Special topic—Rapid-response instrumentation
Ashton F. Flinders
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5062-M
IntroductionBased on the reports of Ewert and others (2005, 2018) and Moran and others (2008), most U.S. volcanoes are currently under-monitored and are likely to remain so until the goals of the National Volcano Early Warning System are fulfilled. In addition, volcanoes determined to have low to moderate threat...
Special topic—Eruption plumes and clouds
David J. Schneider, Alexa R. Van Eaton
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5062-J
IntroductionExplosive eruptions create plumes of volcanic ash and gas that can rise more than 30,000 feet (9.1 kilometers [km]) above sea level within minutes of eruption onset. The resulting clouds disperse under prevailing winds and may cause hazardous conditions hundreds to thousands of kilometers from the volcano, including in international...
Monitoring lahars
Weston A. Thelen, John J. Lyons, Alexandra M. Iezzi, Seth C. Moran
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5062-H
IntroductionLahars, or debris flows that originate from a volcano (Pierson and Scott, 1985; Pierson, 1995), are among the most destructive, far-reaching, and persistent hazards on stratovolcanoes. Lahars may be triggered by syneruptive rapid melting of snow and ice, lake breakouts, or heavy rains in conjunction with large eruptive columns. Alternatively,...
Streams, springs, and volcanic lakes for volcano monitoring
Steven E. Ingebritsen, Shaul Hurwitz
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5062-F
IntroductionVolcanic unrest can trigger appreciable change to surface waters such as streams, springs, and volcanic lakes. Magma degassing produces gases and soluble salts that are absorbed into groundwater that feeds streams and lakes. As magma ascends, the amount of heat and degassing will increase, and so will any related geochemical...
Volcanic gas monitoring
Jennifer L. Lewicki, Christoph Kern, Peter J. Kelly, Patricia A. Nadeau, Tamar Elias, Laura E. Clor
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5062-E
IntroductionAs magma rises through the crust, decreasing pressure conditions allow volatiles to exsolve from the magma. These volatiles then migrate upward through the crust, where they can be stored at shallower levels or escape to the atmosphere. Rising magma also heats rock masses beneath volcanic centers, causing water in shallow...
Arctic fishes reveal patterns in radiocarbon age across habitats and with recent climate change
Ashley E. Stanek, Jonathan A. O'Donnell, Michael P. Carey, Sarah M. Laske, Xiaomei Xu, Kenneth H. Dunton, Vanessa R. von Biela
2024, Limnology and Oceanography Letters (9) 796-805
Climate change alters the sources and age of carbon in Arctic food webs by fostering the release of older carbon from degrading permafrost. Radiocarbon (14C) traces carbon sources and age, but data before rapid warming are rare and limit assessments over time. We capitalized on 14C...
Long-term distributed temperature sensing monitoring for near-wellbore gas migration and gas hydrate formation
Ana Garcia-Ceballos, Ge Jin, Timothy Collett, Sukru Merey, Seth S. Haines
2024, SPE Journal (29) 5804-5819
Well integrity monitoring has always been a critical component of subsurface oil and gas operations. Distributed fiber-optic sensing is an emerging technology that shows great promise for monitoring processes, both in boreholes and in other settings. In this study, we present a case study of using distributed temperature sensing (DTS)...
Facies variation within outcrops of the Triassic Shublik Formation, northeastern Alaska
Julie A. Dumoulin, Katherine J. Whidden, William A. Rouse, Christina A. DeVera
2024, Professional Paper 1814-H
The Shublik Formation (Middle to Upper Triassic) is a heterogeneous unit that is a major hydrocarbon source rock in northern Alaska and the largest known Triassic phosphate accumulation in the world. This formation, which occurs in the subsurface and crops out within the Arctic Alaska basin, was deposited on a...
