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High-elevation regions in the United States lack detailed atmospheric wet-deposition data. The National Atmospheric Deposition Program/National Trends Network (NADP/NTN) measures and reports precipitation amounts and chemical constituent concentration and deposition data for the United States on annual isopleth maps using inverse distance weighted (IDW) interpolation methods. This interpolation for unsampled...

This study analyzes how various data stratification schemes can be used to optimize the accuracy and utility of regional hydraulic geometry (HG) models of bankfull discharge, width, depth, and cross-sectional area for streams in New York. Topographic surveys and discharge records from 281 cross sections at 82 gaging stations with...

One of the objectives of the Gulf of Mexico Gas Hydrate Joint Industry Project Leg II (GOM JIP Leg II) was the collection of a comprehensive suite of logging-while-drilling (LWD) data within gas-hydrate-bearing sand reservoirs in order to make accurate estimates of the concentration of gas hydrates under various geologic...

We identified natural pits associated with avian mortality at the base of Kiska Volcano in the western Aleutian Islands, Alaska in 2007. Living, moribund, and dead birds were regularly found at low spots in a canyon between two lava flows during 2001–2006, but the phenomenon was attributed to natural trapping...

Identification of microsatellites, or simple sequence repeats (SSRs), can be a time-consuming and costly investment requiring enrichment, cloning, and sequencing of candidate loci. Recently, however, high throughput sequencing (with or without prior enrichment for specific SSR loci) has been utilized to identify SSR loci. The direct "Seq-to-SSR" approach has an...

Core Science Systems is a new mission of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) that grew out of the 2007 Science Strategy, “Facing Tomorrow’s Challenges: U.S. Geological Survey Science in the Decade 2007–2017.” This report describes the vision for this USGS mission and outlines a strategy for Core Science Systems to...

The National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act of 1997 requires all units of the National Wildlife Refuge System to be managed under a Comprehensive Conservation Plan. The Comprehensive Conservation Plan must describe the desired future conditions of a Refuge and provide long-range guidance and management direction to achieve refuge purposes....

The economy, national security, and standard of living of the United States depend heavily on adequate and reliable supplies of energy and mineral resources. Based on current population and consumption trends, the Nation's use of energy and minerals can be expected to grow, driving the demand for ever broader scientific...

Ecosystem science is critical to making informed decisions about natural resources that can sustain our Nation’s economic and environmental well-being. Resource managers and policy-makers are faced with countless decisions each year at local, state, tribal, territorial, and national levels on issues as diverse as renewable and non-renewable energy development, agriculture,...

The mission of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in natural hazards is to develop and apply hazard science to help protect the safety, security, and economic well-being of the Nation. The costs and consequences of natural hazards can be enormous, and each year more people and infrastructure are at risk....

We describe an ecotoxicological model that simulates the sublethal and lethal effects of chronic, low-level, chemical exposure on birds wintering in agricultural landscapes. Previous models estimating the impact on wildlife of chemicals used in agro-ecosystems typically have not included the variety of pathways, including both dermal and oral, by which...

Soil organic matter (SOM) processes in dynamic landscapes are strongly influenced by soil erosion and sedimentation. We determined the contribution of physical isolation of organic matter (OM) inside aggregates, chemical interaction of OM with soil minerals, and molecular structure of SOM in controlling storage and persistence of SOM in different...

Since 2000, the U.S. Geological Survey has completed assessments of continuous (unconventional) resources in the United States based on geologic studies and analysis of well-production data. This publication uses those 132 continuous oil and gas assessments to show the variability of well productivity within and among the 132 areas. The...

Dams provide beneficial functions such as flood control, recreation, and reliable water supplies, but they also entail risk: dam breaches and resultant floods can cause substantial property damage and loss of life. The State of Oklahoma requires each owner of a high-hazard dam, which the Federal Emergency Management Agency defines...

Drought cycles in wetlands may become more frequent and severe in the future, with consequences for wetland distribution and function. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], Managing the risks of extreme events and disasters to advance climate change adaptation, 2012. Online: http://ipcc-wg2.gov/SREX/images/uploads/SREX-All_FINAL.pdf,...

The Yellowstone National Park bison herd is 1 of only 2 populations known to have continually persisted on their current landscape since pre-Columbian times. Over the last century, the census size of this herd has fluctuated from around 100 individuals to over 3000 animals. Previous studies involving radiotelemetry, tooth wear, and parturition...

Horizontal seismic data are utilized in a large number of Earth studies. Such work depends on the published orientations of the sensitive axes of seismic sensors relative to true North. These orientations can be estimated using a number of different techniques: SensOrLoc (Sensitivity, Orientation and Location), comparison to synthetics (Ekstrom...

We tracked the movement of resident coastal rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss irideus that were experimentally transplanted below a migration barrier in a northern California stream. In 2005 and 2006, age-1 and older rainbow trout were captured above a 5-m-high waterfall in Freshwater Creek and individually marked with passive integrated transponder...

The suite of measurement methods available to characterize fluxes between groundwater and surface water is rapidly growing. However, there are few studies that examine approaches to design of field investigations that include multiple methods. We propose that performing field measurements in a spatially telescoping sequence improves measurement flexibility and accounts...

Bats face unprecedented threats from habitat loss, climate change, disease, and wind power development, and populations of many species are in decline. A better ability to quantify bat population status and trend is urgently needed in order to develop effective conservation strategies. We used a Bayesian autoregressive approach to develop...

Species formation during adaptive radiation often occurs in the context of a changing environment. The establishment and arrangement of populations, in space and time, sets up ecological and genetic processes that dictate the rate and pattern of differentiation. Here, we focus on how a dynamic habitat can affect genetic structure,...

The Big Woods of eastern Arkansas contain some of the highest densities of woodpeckers recorded within bottomland hardwood forests of the southeastern United States. A better understanding of habitat use patterns by these woodpeckers is a priority for conservationists seeking to maintain these high densities in the Big Woods and...

Predation can be a factor in preventing prey population growth and sustainability when prey populations are small and fragmented, and when predator density is unrelated to the density of the single prey species. We conducted monthly raptor surveys from February 2007 to May 2009 in adjacent areas of the Texas...

Kīlauea Volcano has one of the longest running volcanic sulfur dioxide (SO2) emission rate databases on record. Sulfur dioxide emission rates from Kīlauea Volcano were first measured by Stoiber and Malone (1975) and have been measured on a regular basis since 1979 (Elias and Sutton, 2007, and references within). Compilations...

Freshwater mussels are an imperiled fauna exposed to a variety of environmental toxicants such as lead (Pb) and studies are urgently needed to assess their health and condition to guide conservation efforts. A 28-day laboratory toxicity test with Pb and adult Eastern elliptio mussels (Elliptio complanata) was conducted to determine...