Using micro-seismicity and seismic velocities to map subsurface geologic and hydrologic structure within the Coso geothermal field, California
Joern Ole Kaven, Stephen H. Hickman, Nicholas C. Davatzes
2012, Conference Paper, Proceedings, Thirty-Seventh Workshop on Geothermal Reservoir Engineering
Geothermal reservoirs derive their capacity for fluid and heat transport in large part from faults and fractures. Micro-seismicity generated on such faults and fractures can be used to map larger fault structures as well as secondary fractures that add access to hot rock, fluid storage and recharge capacity necessary to...
Preliminary analysis of the hydrologic effects of temporary shutdowns of the Rondout-West Branch Water Tunnel on the groundwater-flow system in Wawarsing, New York
Frederick Stumm, Anthony Chu, Michael D. Como, Michael L. Noll
2012, Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5015
Flooding of streets and residential basements, and bacterial contamination of private-supply wells with Escherichia coli (E. coli) are recurring problems in the Rondout Valley near the Town of Wawarsing, Ulster County, New York. Leakage from the Rondout-West Branch (RWB) Water Tunnel and above-normal precipitation have been suspected of causing elevated...
A comparison of consumptive-use estimates derived from the simplified surface energy balance approach and indirect reporting methods
Molly A. Maupin, Gabriel B. Senay, Joan F. Kenny, Mark E. Savoca
2012, Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5005
Recent advances in remote-sensing technology and Simplified Surface Energy Balance (SSEB) methods can provide accurate and repeatable estimates of evapotranspiration (ET) when used with satellite observations of irrigated lands. Estimates of ET are generally considered equivalent to consumptive use (CU) because they represent the part of applied irrigation water that...
Construction diagrams, geophysical logs, and lithologic descriptions for boreholes USGS 103, 105, 108, 131, 135, NRF-15, and NRF-16, Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho
Mary K.V. Hodges, Stephanie M. Orr, Katherine E. Potter, Tynan LeMaitre
2012, Data Series 660
This report, prepared in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Energy, summarizes construction, geophysical, and lithologic data collected from about 4,509 feet of core from seven boreholes deepened or drilled by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Idaho National Laboratory (INL) Project Office, from 2006 to 2009 at the INL. USGS...
Preliminary investigations of the winter ecology of Long-billed Curlews in coastal Texas
Marc C. Woodin, Mary Kay Skoruppa, Jeremy W. Edwardson, Jane E. Austin
2012, Open-File Report 2011-1312
Since the early 1900s, the distribution of the Long-billed Curlew (Numenius americanus) has contracted dramatically in the eastern one-half of its historic range. The species has been designated as a "Bird of Conservation Concern" and focal species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a species of concern by several...
Litterfall mercury dry deposition in the eastern USA
Martin R. Risch, John F. DeWild, David P. Krabbenhoft, Randall K. Kolka, Leiming Zhang
2012, Environmental Pollution (161) 284-290
Mercury (Hg) in autumn litterfall from predominately deciduous forests was measured in 3 years of samples from 23 Mercury Deposition Network sites in 15 states across the eastern USA. Annual litterfall Hg dry deposition was significantly higher (median 12.3 micrograms per square meter (μg/m2), range 3.5–23.4 μg/m2) than annual Hg wet...
Mapping argillic and advanced argillic alteration in volcanic rocks, quartzites, and quartz arenites in the western Richfield 1° x 2 ° quadrangle, southwestern Utah, using ASTER satellite data
Barnaby W. Rockwell, Albert H. Hofstra
2012, Open-File Report 2012-1105
The Richfield quadrangle in southwestern Utah is known to contain a variety of porphyry Mo, skarn, polymetallic replacement and vein, alunite, and kaolin resources associated with 27-32 Ma calc-alkaline or 12-23 Ma bimodal volcano-plutonic centers in Neoproterozoic to Mesozoic carbonate and siliciclastic rocks. Four scenes of visible to shortwave-infrared image...
Preliminary evaluation of the shale gas prospectivity of the Lower Cretaceous Pearsall Formation in the onshore Gulf Coast region, United States
Catherine B. Enomoto, Kristina Scott, Brett J. Valentine, Paul C. Hackley, Kristin Dennen, Celeste D. Lohr
2012, Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies Transactions (62) 93-115
Recent work by the U.S. Geological Survey indicated that the Lower Cretaceous Pearsall Formation contains an estimated mean undiscovered, technically recoverable unconventional gas resource of 8.8 trillion cubic ft in the Maverick Basin, South Texas. Cumulative gas production from horizontal wells in the core area of the emerging play has...
