Surface parameters and bedrock properties covary across a mountainous watershed: Insights from machine learning and geophysics
Sebastian Uhlemann, Baptiste Dafflon, Haruko Murakami Wainwright, Kenneth Hurst Williams, Burke J. Minsley, Katrina D. Zamudio, Bradley Carr, Nicola Falco, Craig Ulrich, Susan S. Hubbard
2022, Science Advances (8)
Bedrock property quantification is critical for predicting the hydrological response of watersheds to climate disturbances. Estimating bedrock hydraulic properties over watershed scales is inherently difficult, particularly in fracture-dominated regions. Our analysis tests the covariability of above- and belowground features on a watershed scale, by linking borehole geophysical data, near-surface geophysics,...
Determination of optimal set of spatio-temporal features for predicting burn probability in the state of California, USA
Javier Andres Pastorino Gonzalez, Joseph Willliams Director, Ashis K Biswas, Todd Hawbaker
2022, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the 2022 ACM Southeast Conference
Wildfires play a critical role in determining ecosystem structure and function and pose serious risks to human life, property and ecosystem services. Burn probability (BP) models the likelihood that a location could burn. Simulation models are typically used to predict BP but are computationally...
Refining sources of polychlorinated biphenyls in the Back River watershed, Baltimore, Maryland, 2018–2020
Emily H. Majcher, Upal Ghosh, Trevor P. Needham, Nathalie Lombard, Ellie P. Foss, Mandare Bokare, Sarahana Joshee, Louis Cheung, Jada Damond, Michelle M. Lorah
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5012
Older urban landscapes present unique and complex stressors to urban streams and their habitats through the introduction of legacy and emerging toxic contaminants. Contaminant sources are often associated with various developed land uses such as older residential areas, active and former industrial sites, contaminated sites, and effluents from municipal wastewater...
Water priorities for the Nation—U.S. Geological Survey Integrated Water Prediction science program
Mark P. Miller, Katherine Skalak, David P. Lesmes
2022, Fact Sheet 2022-3028
The U.S. Geological Survey Integrated Water Prediction science program focuses on the development of advanced models for forecasting water use and other components of the water cycle along with water quality attributes such as temperature, water constituents, and ecological conditions. The program also is developing the cyberinfrastructure required to implement...
Topographic response to simulated Mw 6.5-7.0 earthquakes on the Seattle Fault
Ian P. Stone, Erin A. Wirth, Arthur D. Frankel
2022, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (112) 1436-1462
We explore the response of ground motions to topography during large crustal fault earthquakes by simulating several magnitude 6.5–7.0 rupture scenarios on the Seattle fault, Washington State. Kinematic simulations are run using a 3D spectral element code and a detailed seismic velocity model for...
Areas contributing recharge to priority wells in valley-fill aquifers in the Neversink River and Rondout Creek drainage basins, New York
Nicholas Corson-Dosch, Michael N. Fienen, Jason S. Finkelstein, Andrew T. Leaf, Jeremy T. White, Joshua Woda, John Williams
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2021-5112
In southeastern New York, the villages of Ellenville, Wurtsboro, Woodridge, the hamlet of Mountain Dale, and surrounding communities in the Neversink River and Rondout Creek drainage basins rely on wells that pump groundwater from valley-fill glacial aquifers for public water supply. Glacial aquifers are vulnerable to contamination because they are...
Data sources and methods for digital mapping of eight valley-fill aquifer systems in upstate New York
Jason S. Finkelstein, Joshua Woda, John Williams
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5024
Digital hydrogeologic maps were developed in eight study areas in upstate New York by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. The digital maps define the hydrogeologic framework of the valley-fill aquifers and surrounding till-covered uplands in the vicinity of the villages...
Areas contributing recharge to selected production wells in unconfined and confined glacial valley-fill aquifers in Chenango River Basin, New York
Paul J. Friesz, John Williams, Jason S. Finkelstein, Joshua Woda
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2021-5083
In the Chenango River Basin of central New York, unconfined and confined glacial valley-fill aquifers are an important source of drinking-water supplies. The risk of contaminating water withdrawn by wells that tap these aquifers might be reduced if the areas contributing recharge to the wells are delineated and these areas...
