this can lead to incompatibilities in measures of ground motion derived in the usual way from the padded and...
Empirical improvements for estimating earthquake response spectra with random‐vibration theory
David Boore, Eric M. Thompson
2012, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (102) 761-772
The stochastic method of ground‐motion simulation is often used in combination with the random‐vibration theory to directly compute ground‐motion intensity measures, thereby bypassing the more computationally intensive time‐domain simulations. Key to the application of random‐vibration theory to simulate response spectra is determining the duration (Drms) used in computing the root‐mean‐square...
Myocastor coypus Molina (coypu)
Sandro Bertolino, Laura M Guichon M, Jacoby Carter
2012, Book chapter, A handbook of global freshwater invasive species
Myocastor coypus (coypu) (Figure 30.1) is a large semi-aquatic rodent native to South America that is now present in all continents, except Oceania and Antarctica, after widespread introductions in the 1930-1940s. There is a division in English speaking countries as to common name usage. In England and former British colonies (i.e....
Population divergence and gene flow in an endangered and highly mobile seabird
A. J. Welch, R. C. Fleischer, H. F. James, A. E. Wiley, P. H. Ostrom, J. Adams, F. Duvall, N. Holmes, D. Hu, J. Penniman, K. A. Swindle
2012, Heredity (109) 19-28
Seabirds are highly vagile and can disperse up to thousands of kilometers, making it difficult to identify the factors that promote isolation between populations. The endemic Hawaiian petrel (Pterodroma sandwichensis) is one such species. Today it is endangered, and known to breed only on the islands of Hawaii, Maui, Lanai...
Role of stranded gas from Central Asia and Russia in meeting Europe’s future import demand for gas
Emil D. Attanasi, Philip A. Freeman
2012, Natural Resources Research (21) 193-220
Stranded gas is natural gas in discovered fields that is currently not commercially producible for either physical or economic reasons. This study examines stranded gas from Russia and Central Asia and the role it can play in addressing Europe’s growing demand for imported natural gas requiring additional volumes of gas...
Assessment of undiscovered oil and gas resources of Papua-New Guinea, Eastern Indonesia, and East Timor, 2011
Christopher J. Schenk, Michael E. Brownfield, Ronald R. Charpentier, Troy A. Cook, Timothy R. Klett, Janet K. Pitman, Richard M. Pollastro
2012, Fact Sheet 2012-3029
Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated means of 5.8 billion barrels of oil and 115 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered natural gas in five geologic provinces in the areas of Papua New Guinea, eastern Indonesia, and East Timor....
Methods for noninvasive bathymetric and velocity surveys for impoundment safety--A case study of Herrington Lake at Dix Dam near Burgin, Kentucky
A. Thomas Ruby III
2012, Scientific Investigations Map 3198
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) created bathymetric-contour and water-velocity vector maps for portions of Lake Herrington within 600 feet of the face of Dix Dam near Burgin, Kentucky. The mapping was in support of a study of noninvasive acoustic technology for assessing structural integrity of dams, both as a routine...
Physical habitat, water quality, and riverine biological assemblages of selected reaches of the Sheyenne River, North Dakota, 2010
Robert F. Lundgren, Kathleen M. Rowland, Matthew J. Lindsay
2012, Scientific Investigations Report 2011-5178
In 2010, data on physical habitat, water quality, and riverine biological assemblages were collected at selected reaches in four locations (Kleven, Sheyenne, Cooperstown, and West Fargo) on the Sheyenne River in east-central North Dakota. Three of the locations (Kleven, Sheyenne, and Cooperstown) are above Baldhill Dam and one location (West...
Simulation of streamflow and the effects of brush management on water yields in the upper Guadalupe River watershed, south-central Texas, 1995-2010
Johnathan R. Bumgarner, Florence E. Thompson
2012, Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5051
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board and the Upper Guadalupe River Authority, developed and calibrated a Soil and Water Assessment Tool watershed model of the upper Guadalupe River watershed in south-central Texas to simulate streamflow and the effects of brush management...
Dependence of flow and transport through the Williamson River Delta, Upper Klamath Lake, Oregon, on wind, river inflow, and lake elevation
Tamara M. Wood
2012, Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5004
The hydrodynamic model of Upper Klamath and Agency Lakes, Oregon, was used to run 384 realizations of a numerical tracer experiment in order to understand the relative effects of wind, lake elevation, and Williamson River inflow on flow and transport (the movement of water and passively transported constituents) through the...
Summary and evaluation of the quality of stormwater in Denver, Colorado, 2006-2010
Michael R. Stevens, Cecil B. Slaughter
2012, Open-File Report 2012-1052
Stormwater in the Denver area was sampled by the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Urban Drainage and Flood Control District, in a network of 5 monitoring stations - 3 on the South Platte River and 2 on streams tributary to the South Platte River, Sand Creek, and Toll...
Assessment of undiscovered oil and gas resources in the Paradox Basin Province, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, 2011
Katherine J. Whidden
2012, Fact Sheet 2012-3031
Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated means of 560 million barrels of undiscovered oil, 12,701 billion cubic feet of undiscovered natural gas, and 490 million barrels of undiscovered natural gas liquids in the Paradox Basin of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona....