Genomic characterization of highly pathogenic H5 avian influenza viruses from Alaska during 2022 provides evidence for genotype-specific trends of spatiotemporal and interspecies dissemination
Christina Ahlstrom, Mia Kim Torchetti, Julianna B. Lenoch, Kimberlee Beckmen, Megan Boldenow, Evan J Buck, Bryan Daniels, Krista Dilione, Robert Gerlach, Kristina Lantz, Angela Matz, Rebecca L. Poulson, Laura Celeste Scott, Gay Sheffield, David R. Sinnett, David E. Stallknecht, Raphaela Stimmelmayr, Eric B. Taylor, Alison R. Williams, Andrew M. Ramey
2024, Emerging Microbes & Infections (13)
The ongoing panzootic of highly pathogenic H5 clade 2.3.4.4b avian influenza (HPAI) spread to North America in late 2021, with detections of HPAI viruses in Alaska beginning in April 2022. HPAI viruses have since spread across the state, affecting many species of wild birds as well as domestic...
Latitudinal gradients and sex differences in morphology of the Black Oystercatcher (Haematopus bachmani)
Hannah Roodenrijs, Lena Ware, Cole Rankin, Mark Maftei, Mark Hipfner, Brian H. Robinson, Daniel Esler, Heather Coletti, David Green
2024, Ecology and Evolution (14)
Environment and behavior are widely understood to affect bird morphology, which can lead to differences among subspecies or populations within a wide-ranging species. Several patterns of latitudinal gradients in morphology have been described, though Allen's and Bergmann's rules are the most well-known and have...
Parsimonious high-resolution landslide susceptibility modeling at continental scales
Benjamin B. Mirus, Gina Marie Belair, Nathan J. Wood, Jeanne M. Jones, Sabrina N. Martinez
2024, AGU Advances (5)
Landslide susceptibility maps are fundamental tools for risk reduction, but the coarse resolution of current continental-scale models is insufficient for local application. Complex relations between topographic and environmental attributes characterizing landslide susceptibility at local scales are not transferrable across areas without landslide data. Existing maps with multiple...
Sod farms drive habitat selection of a migratory grassland shorebird during a critical stopover period
Tara Rodkey, Bart M Ballard, Lee Tibbitts, Richard B. Lanctot
2024, Scientific Reports (14)
Migratory shorebirds are one of the fastest declining groups of North American avifauna. Yet, relatively little is known about how these species select habitat during migration. We explored the habitat selection of Buff-breasted Sandpipers (Calidris subruficollis) during spring and fall migration through the Texas Coastal Plain,...
Event classification, seismicity, and eruption forecasting at Great Sitkin Volcano, Alaska: 1999–2023
John Power, Diana Roman
2024, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research (454)
The frequency content of volcanogenic seismicity is often used to classify events and their spatial and temporal progression is then used to map subsurface volcanic processes. The progression of volcano-seismic events and associated source processes also plays a critical role...
U.S. Geological Survey climate science plan—Future research directions
Tamara Wilson, Ryan P. Boyles, Nicole DeCrappeo, Judith Z. Drexler, Kevin D. Kroeger, Rachel A. Loehman, John M. Pearce, Mark P. Waldrop, Peter D. Warwick, Anne M. Wein, Sara L. Zeigler, T. Douglas Beard, Jr.
2024, Circular 1526
Executive Summary Climate is the primary driver of environmental change and is a key consideration in defining science priorities conducted across all mission areas in the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Recognizing the importance of climate change to its future research agenda, the USGS’s Climate Science Steering Committee requested the development of...
New U-Pb geochronology and geochemistry of Paleozoic metaigneous rocks from western Yukon and eastern Alaska, cross-border synthesis, and implications for tectonic models
Cynthia Dusel-Bacon, James K. Mortensen
2024, Professional Paper 1888
The tectonic evolution of and relation between the Yukon-Tanana terrane and the Lake George assemblage, as well as other associated tectonic assemblages in western Yukon and eastern Alaska, have been debated for decades. The Yukon-Tanana terrane is widely considered to be an allochthonous rifted fragment derived from the Laurentian continental...