Gravity surveys for estimating possible width of enhanced porosity zones across structures on the Coconino Plateau, Coconino County, north-central Arizona
Libby M. Wildermuth
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5031
The U.S. Geological Survey completed gravity transects in 2015, 2018, and 2019 over four features: the Bright Angel Fault, Bright Angel Monocline, Tusayan Graben, and Redlands Ranch Fault Zone in the Coconino Plateau, Coconino County, Arizona, to determine if the existence and width of high porosity (low density) zones could...
Limits to reproduction and seed size-number trade-offs that shape forest dominance and future recovery
Tong Qiu, Robert Andrus, Marie-Claire Aravena Acuna, Davide Ascoli, Yves Bergeron, Roberta Berretti, Daniel Berveiller, Thomas Biovin, Raul Bonal, Don C. Bragg, Thomas Caignard, Rafael Calama, J. Julio Camarero, Chia-Huo Chang-Yang, Natalie L. Cleavitt, Benoit Courbaud, Francois Courbet, Thomas Curt, Adrian Das, Evangelia Daskalakou, Hendrik Davi, Nicolas Delpierre, Sylvain Delzon, Michael Dietze, Sergio Donoso Calderon, Laurent Dormont, Josep Maria Espelta, Timothy J. Fahey, William Farfan-Rios, Catherine A. Gehring, Gregory S. Gilbert, Georg Gratzner, Cathryn H. Greenberg, Qinfeng Guo, Andrew Hacket-Pain, Arndt Hampe, Qingmin Han, Janneke Hille Ris Lambers, Kazuhiko Hoshizaki, Ines Ibanez, Jill F. Johnstone, Valentin Journe, Daisuke Kabeya, Christopher L. Kilner, Thomas Kitzberger, Johannes M. H. Knops, Richard K. Kobe, Georges Kunstler, Hiroko Kurokawa, Jonathan G. A. Lageard, Jalene M. LaMontagne, Mateusz Ledwon, Francois Lefevre, Theodor Leininger, Jean-Marc Limousin, James A. Lutz, Diana Macias, Eliot J. B. McIntire, Christopher M. Moore, Emily V. Moran, Renzo Motta, Jonathan A. Myers, Thomas A. Nagel, Kyotaro Noguchi, Jean-Marc Ourcival, Robert Parmenter, Ian S. Pearse, Ignacio M. Perez-Ramos, Lukasz Piechnik, John Poulsen, Renata Poulton-Kamakura, Miranda D. Redmond, Chantal D. Reid, Kyle C. Rodman, Francisco Rodrigues-Sanchez, Javier Sanguinetti, C. Lane Scher, Wiliam H Schlesinger, Harald Schmidt Van Marle, Barbara Seget, Shubhi Sharma, Miles Silman, Michael A. Steele, Nathan L. Stephenson, Jacob N. Straub, I-Fang Sun, Samantha Sutton, Jennifer J. Swenson, Margaret Swift, Peter A. Thomas, Maria Uriarte, Giorgio Vacchiano, Thomas T. Veblen, Amy V. Whipple, Thomas G. Whitham, Andreas Wion, Boyd Wright, S. Joseph Wright, Kai Zhu, Jess Zimmermann, Roman Zlotin, Magdalena Zywiec, James S. Clark
2022, Nature Communications (13)
The relationships that control seed production in trees are fundamental to understanding the evolution of forest species and their capacity to recover from increasing losses to drought, fire, and harvest. A synthesis of fecundity data from 714 species worldwide allowed us to examine hypotheses that are central to quantifying reproduction,...
