Characterization of bituminite in Kimmeridge Clay by confocal laser scanning and atomic force microscopy
Paul C. Hackley, Jolanta Kus, Joao Graciano Mendonca Filho, Andrew D. Czaja, Angeles G. Borrego, Dragana Životić, Brett J. Valentine, Javin J. Hatcherian
2022, International Journal of Coal Geology (251)
This work investigates bituminite (amorphous sedimentary organic matter) in Upper Jurassic Kimmeridge Clay source rock via confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). These petrographic tools were used to provide better understanding of the nature of bituminite, which has been historically difficult to identify and differentiate from similar organic...
Assessment of native fish passage through Brandon Road Lock and Dam, Des Plaines River, Illinois, using fin ray microchemistry
Claire E. Snyder, Devon C. Oliver, Brent C. Knights, Stephen M. Pescitelli, Gregory W. Whitledge
2022, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (151) 172-184
This study examined evidence of native fish passage through Brandon Road Lock and Dam (BRLD) on the Des Plaines River, Illinois, in light of proposed modifications to prevent the upstream passage of invasive carps. Direct evidence of upstream passage by native fishes at BRLD is...
Portable optically stimulated luminescence age map of a paleoseismic exposure
Christopher DuRoss, Ryan D. Gold, Harrison J. Gray, Sylvia R. Nicovich
2022, Geology (50) 470-475
The quality and quantity of geochronologic data used to constrain the history of major earthquakes in a region exerts a first-order control on the accuracy of seismic hazard assessments that affect millions of people. However, evaluations of geochronological data are limited by uncertainties related to inherently complex depositional processes that...
Leveraging community science data for population assessments during a pandemic
Paige Howell, Patrick Devers, Orin J. Robinson, J. Andrew Royle
2022, Ecological Applications (32)
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted field research programs, making conservation and management decision-making more challenging. However, it may be possible to conduct population assessments using integrated models that combine community science data with existing data from structured surveys. We developed a space-time integrated model to characterize...
Distribution and abundance of Least Bell’s Vireos (Vireo bellii pusillus) and Southwestern Willow Flycatchers (Empidonax traillii extimus) on the Middle San Luis Rey River, San Diego County, southern California—2021 Data summary
Lisa D. Allen, Barbara E. Kus
2022, Data Report 1147
Executive SummaryWe surveyed for Least Bell’s Vireos (Vireo bellii pusillus; vireo) and Southwestern Willow Flycatchers (Empidonax traillii extimus; flycatcher) along the San Luis Rey River, between College Boulevard in Oceanside and Interstate 15 in Fallbrook, California (middle San Luis Rey River), in 2021. Surveys were conducted from April 13 to...
Species-specific responses to landscape features shaped genomic structure within Alaska galliformes
Sarah A. Sonsthagen, Robert E. Wilson, Sandra L. Talbot
2022, Journal of Biogeography (49) 261-273
AimConnectivity is vital to the resiliency of populations to environmental change and stochastic events, especially for cold-adapted species as Arctic and alpine tundra habitats retract as the climate warms. We examined the influence of past and current landscapes on genomic connectivity in cold-adapted galliformes as a critical...
System characterization report on Planet SkySat
Minsu Kim, Seonkyung Park, Aparajithan Sampath, Cody Anderson, Gregory L. Stensaas
2022, Open-File Report 2021-1030-E
This report addresses system characterization of Planet’s SkySat and is part of a series of system characterization reports produced and delivered by the U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science Cal/Val Center of Excellence. These reports present and detail the methodology and procedures for characterization; present technical and operational...
Analytical assessments in support of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 3-bat species status assessment
Bethany R. Straw, Jaclyn Martin, Jonathan D. Reichard, Brian E. Reichert, editor(s)
2022, Report
Beginning in February of 2020, researchers and staff of the United States Geological Survey (USGS), Bat Conservation International (BCI), Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and Montana State University associated with the North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) collaborated with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to provide...
gTOOLS, an open-source MATLAB program for processing high precision, relative gravity data for time-lapse gravity monitoring
Maurizio Battaglia, Antonina Calahorrano-Di Patre, Ashton F. Flinders
2022, Computers & Geosciences (160)
gTOOLS is an open-source software for the processing of relative gravity data. gTOOLS is available in MATLAB and as a compiled executable to be run under the free MATLAB Runtime Compiler. The software has been designed for time-lapse (temporal) gravity monitoring....