Small-scale lacustrine drifts in Lake Champlain, Vermont
Patricia L. Manley, T.O. Manley, Kathryn Hayo, Thomas Cronin
2012, Journal of Great Lakes Research (38) 88-100
High resolution CHIRP (Compressed High Intensity Radar Pulse) seismic profiles reveal the presence of two lacustrine sediment drifts located in Lake Champlain's Juniper Deep. Both drifts are positive features composed of highly laminated sediments. Drift B sits on a basement high while Drift A is built on a trough-filling acoustically-transparent...
Short-term survival of ammonites in New Jersey after the end-Cretaceous bolide impact
Neil H. Landman, Matthew P. Garb, Remy Rovelli, Denton S. Ebel, Lucy E. Edwards
2012, Acta Palaeontologica Polonica (57) 703-715
A section containing the Cretaceous/Paleogene (= Cretaceous/Tertiary) boundary in Monmouth County, New Jersey, preserves a record of ammonites extending from the end of the Cretaceous into possibly the beginning of the Danian. The section includes the upper part of the Tinton Formation and lower part of the Hornerstown Formation. The...
Weather effects on avian breeding performance and implications of climate change
Susan K. Skagen, Amy A. Yackel Adams
2012, Ecological Applications (22) 1131-1145
The influence of recent climate change on the world’s biota has manifested broadly, resulting in latitudinal range shifts, advancing dates of arrival of migrants and onset of breeding, and altered community relationships. Climate change elevates conservation concerns worldwide because it will likely exacerbate a broad range of identified threats to...
Thermal maturation history of Arctic Alaska and the southern Canada Basin
David W. Houseknecht, W. Matthew Burns, Kenneth J. Bird
2012, Book chapter, Analyzing the thermal history of sedimentary basins: Methods and case studies
The emerging global focus on the oil and gas potential of the Arctic underscores the importance of understanding petroleum systems with limited data. Geohistory modeling of Arctic Alaska (including the Chukchi shelf) and the southern Canada basin indicates that regional patterns of thermal maturity and timing of petroleum generation reflect...
Trajectory of early tidal marsh restoration: elevation, sedimentation and colonization of breached salt ponds in the northern San Francisco Bay
L. Arriana Brand, Lacy M. Smith, John Y. Takekawa, Nicole D. Athearn, Karen Taylor, Gregory Shellenbarger, David H. Schoellhamer, Renee Spenst
2012, Ecological Engineering (42) 19-29
Tidal marsh restoration projects that cover large areas are critical for maintaining target species, yet few large sites have been studied and their restoration trajectories remain uncertain. A tidal marsh restoration project in the northern San Francisco Bay consisting of three breached salt ponds (≥300 ha each; 1175 ha total)...
The spatial scale for cisco recruitment dynamics in Lake Superior during 1978-2007
Benjamin J. Rook, Michael J. Hansen, Owen T. Gorman
2012, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (32) 499-514
The cisco Coregonus artedi was once the most abundant fish species in the Great Lakes, but currently cisco populations are greatly reduced and management agencies are attempting to restore the species throughout the basin. To increase understanding of the spatial scale at which density‐independent and density‐dependent factors influence cisco recruitment dynamics in...
Response of the North American monsoon to regional changes in ocean surface temperature
John A. Barron, Sarah E. Metcalfe, Jason A. Addison
2012, Paleoceanography (27)
The North American monsoon (NAM), an onshore wind shift occurring between July and September, has evolved in character during the Holocene largely due to changes in Northern Hemisphere insolation. Published paleoproxy and modeling studies suggest that prior to ∼8000 cal years BP, the NAM affected a broader region than today,...
Tracking lava flow emplacement on the east rift zone of Kilauea, Hawai’i with synthetic aperture radar (SAR) coherence
Hannah R. Dietterich, Michael P. Poland, David Schmidt, Katharine V. Cashman, David R. Sherrod, Arkin Tapia Espinosa
2012, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (13)
Lava flow mapping is both an essential component of volcano monitoring and a valuable tool for investigating lava flow behavior. Although maps are traditionally created through field surveys, remote sensing allows an extraordinary view of active lava flows while avoiding the difficulties of mapping on location. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR)...
USGS workshop on CO2 sequestration in unconventional reservoirs
Kevin B. Jones, M.D. Corum, Madalyn S. Blondes
2012, Greenhouse News (106) 16-18
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) held a workshop titled “CO2 Sequestration in Unconventional Reservoirs” at the National Conservation Training Center, Shepherdstown, West Virginia, USA, on March 28th – 29th, 2012. Currently the USGS National Geologic Carbon Sequestration Assessment estimates potential subsurface storage volumes only in the existing pore spaces of...