Scale-dependent influence of the sagebrush community on genetic connectivity of the sagebrush obligate Gunnison sage-grouse
Shawna J Zimmerman, Cameron L. Aldridge, Mevin B. Hooten, Sara J. Oyler-McCance
2022, Molecular Ecology (31) 3267-3285
Habitat fragmentation and degradation impacts an organism's ability to navigate the landscape, ultimately resulting in decreased gene flow and increased extinction risk. Understanding how landscape composition impacts gene flow (i.e., connectivity) and interacts with scale is essential to conservation decision-making. We used a landscape genetics approach...
Fish-inspired segment models for undulatory swimming
O. Akanyeti, V. di Santo, Elsa Goerig, Dylan K. Wainwright, J.C. Liao, Theodore R. Castro-Santos, George Lauder
2022, Bioinspiration & Biomimetics (17)
Many aquatic animals swim by undulatory body movements and understanding the diversity of these movements could unlock the potential for designing better underwater robots. Here, we analyzed the steady swimming kinematics of a diverse group of fish species to investigate whether their undulatory movements can be represented using a series...
Adaptive management framework and decision support tool for invasive annual bromes in seven Northern Great Plains National Park Service units
Amy Symstad, Heather Baldwin, Max Post van der Burg
2022, Natural Resource Report NPS/NGPN/NRR-2022/2381
National Park Service (NPS) units in the northern Great Plains (NGP) were established to preserve and interpret the history of the United States, protect and showcase unusual geology and paleontology, and provide a home for vanishing large wildlife. A unifying feature among these national parks, monuments, and historic sites is...
Status and trends of North American bats: Summer occupancy analysis 2010-2019
Bradley James Udell, Bethany R. Straw, Tina L. Cheng, Kyle Enns, Winifred F. Frick, Benjamin Gotthold, Kathryn Irvine, Cori Lausen, Susan Loeb, Jonathan D. Reichard, Thomas Rodhouse, Dane Smith, Christian Stratton, Wayne E. Thogmartin, Brian E. Reichert
2022, Report
• We developed an analytical pipeline supported by web-based infrastructure for integrating continental scale bat monitoring data (stationary acoustic, mobile acoustic, and capture records) to estimate summer (May 1–Aug 31) occupancy probabilities and changes in occupancy over time for 12 North American bat species. This serves as one of multiple...
On the role of climate in monthly baseflow changes across the continental United States
Jessica R. Ayers, Gabriele Villarini, Keith Schilling, Christopher Jones, Andrea E. Brookfield, Samuel Zipper, William H. Farmer
2022, Journal of Hydrologic Engineering (27)
Baseflow is the portion of streamflow that comes from groundwater and subsurface sources. Although baseflow is essential for sustaining streams during low flow and drought periods, we have little information about how and why it has changed over large regions of the continental United States. The objective...
Abrupt quaternary ocean-ice events in the Arctic: Evidence from the ostracode rabilimis
Thomas M. Cronin, Laura Gemery, Baylee M. Olds Olds, Alexa Regnier, Robert Poirier, Sienna Sui
2022, Micropaleontology (68) 233-242
The Arctic Ocean has experienced orbital and millennial-scale climate oscillations over the last 500 kilo-annum (ka) involving massive changes in global sea level and components of the Arctic cryosphere, including sea-ice cover, land-based ice sheets and ice shelves. Although these climate events are only partially understood, micropaleontological studies utilizing...
Review of past gas Production attempts from subsurface gas hydrate deposits and necessity of long-term production testing
Koji Yamamoto, Ray Boswell, Timothy S. Collett, Scott Dallimore, Hailong Lu
2022, Journal of Energy and Fuels (36) 5047-5062
This paper summarizes the conditions, applied techniques, results, and lessons of major field gas production attempts from gas hydrates in the past and the necessity of longer term production testing with the scale of years to fulfill the gap between the currently available information and the...
Aftershocks preferentially occur in previously active areas
Morgan T. Page, Nicholas van der Elst
2022, The Seismic Record (2) 100-106
The clearest statistical signal in aftershock locations is that most aftershocks occur close to their mainshocks. More precisely, aftershocks are triggered at distances following a power‐law decay in distance (Felzer and Brodsky, 2006). This distance decay kernel is used in epidemic‐type aftershock sequence (ETAS) modeling and...