Climate and land change impacts on future managed wetland habitat: A case study from California’s Central Valley
Tamara Wilson, Elliott Matchett, Kristin B. Byrd, Erin Conlisk, Matthew E. Reiter, Cynthia Wallace, Lorraine E. Flint, Alan L. Flint, Monica Mei Jeen Moritsch
2022, Landscape Ecology (37) 861-881
ConceptCalifornia’s Central Valley provides critical habitat for migratory waterbirds, yet only 10% of naturally occurring wetlands remain. Competition for limited water supplies and climate change will impact the long-term viability of these intensively managed habitats.ObjectivesForecast the distribution, abundance, and connectivity of surface water and managed wetland...
Examination of the interaction between age-specific predation and chronic disease in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem
Ellen E. Brandell, Paul C. Cross, Douglas W. Smith, William J. Rogers, Nathan L. Galloway, Daniel R. MacNulty, Daniel R. Stahler, John J. Treanor, Peter J. Hudson
2022, Journal of Animal Ecology (91) 1373-1384
Predators may create healthier prey populations by selectively removing diseased individuals. Predators typically prefer some ages of prey over others, which may, or may not, align with those prey ages that are most likely to be diseased.The interaction of age-specific infection and predation has not been previously explored and...
Protocol for installing and monitoring a RestoreNet restoration field trial network site
Katherine M. Laushman, Molly L. McCormick, Seth M. Munson, Kathleen R. Balazs, Bradley J. Butterfield
2022, Techniques and Methods 2-A18
RestoreNet is an ecological restoration experiment that is networked across multiple sites, spanning dryland ecosystems in the southwestern United States. The experiment is organized and led by the U.S. Geological Survey’s Restoration Assessment and Monitoring Program for the Southwest (RAMPS). This protocol functions to provide guidance to additional partners on...
Mesilla / Conejos-Médanos Basin: U.S.-Mexico transboundary water resources and research needs
Andrew J. Robertson, Anne-Marie Matherne, Jeff D. Pepin, Andre B. Ritchie, Donald S. Sweetkind, Andrew Teeple, Alfredo Granados Olivas, Ana Cristina Garcia Vasquez, Kenneth C. Carroll, Erek H. Fuchs, Amy E. Galanter
2022, Water (14) 134-170
Synthesizing binational data to characterize shared water resources is critical to informing binational management. This work uses binational hydrogeology and water resource data in the Mesilla/Conejos-Médanos Basin (Basin) to describe the hydrologic conceptual model and identify potential research that could help inform sustainable management. The Basin aquifer...
Tectonostratigraphy and major structures of the Georgian Greater Caucasus: Implications for structural architecture, along-strike continuity, and orogen evolution
Charles Cashman Trexler, Eric Cowgill, Nathan A Niemi, Dylan A Vasey, Tea Godoladze
2022, Geosphere (18) 211-240
Although the Greater Caucasus Mountains have played a central role in absorbing late Cenozoic convergence between the Arabian and Eurasian plates, the orogenic architecture and the ways in which it accommodates modern shortening remain debated. Here, we addressed this problem using geologic mapping along...
Coastal paleogeography of the Pacific Northwest, USA, for the last 12,000 years accounting for three-dimensional earth structure
Jorie Clark, Jay R. Alder, Marisa Borreggine, Jerry X Mitrovica, Konstantin Latychev
2022, Quaternary International (638-639) 197-204
Predictive modeling of submerged archaeological sites requires accurate sea-level predictions in order to reconstruct coastal paleogeography and associated geographic features that may have influenced the locations of occupation sites such as rivers and embayments. Earlier reconstructions of the paleogeography of parts of the western U.S. coast used an...
Hydrology and water quality in 15 watersheds in DeKalb County, Georgia, 2012–16
Brent T. Aulenbach, Katharine Kolb, John K. Joiner, Andrew E. Knaak
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2021-5126
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with DeKalb County Department of Watershed Management, established a long-term water-quantity and water-quality monitoring program in 2012 to monitor and analyze the hydrologic and water-quality conditions of 15 watersheds in DeKalb County, Georgia—an urban and suburban area located in north-central Georgia that includes the...
A steady-state groundwater flow model for the Des Moines River alluvial aquifer near Prospect Park, Des Moines, Iowa
Kendall M.F. Goldstein, Wonsook S. Ha, Adel E. Haj, Lance R. Gruhn, Emilia L. Bristow, Jared R. Weber
2022, Open-File Report 2021-1110
The Des Moines River alluvial aquifer is an important source of water for Des Moines Water Works, the municipal water utility that provides residential and commercial water resources to the residents of Des Moines, Iowa, and surrounding municipalities. As an initial step in developing a better understanding of the groundwater...
