Seismic images and subsurface structures of northeastern Edwards Air Force Base, Kern County, California
Rufus D. Catchings, Mark R. Goldman, Joanne H. Chan, Robert R. Sickler, Coyn J. Criley
2023, Open-File Report 2023-1018
We used multi-component seismic data (including two-dimensional images of compressional-wave velocity [vP], shear-wave velocity [vS], the ratio of compressional-wave velocity to shear-wave velocity [vP/vS ratio], Poisson’s ratio [μ], and seismic reflections) along a transect across northeastern Edwards Air Force Base to investigate the upper few hundred meters of the subsurface....
Aeromagnetic map of northeastern California
Victoria E. Langenheim, Donald S. Sweetkind
2023, Scientific Investigations Map 3505
Aeromagnetic surveys were conducted to improve understanding of the geology and structure in northeastern California, a region predominantly covered by Quaternary and Tertiary, mainly Neogene, volcanic rocks including Medicine Lake volcano. New aeromagnetic data are a substantial improvement over existing data and reveal structural details not resolved by older surveys....
Interlaboratory study: Testing reproducibility of solid biofuels component identification using reflected light microscopy
Agnieszka Drobniak, Maria Mastalerz, Zbigniew Jelonek, Iwona Jelonek, Tushar Adsul, Neza Malensek Andolsek, Omid Haeri Ardakani, Tara Congo, Batbold Demberelsuren, Bryon S. Donohoe, Ashley Douds, Deolinda Flores, Ranjin Ganzorig, Santanu Ghosh, Andrew Gize, Paula Alexandra Goncalves, Paul C. Hackley, Javin J. Hatcherian, James C. Hower, Stavros Kalaitzidis, Slawomir Kedzior, Wayne Knowles, Jolanta Kus, Kacper Lis, Grzegorz Lis, Bei Liu, Qingyong Luo, Meili Du, Divya Mishra, Magdalena Misz-Kennan, Theophile Mugerwa, Jennifer Nedzweckas, Jennifer M.K. O'Keefe, Jackie Park, Richard Pearson, Henrik I. Petersen, Julito Reyes, Joana Ribeiro, Genaro de la Rosa-Rodriguez, Piotr Sosnowski, Brett J. Valentine, Atul Kumar Varma, Malgorzata Wojtaszek-Kalaitzidi, Zhanjie Xu, Alexander Zdravkov, Konrad Ziemianin
2023, International Journal of Coal Geology (277)
Considering global market trends and concerns about climate change and sustainability, increased biomass use for energy is expected to continue. As more diverse materials are being utilized to manufacture solid biomass fuels, it is critical to implement quality assessment methods to analyze these fuels thoroughly. One such method is reflected...
Photochemical mobilization of dissolved hydrocarbon oxidation products from petroleum contaminated soil into a shallow aquifer activate human nuclear receptors
Phoebe Zito, Barbara A. Bekins, Dalma Martinović-Weigelt, Maxwell L. Harsha, Katherine E. Humpal, Jared J. Trost, Isabelle M. Cozzarelli, Lynn R. Mazzoleni, Simeon K. Schum, David C. Podgorski
2023, Journal of Hazardous Materials (459)
Elevated non-volatile dissolved organic carbon (NVDOC) concentrations in groundwater monitoring wells under oil-contaminated hydrophobic soils originating from a pipeline rupture at the National Crude Oil Spill & Natural Attenuation Research Site near Bemidji, MN are documented.. We hypothesized the elevated NVDOC is comprised of water-soluble photooxidation products transported from the...
Genetic structure of the Silver Chub indicates distinctiveness of Lake Erie population
Ahmed Elbassiouny, Joao Pedro Fontenelle, Patrick M. Kocovsky, Nicholas E. Mandrak, Nathan R Lovejoy
2023, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (43) 1180-1189
ObjectiveSilver Chub Macrhybopsis storeriana is a small riverine minnow endemic to North American fresh waters. Its range extends from the southern USA to southcentral Canada; the latter includes a rare lacustrine population in Lake Erie. Anthropogenic activities pose an immediate threat to several Silver Chub populations, currently categorized from...
A Monte-Carlo chemical budget approach to assess ambient groundwater flow in bedrock open boreholes
Philip Harte
2023, Groundwater Monitoring and Remediation (44) 57-71
In low-permeability rocks, ambient groundwater flow in open boreholes may go undetected using conventional borehole-flowmeter tools and alternative approaches may be needed to identify flow. Understanding ambient flow in open boreholes is important for tracking of cross contamination in groundwater. Chlorinated volatile organic compound (CVOC)...
