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We present water content transects across a healed fault in pyroclastic obsidian from Lami pumice cone, Lipari, Italy, using synchrotron Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Results indicate that rhyolite melt degassed through the fault surface. Transects define a trough of low water content coincident with the fault trace, surrounded on either...

The black-footed ferret (Mustela nigripes), once extinct in the wild, remains one of the most critically endangered mammals in North America despite 18 years of reintroduction attempts. Because black-footed ferrets are specialized predators of prairie dogs (Cynomys sp.), a better understanding of how black-footed ferrets select resources might provide insight...

The 1994 Northridge earthquake caused brittle fractures in steel moment frame building connections, despite causing little visible building damage in most cases. Future strong earthquakes are likely to cause similar damage to the many un-retrofitted pre-Northridge buildings in the western US and elsewhere. Without obvious permanent building deformation, costly intrusive...

The US Botanical Capacity Assessment Project (BCAP) was initiated as a first step to gauge the nation's collective ability to meet the environmental challenges of the 21st century. The project, in which the authors of this article are involved, specifically aimed to identify multisector contributions to and gaps in botanical...

The effects of Pleistocene cold-climate geomorphology are distributed across the weathered and eroded Mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain uplands from the Wisconsinan terminal moraine south to Tidewater Virginia. Cold-climate deposits and landscape modifications are superimposed on antecedent landscapes of old, weathered Neogene upland gravels and Pleistocene marine terraces that had been built...

There are various methods available for estimating magnitude and trends of evapotranspiration. Bowen ratio energy balance system and eddy correlation techniques offer powerful alternatives for measuring land surface evapotranspiration. In spite of the elegance, high accuracy, and theoretical attractions of these techniques for measuring evapotranspiration, their practical use over large...

Groundwater can be an important source of nutrients and energy to aquatic ecosystems, but quantifying the inputs and biogeochemical importance remains challenging. A series of submerged groundwater vents in northern Lake Huron were examined to determine the linkage between groundwater nutrients and aquatic food webs. We collected samples of key...

In this study, the relative acetylation levels of histone 3 in lysine 9 (H3K9ac) in cultured and cryopreserved bovine fibroblasts was measured and we determined the influence of the epigenetic status of three cultured (C1, C2 and C3) donor cell lines on the in vitro development of reconstructed bovine embryos. Results...

In the southeastern United States, habitat loss has fragmented the landscape and isolated many populations of this region's flora and fauna, which has presumably resulted in smaller population sizes and reduced levels of genetic diversity. For example, forestry practices and anthropogenic disturbances are both cited as factors fragmenting the once...

Making a detour can be advantageous to a migrating bird if fuel-deposition rates at stopover sites along the detour are considerably higher than at stopover sites along a more direct route. One example of an extensive migratory detour is that of the Sharp-tailed Sandpiper (Calidris acuminata), of which large numbers...

Identifying materials by measuring and analyzing their reflectance spectra has been an important method in analytical chemistry for decades. Airborne and space-based imaging spectrometers allow scientists to detect materials and map their distributions across the landscape. With new satellite-borne hyperspectral sensors planned for the future, for example, HYSPIRI (HYPerspectral InfraRed...

A method for summarizing repeated realizations of a space‐time marked point process, known as prototyping, is discussed and applied to catalogues of wildfires in California. Prototype summaries are constructed for varying time intervals using California wildfire data from 1990 to 2006. Previous work on prototypes for temporal and space‐time point...

Resource utilization function (RUF) models permit evaluation of potential habitat for endangered species; ideally such models should be evaluated before use in management decision‐making. We evaluated the predictive capabilities of a previously developed black‐footed ferret (Mustela nigripes) RUF. Using the population‐level RUF, generated from ferret observations at an adjacent yet...

Since the work of Kanamori and Given (1981), it has been recognized that shallow, pure dip‐slip earthquakes excite long‐period surface waves such that it is difficult to independently constrain the moment (M0) and the dip (δ) of the source mechanism, with only the product M0 sin(2δ) being well constrained. Because of this,...

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) barcoding is an effective tool for species identification and lifestage association in a wide range of animal taxa. We developed a strategy for rapid construction of a regional DNA-barcode reference library and used the caddisflies (Trichoptera) of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP) as a model....

The AquaPathogen X database is a template for recording information on individual isolates of aquatic pathogens and is freely available for download (http://wfrc.usgs.gov). This database can accommodate the nucleotide sequence data generated in molecular epidemiological studies along with the myriad of abiotic and biotic traits associated with isolates of various...

Geomagnetic polarity transitions may be significantly more complex than are currently depicted in many sedimentary and lava-flow records. By splicing together paleomagnetic results from earlier studies at Steens Mountain with those from three newly studied sections of Oregon Plateau flood basalts at Catlow Peak and Poker Jim Ridge 70–90 km...

Ice-core samples from Upper Fremont Glacier (UFG), Wyoming, were used as proxy records for the chemical composition of atmospheric deposition. Results of analysis of the ice-core samples for stable isotopes of nitrogen (δ15N, ) and sulfur (δ34S, ), as well as  and <img src="https://media.springernature.com/full/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1186%2F1467-4866-12-4/MediaObjects/12932_2010_Article_115_IEq2_HTML.gif" alt=""...

Wood deposited in streams provides a wide variety of ecosystem functions, including enhancing habitat for key species in stream food webs, increasing geomorphic and hydraulic heterogeneity and retaining organic matter. Given the strong role that wood plays in streams, factors that influence wood inputs, retention and transport are critical to...

Building collapse is the dominant cause of casualties during earthquakes. In order to better predict human fatalities, the U.S. Geological Survey’s Prompt Assessment of Global Earthquakes for Response (PAGER) program requires collapse fragility functions for global building types. The collapse fragility is expressed as the probability of collapse at discrete...

Viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus (VHSV), belonging to the genus Novirhabdovirus in the family of Rhabdoviridae, causes a highly contagious disease of fresh and saltwater fish worldwide. Recently, a novel genotype of VHSV, designated IVb, has invaded the Great Lakes in North America, causing large-scale epidemics in wild fish. An efficient...

Imbrian-aged basalt ponds, located on the floor of South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin, are used to provide constraints on the composition and evolution of the far side lunar mantle. We use forward modeling of the Lunar Prospector Gamma Ray Spectrometer thorium data, to suggest that at least five different and distinct...

The loss of biodiversity is a trend that is garnering much concern. As organisms have evolved mutualistic and synergistic relationships, the loss of one or a few species can have a much wider environmental impact. Since much pollination is facilitated by bees, the reported colony collapse disorder...

Coastal groundwater discharge is an important source of freshwater and nutrients to coastal and estuarine systems. Directly quantifying the spatially integrated discharge of fresh groundwater over a coastline is difficult due to spatial variability and limited observational methods. In this study, I applied a novel approach to estimate net freshwater...

Field observations and numerical simulations are used to explore tsunami inundation and sediment transport in an embayment (Fagafue Bay) on the north side of Tutuila, American Samoa during the 29 September 2009 South Pacific tsunami. Field observations of the nearshore bathymetry and topography, tsunami flow depth and sediment deposition, and...