Arctic Alaska deepwater organic carbon burial and environmental changes during the late Albian–early Campanian (103–82 Ma)
Richard O. Lease, Katherine J. Whidden, Julie A. Dumoulin, David W. Houseknecht, Palma J. Botterell, Mark F. Dreier, Neil Patrick Griffis, Roland Mundil, Andrew Kylander-Clark, Margaret M. Sanders, John W. Counts, Jean Self-Trail, Jared T. Gooley, William A. Rouse, Rebecca A. Smith, Christina A. DeVera
2024, Earth and Planetary Science Letters (646)
The middle Cretaceous greenhouse period experienced profound environmental change including episodes of enhanced global burial of organic carbon marked by carbon isotopic excursions (CIEs). However, the role and response of polar regions like the newly formed, partially enclosed Arctic Ocean Basin...
From field station to forecast: Managing data at the Alaska Volcano Observatory
Michelle L. Coombs, Cheryl Cameron, Hannah R. Dietterich, Eleanor Boyce, Aaron Wech, Ronni Grapenthin, Kristi L. Wallace, Thomas Parker, Taryn Lopez, Scott Crass, David Fee, Matthew M. Haney, Dane M. Ketner, Matthew W. Loewen, John J. Lyons, Jenny Sha Nakai, John Power, Steven M Botnick, Israel Brewster, Max L. Enders, Dain Harmon, Peter J. Kelly, Michael J. Randall
2024, Bulletin of Volcanology (86)
The Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) uses multidisciplinary data to monitor and study dozens of active and potentially active volcanoes. Here, we provide an overview of internally and externally generated data types, tools and resources used in their management, and challenges faced. Data sources include the following: (1) a multiparameter (seismic,...
Reference 1D seismic velocity models for volcano monitoring and imaging: Methods, models, and applications
Jeremy D. Pesicek, Trond Ryberg
2024, Seismological Research Letters (95) 2722-2744
Seismic velocity models of the crust are an integral part of earthquake monitoring systems at volcanoes. 1D models that vary only in depth are typically used for real‐time hypocenter determination and serve as critical reference models for detailed 3D imaging studies and...
The effect of drying boreal lakes on plants, soils, and microbial communities in lake margin habitats
Vijay P. Patil, Jack McFarland, Kimberly Wickland, Kristen L. Manies, Mark Winterstein, Teresa N. Hollingsworth, Eugénie S. Euskirchen, Mark Waldrop
2024, JGR Biogeosciences (129)
Decadal scale lake drying in interior Alaska results in lake margin colonization by willow shrub and graminoid vegetation, but the effects of these changes on plant production, biodiversity, soil properties, and soil microbial communities are not well known. We studied changes in soil organic carbon (SOC) and nitrogen (N) storage,...
Glaciers and ice caps outside Greenland
D. Burgess, G. Wolken, B. Wouters, L.M. Andreassen, Caitlyn Florentine, J. Kohler, B. Luks, F. Pálsson, Louis C. Sass, L. Thomson, T. Thorsteinsson
2024, Report, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, State of the Climate, 2023 report
No abstract available....
Observing glacier elevation changes from spaceborne optical and radar sensors – an inter-comparison experiment using ASTER and TanDEM-X data
Livia Piermattei, Michael Zemp, Christian Sommer, Fanny Brun, Matthias H. Braun, Liss M. Andreassen, Joaquín M. C. Belart, Etienne Berthier, Atanu Bhattacharya, Laura Boehm Vock, Tobias Bolch, Amaury Dehecq, Inés Dussaillant, Daniel Falaschi, Caitlyn Florentine, Dana Floricioiu, Christian Ginzler, Gregoire Guillet, Romain Hugonnet, Andreas Kääb, Owen King, Christoph Klug, Friedrich Knuth, Lukas Krieger, Jeff La Frenierre, Robert McNabb, Christopher Mcneil, Rainer Prinz, Louis C. Sass, Thorsten Seehaus, David Shean, Désirée Treichler, Anja Wendt, Ruitang Yang
2024, The Cryosphere (18) 3195-3230
Observations of glacier mass changes are key to understanding the response of glaciers to climate change and related impacts, such as regional runoff, ecosystem changes, and global sea level rise. Spaceborne optical and radar sensors make it possible to quantify glacier elevation changes, and...