Evaluation of capture techniques for long-billed curlews wintering in Texas
Marc C. Woodin, Mary K. Skoruppa, Jeremy W. Edwardson, Jane E. Austin
2012, Bulletin of the Texas Ornithological Society (45) 12-22
Texas coast harbors the largest, eastern-most populations of Long-billed Curlews (Numenius americanus) in North America; however, very little is known about their migration and wintering ecology. Curlews are readily captured on their breeding grounds, but experience with capturing the species during the non-breeding season is extremely limited. We assessed the...
Advances in spectroscopic methods for quantifying soil carbon
James B. Reeves III, Gregory W. McCarty, Francisco Calderon, W. Dean Hively
2012, Book chapter, Managing agricultural greenhouse gases
The current gold standard for soil carbon (C) determination is elemental C analysis using dry combustion. However, this method requires expensive consumables, is limited by the number of samples that can be processed (~100/d), and is restricted to the determination of total carbon. With increased interest in soil C sequestration,...
Spatio-temporal variations in age structures of a partially re-established population of northern river otters (Lontra canadensis)
Dominic A. Barrett, David M. Leslie Jr.
2012, American Midland Naturalist (168) 302-314
Examination of age structures and sex ratios is useful in the management of northern river otters (Lontra canadensis) and other furbearers. Reintroductions and subsequent recolonizations of river otters have been well documented, but changes in demographics between expanding and established populations have not been observed. As a result of reintroduction...
Range-wide patterns of migratory connectivity in the western sandpiper Calidris mauri
Samantha E. Franks, D. Ryan Norris, T. Kurt Kyser, Guillermo Fernández, Birgit Schwarz, Roberto Carmona, Mark A. Colwell, Jorge Correa Sandoval, Alexey Dondua, H. River Gates, Ben Haase, David J. Hodkinson, Ariam Jimenez, Richard B. Lanctot, Brent Ortego, Brett K. Sandercock, Felicia J. Sanders, John Y. Takekawa, Nils Warnock, Ron C. Ydenberg, David B. Lank
2012, Journal of Avian Biology (43) 155-167
Understanding the population dynamics of migratory animals and predicting the consequences of environmental change requires knowing how populations are spatially connected between different periods of the annual cycle. We used stable isotopes to examine patterns of migratory connectivity across the range of the western sandpiper Calidris mauri. First, we developed...
A shell-neutral modeling approach yields sustainable oyster harvest estimates: a retrospective analysis of the Louisiana state primary seed grounds
Thomas M. Soniat, John M. Klinck, Eric N. Powell, Nathan W. Cooper, Abdelguerfi, Eileen E. Hofmann, Janak Dahal, Shengru Tu, John Finigan, Benjamin S. Eberline, Jerome F. La Peyre, Megan K. LaPeyre, Fareed Qaddoura
2012, Journal of Shellfish Research (31) 1103-1112
A numerical model is presented that defines a sustainability criterion as no net loss of shell, and calculates a sustainable harvest of seed (<75 mm) and sack or market oysters (≥75 mm). Stock assessments of the Primary State Seed Grounds conducted east of the Mississippi from 2009 to 2011 show...
Magnitude Estimates of M7.3-7.8 for the 1811-1812 New Madrid and M7.0 for the 1886 Charleston Earthquakes from a Monte Carlo Analysis of Mean MMIs
Chris H. Cramer, Oliver S. Boyd
2012, Book, Eastern Section-SSA 2012 Meeting Report
No abstract available...
Geostatistical population-mixture approach to unconventional-resource assessment with an application to the Woodford Gas Shale, Arkoma Basin, eastern Oklahoma
Ricardo A. Olea, Ronald Charpentier, Troy A. Cook, David W. Houseknecht, Christopher P. Garrity
David W. Houseknecht, Ronald R. Charpentier, editor(s)
2012, SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering (15) 554-562
Evaluation of resources such as tight sands and gas shales requires the formulation of assessment models that are different from those used for the inference of conventional resources. Formulations in present use are based in classical statistics that ignore the partly organized and partly random geographical variation of attributes related...
The science, information, and engineering needed to manage water availability and quality in 2050
Robert M. Hirsch
2012, Book chapter, Toward a sustainable water future: Visions for 2050
This chapter explores four water resources issues: 1) hydrologic variability, hazards, water supply and ecosystem preservation; 2) urban landscape design; 3) non-point source water quality, and 4) climate change, resiliency, and nonstationarity. It also considers what science, technology, and engineering practice may be needed in the coming decades to...