The Government eDNA Working Group 6th Annual eDNA Technical Exchange Workshop
Carol A. Stepien, Richard F. Lance, Katy E. Klymus, Margaret Hunter
2023, Environmental DNA (5) 1196-1201
The 6th annual Environmental DNA (eDNA) Technical Exchange Workshop was a virtual workshop hosted and coordinated by the Government eDNA Working Group (GEDWG) on January 24–26, 2023. GEDWG is a no-cost consortium that focuses on bringing together stakeholders associated with federal, state, provincial, municipal,...
Assessing exposure of northern Utah communities to dust from the contaminated and dynamic Great Salt Lake playa
Annie L. Putman, Molly A. Blakowski, Morgan C. McDonnell, Destry N. DiViesti, Diego P. Fernandez, Patrick C. Longley, Daniel K. Jones
2023, Report
No abstract available....
Evaluating oil and gas industry two-dimensional multichannel seismic data for use in near-surface assessment of geologic framework and potential marine minerals resources
James G. Flocks, Arnell S. Forde, Stephen T. Bosse
2023, Techniques and Methods 2-E4
Marine seismic reflection data acquired across the Gulf of Mexico during oil and gas exploration are available to the public through an online database archive. The data are archived as two-dimensional multichannel seismic data in two digital formats. The formats include image files in portable document format (PDF), and binary...
Comprehensive water-quality trend analysis for selected sites and constituents in the International Souris River Basin, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, Canada, and North Dakota, United States, 1970–2020
Rochelle A. Nustad, Wyatt S. Tatge
2023, Scientific Investigations Report 2023-5084
The Souris River Basin is an international basin in southeast Saskatchewan, north-central North Dakota, and southwest Manitoba. Sustained exceedances of water-quality objectives for total phosphorus, sodium, sulfate, total dissolved solids, and total iron have been reported since the late 1990s at the two binational sites on the Souris River (Souris...
Browsers or Grazers? New insights into feral burro diet using a non-invasive sampling and plant DNA metabarcoding approach
Saeideh Esmaeili, Kathryn A. Schoenecker, Sarah King
2023, Animals (13)
By selecting certain plants for consumption, ungulates (hoofed mammals) shape ecosystems and influence which plant species are present in their habitats. We investigated the summer diets of non-native feral burros in two ecosystems: a subtropical Sonoran Desert in Arizona and a temperate juniper shrubland in Utah, the United States....
Mechanisms of water-rock interaction and implications for remediating flooded mine workings elucidated from environmental tracers, stable isotopes, and rare earth elements
Connor P. Newman, Katherine Walton-Day, Robert L. Runkel, Richard Wilkin
2023, Applied Geochemistry (157)
Contamination from acid mine drainage affects ecosystems and usability of groundwater for domestic and municipal purposes. The Captain Jack Superfund Site outside of Ward, Boulder County, Colorado, USA, hosts a draining mine adit that was remediated through emplacement of a hydraulic bulkhead to preclude acid mine drainage from entering...
Societal benefits of floodplains in the Chesapeake Bay and Delaware River watersheds: Sediment, nutrient, and flood regulation ecosystem services
Kristina G. Hopkins, Jacqueline Sage Welles, Emily Pindilli, Gregory E. Noe, Peter Claggett, Labeeb Ahmed, Marina J. Metes
2023, Journal of Environmental Management (345)
Floodplains provide critical ecosystem services to people by regulating floodwaters and retaining sediments and nutrients. Geospatial analyses, field data collection, and modeling were integrated to quantify a portfolio of services that floodplains provide to downstream communities within the Chesapeake Bay and Delaware River watersheds. The portfolio of services included floodplain...
The spatial distribution of debris flows in relation to observed rainfall anomalies: Insights from the Dolan Fire, California
David B. Cavagnaro, Scott W. McCoy, Matthew A. Thomas, Jaime Kostelnik, Donald N. Lindsay
2023, Conference Paper
A range of hydrologic responses can be observed in steep, recently burned terrain, which makes predicting the spatial distribution of large debris flows challenging. Studies from rainfall-induced landslides in unburned areas show evidence of hydroclimatic tuning of landslide triggering, such that the spatial distribution of events is best predicted by...
Bedrock erosion by debris flows at Chalk Cliffs, Colorado, USA: Implications for bedrock channel evolution
Francis K. Rengers, Jason W. Kean, Jeffrey A. Coe, Megan Hanson, Joel Smith
2023, Conference Paper
Debris flow erosion into bedrock helps to set the pace of mountain denudation, but there are few empirical observations of this process. We studied the effects of debris flows on bedrock erosion using Structure-From-Motion photogrammetry and multiple real-time monitoring measurements. We found that the distribution of bedrock erosion across the...
Groundwater and petroleum
Yousif Kharaka, Brian Hitchon, Jeffrey S. Hanor
2023, Book
No abstract available....