Identifying monitoring information needs that support the management of fish in large rivers
Timothy D. Counihan, Kristen L. Bouska, Shannon K. Brewer, R. B. Jacobson, Andrew F. Casper, Colin G. Chapman, Ian R. Waite, Kenneth R. Sheehan, Mark Pyron, Elise R. Irwin, Karen Riva-Murray, Alexa McKerrow, Jennifer M. Bayer
2022, Environmental Management (17)
Management actions intended to benefit fish in large rivers can directly or indirectly affect multiple ecosystem components. Without consideration of the effects of management on non-target ecosystem components, unintended consequences may limit management efficacy. Monitoring can help clarify the effects of management actions, including on non-target...
Modeling the dynamics of lahars that originate as landslides on the west side of Mount Rainier, Washington
David L. George, Richard M. Iverson, Charles M. Cannon
2022, Open-File Report 2021-1118
Large lahars pose substantial threats to people and property downstream from Mount Rainier volcano in Washington State. Geologic evidence indicates that these threats exist even during the absence of volcanic activity and that the threats are highest in the densely populated Puyallup and Nisqually River valleys on the west side...
Invertibility aware integration of static and time-series data: An application to lake temperature modeling
Kshitij Tayal, Xiaowei Jia, Rahul Ghosh, Jared Willard, Jordan Read, Vipin Kumar
2022, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the 2022 SIAM International Conference on Data Mining
Accurate predictions of water temperature are the foundation for many decisions and regulations, with direct impacts on water quality, fishery yields, and power production. Building accurate broad-scale models for lake temperature prediction remains challenging in practice due to the variability in the data distribution across different lake systems monitored by...
Crystal chemistry of thallium in marine ferromanganese deposits
Alain Manceau, Alexandre Simionovici, Nathaniel Findling, Pieter Glatzel, Blanka Detlefs, Anna V Wegorzewski, Kira Mizell, James R. Hein, Andrea Koschinsky
2022, ACS Earth and Space Chemistry (6) 1269-1285
Our understanding of the up to 7 orders of magnitude partitioning of thallium (Tl) between seawater and ferromanganese (FeMn) deposits rests upon two foundations: (1) being able to quantify the Tl(I)/Tl(III) ratio that reflects the extent of the oxidative scavenging of Tl...
Scientific results of the Hydrate-01 Stratigraphic Test Well Program, Western Prudhoe Bay Unit, Alaska North Slope
Roy Boswell, Timothy S. Collett, Koji Yamamoto, Norihiro Okinaka, Robert Hunter, Kiyofumi Suzuki, Machiko Tamaki, Jun Yoneda, David Itter, Seth S. Haines, Evgeniy Myshakin, George Moridis
2022, Journal of Energy and Fuels (36) 5167-5184
The United States Department of Energy, the MH21-S Research Consortium of Japan, and the United States Geological Survey are collaborating to enable gas hydrate scientific drilling and extended-duration reservoir response testing on the Alaska North Slope. To feasibly execute such a test, a location is required...
Re-evaluating invasive species in degraded ecosystems: A case study of red-eared slider turtles as partial ecological analogs
Marc Dupuis-Desormeaux, Jeffrey E. Lovich, J. Whitfield Gibbons
2022, Discover Sustainability (3)
Exotic species are often vilified as "bad" without consideration of the potential they have for contributing to ecological functions in degraded ecosystems. The red-eared slider turtle (RES) has been disparaged as one of the worst invasive species. Based on this review, we suggest that RES contribute some ecosystem functions in...
The Volcano Hazards Program — Strategic science plan for 2022–2026
Charlie Mandeville, Peter F. Cervelli, Victoria F. Avery, Aleeza Wilkins
2022, Circular 1492
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Volcano Hazards Program (VHP) Strategic Science Plan, developed through discussion with scientists-in-charge of the USGS volcano observatories and the director of the USGS Volcano Science Center, specifies six major strategic goals to be pursued over the next 5 years. The purpose of these goals is...