Mapping eelgrass cover and biomass at Izembek Lagoon, Alaska, using in-situ field data and Sentinel-2 satellite imagery
David C. Douglas, Michael D. Fleming, Vijay P. Patil, David H. Ward
2024, Preprint
Two eelgrass (Zostera marina) maps of Izembek Lagoon, Alaska, were generated by first creating maps of spectrally unique classes from each of two Sentinel-2 satellite images collected on July 1, 2016, and August 14, 2020, then attributing the spectral classes with information about eelgrass conditions based on field data. Maps...
The Amazon Basin’s rivers and lakes support Nearctic-breeding shorebirds during southward migration
Jennifer A. Linscott, Enzo Basso, Rosalyn Bathrick, Juliana Bosi de Almeida, Alexandra Anderson, Fernando Angulo-Pratolongo, Bart M Ballard, Joel Bety, Stephen Brown, Katherine S. Christie, Sarah J. Clements, Christian Friis, Callie Gesmundo, Marie-Andree Giroux, Autumn-Lynn Harrison, Christopher M. Harwood, Jason M. Hill, James A. Johnson, Bart Kempenaers, Benoit Laliberte, Jean-Francois Lamarre, Richard B. Lanctot, Christopher Latty, Nicolas Lecomte, Laura Anne McDuffie, Juan G. Navedo, Erica Nol, Zachary M. Pohlen, Jennie Rausch, R.B. Renfrew, Jorge Ruiz, Mike Russell, Daniel R. Ruthrauff, Sarah T. Saalfeld, Brett K. Sandercock, Shiloh A. Schulte, Paul A Smith, Audrey R. Taylor, Lee Tibbitts, Mihai Valcu, Mitch D. Weegman, James R. Wright, Nathan R. Senner
2024, Ornithological Applications (126)
Identifying the migration routes and stopover sites used by declining species is critical for developing targeted conservation actions. Long-distance migratory shorebirds are among the groups of birds declining most rapidly, yet we frequently lack detailed knowledge about the routes and stopover sites they use during their hemisphere-spanning migrations. This is...
Assessing the risk of climate maladaptation for Canadian polar bears
L. Ruth Rivkin, Evan Richardson, Joshua D. Miller, Todd C. Atwood, Steven Baryluk, Erik W. Born, Corey Davis, Marcus Dyck, Evelien de Greef, Kristin L. Laidre, Nick Lunn, Sarah McCarthy-Neumann, Martyn E. Obbard, Megan A. Owen, Nicholas Pilfold, Amélie Roberto-Charro, Oystein Wiig, Aryn Wilder, Colin J Garroway
2024, Ecology Letters (27)
The Arctic is warming four times faster than the rest of the world, threatening the persistence of many Arctic species. It is uncertain if Arctic wildlife will have sufficient time to adapt to such rapidly warming environments. We used genetic forecasting to measure the risk of maladaptation to warming temperatures...
Capelin on the rebound: Using seabird diets to track trends in forage fish populations
Mayumi L. Arimitsu, Caitlin Elizabeth Marsteller, John F. Piatt, Scott Hatch, Shannon Wheland
2024, Newsletter
Capelin are cold-water forage fish that respond rapidly to fluctuating ocean temperatures. They are prized food for seabirds and other marine predators in Alaska. Researchers have monitored seabird diets at Middleton Island for decades to make connections between changes in abundance of predators and their prey. During a prolonged marine...