Continuous monitoring of nutrient and sediment loads from the Des Plaines River at Route 53 at Joliet, Illinois, water years 2018–20
Colin S. Peake, Timothy O. Hodson
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2021-5125
The Des Plaines River in southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois is the principal conduit for the discharge of wastewater effluent and stormwater runoff from the greater Chicago metropolitan area. In November 2017, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, installed a continuous...
Disease and secondary sexual traits: Effects of pneumonia on horn size of bighorn sheep
Alynn Martin, John T. Hogg, Kezia R. Manlove, Tayler N LaSharr, Justin M. Shannon, Douglas E. McWhirter, Hollie Miyasaki, Kevin L. Monteith, Paul C. Cross
2022, Journal of Wildlife Management (86)
Secondary sexual traits (e.g., horns and antlers) have ecological and evolutionary importance and are of management interest for game species. Yet, how these traits respond to emerging threats like infectious disease remains underexplored. Infectious pneumonia threatens bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) populations across North America and we...
Multi-species amphibian monitoring across a protected landscape: Critical reflections on 15 years of wetland monitoring in Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks
Andrew M. Ray, Blake R. Hossack, William R. Gould, Debra A. Patla, Stephen Frank Spear, Robert W. Klaver, Paul E Bartelt, David P. Thoma, Kristin L Legg, Rob Daley, Charles R Peterson, P S Corn
2022, Ecological Indicators (135)
Widespread amphibian declines were well documented at the end of the 20th century, raising concerns about the need to identify individual and interactive contributors to this global trend. At the same time, there was growing interest in the use of amphibians...
Weakly supervised spatial deep learning for Earth image segmentation based on imperfect polyline labels
Zhe Jiang, Wenchong He, M. S. Kirby, Arpan Man Sainju, Shaowen Wang, Larry Stanislawski, Ethan J. Shavers, E. Lynn Usery
2022, ACM Transactions on Intelligent Systems and Technology (13)
In recent years, deep learning has achieved tremendous success in image segmentation for computer vision applications. The performance of these models heavily relies on the availability of large-scale high-quality training labels (e.g., PASCAL VOC 2012). Unfortunately, such large-scale high-quality training data are...
Landscape and stocking effects on population genetics of Tennessee Brook Trout
John S. Hargrove, David C. Kazyak, Barbara A. Lubinski, Karli M. Rogers, Olivia K. Bowers, Kurt A. Fesenmyer, Jim W. Habera, Jason Henegar
2022, Conservation Genetics (23) 341-357
Throughout their range, Brook Trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) occupy thousands of disjunct drainages with varying levels of disturbance, which presents substantial challenges for conservation. Within the southern Appalachian Mountains, fragmentation and genetic drift have been identified as key threats to the genetic diversity of the Brook Trout...
20th-century strain accumulation on the Lesser Antilles megathrust based on coral microatolls
Belle E. Philibosian, Nathalie Feuillet, Jennifer Weil-Accardo, Eric Jacques, Abel Guihou, Anne-Sophie Meriaux, Andre Anglade, Jean-Marie Saurel, Sebastien Deroussi
2022, Earth and Planetary Science Letters (579) 1-11
The seismic potential of the Lesser Antilles megathrust remains poorly known, despite the potential hazard it poses to numerous island populations and its proximity to the Americas. As it has not produced any large earthquakes in the instrumental era, the megathrust is...
A web-based tool for assessing the condition of benthic diatom assemblages in streams and rivers of the conterminous United States
Daren M. Carlisle, Sarah A. Spaulding, Meredith Tyree, Nicholas O. Schulte, Sylvia S Lee, Richard M. Mitchell, Amina A. Pollard
2022, Ecological Indicators (135)
Benthic diatom assemblages are known to be indicative of water quality but have yet to be widely adopted in biological assessments in the United States due to several limitations. Our goal was to address some of these limitations by developing regional multi-metric indices (MMIs) that are robust to inter-laboratory taxonomic...
Active‐source interferometry in marine and terrestrial environments: Importance of directionality and stationary phase
Steven Plescia, Anne Sheehan, Seth S. Haines
2022, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (112) 634-645
We utilize active‐source seismic interferometry with dense seismic arrays both offshore and onland to explore the utility of this method to create virtual sources and reveal body‐wave reflections in these two different environments. We first utilize data from an ocean‐bottom cable (OBC) array...