Ground‐motion variability from kinematic rupture models and the implications for nonergodic probabilistic seismic hazard analysis
Grace Alexandra Parker, Morgan P. Moschetti, Eric M. Thompson
2023, Seismological Research Letters (94) 2687-2697
The variability of earthquake ground motions has a strong control on probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA), particularly for the low frequencies of exceedance used for critical facilities. We use a crossed mixed‐effects model to partition the variance components from simulated ground motions of M<mi...
Using integrated growth to delineate debris-flow inundation
Mark E. Reid, Dianne L. Brien, Collin Cronkite-Ratcliff, Jonathan P. Perkins
2023, Conference Paper
Debris-flow volume is fundamental to mobility, yet many debris flows change volume as they travel. Growth can occur through diverse processes such as channel-bed entrainment, bank failures, aggregation of landslides, and coalescence of multiple flows. Integrating growth, either over upslope area or stream length, combines the effects of these growth...
Runout model evaluation based on back-calculation of building damage
Katherine R. Barnhart, Jason W. Kean
2023, Conference Paper, E3S Web of Conferences
We evaluated the ability of three debris-flow runout models (RAMMS, FLO2D and D-Claw) to predict the number of damaged buildings in simulations of the 9 January 2019 Montecito, California, debris-flow event. Observations of building damage after the event were combined with OpenStreetMap building footprints to construct a database of all potentially...
Forecasting the inundation of postfire debris flows
Katherine R. Barnhart, Ryan P Jones, David L. George, Francis K. Rengers, Jason W. Kean
2023, Conference Paper, E3S Web of Conferences
In the semi-arid regions of the western United States, postfire debris flows are typically runoff generated. The U.S. Geological Survey has been studying the mechanisms of postfire debris-flow initiation for multiple decades to generate operational models for forecasting the timing, location, and magnitude of postfire debris flows. Here we discuss challenges...
Cost-benefit analysis for evacuation decision-support: Challenges and possible solutions for applications in areas of distributed volcanism
Alec Wild, Mark S. Bebbington, Jan Lindsay, Natalia I. Deligne
2023, Journal of Applied Volcanology (12)
During a volcanic crisis, evacuation is the most effective mitigation measure to preserve life. However, the decision to call an evacuation is typically complex and challenging, in part due to uncertainties related to the behaviour of the volcano. Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) can support decision-makers: this approach compares the cost of...
Kesem-Kebena-Dulecha study area, Ethiopia
W. Henry Gilbert, V.B. Doronichev, L.V. Golovanova, Leah E. Morgan, Luis Nunez, Laura Rodriguez, Nohemi Sala, D. Cusimano, I. de Gaspar, Paul Mazza, N. Garcia
Amanuel Beyer, David Wright, Jayne Wilkins, Deborah I. Olszewski, editor(s)
2023, Book chapter, Handbook of Pleistocene Archaeology of Africa
In 1988 and 1989, the Paleoanthropological Inventory of Ethiopia (PIE) field expedition discovered numerous localities of prehistoric significance across Ethiopia (WoldeGabriel et al., 1992). One of the regions surveyed by the Inventory team was the Dulecha administrative district (Gabi Rasu), Afar Zone (Fig. 1). The surveyed...
Perspectives on the scientific legacy of J. Philip Grime
Jason D. Fridley, Xiaojuan Liu, Natalia Perez-Harguindeguy, F. Stuart Chapin III, Mick Crawley, Gerlinde De Deyn, Sandra Diaz, James Grace, Peter Grubb, Susan P. Harrison, Sandra Lavorel, Zhimin Liu, Simon Pierce, Bernhard Schmid, Carly J. Stevens, David A. Wardle, Mark Westoby
2023, Journal of Ecology (111) 1814-1831
Perhaps as much as any other scientist in the 20th century, J.P. Grime transformed the study of plant ecology and helped shepherd the field toward international prominence as a nexus of ideas related to global environmental change. Editors at the Journal of Ecology asked a group of senior plant ecologists to...
Organohalogenated contaminants in multiple life stages of the Pacific lamprey (Entosphenus tridentatus), Oregon, USA
Cassandra Smith, Sean E. Payne, Jennifer L. Morace, Elena Nilsen
2023, Environmental Pollution (335)
Pacific lamprey (Entosphenus tridentatus) are ecologically and culturally important anadromous animals native to the West Coast of the United States. Pacific lamprey populations are in decline, and contaminants may be a contributing factor. Between 2017 and 2021, three life stages of Pacific lamprey and collocated...
Transporting timbers to Chaco Canyon: How heavy, how many carriers and how far/fast?
James A. Wilson, Robert S. Weiner, Jeffrey S. Dean, Julio L. Betancourt, Rodger Kram
2023, Kiva (89) 78-90
A total of 200,000+ large timbers were transported >75 km to Chaco Canyon, a political and religious center in the precontact U.S. Southwest, using only human power. Previous researchers reported that typical primary roof beams (vigas) of Chacoan Great Houses averaged 0.22 m in diameter and 5 m in...
