Spatial and temporal variations in SO2 and PM2.5 levels around Kīlauea volcano, Hawai'i during 2007–2018
R.C.W. Whitty, E. Ilyinskaya, E. Mason, P.E. Wieser, E. J. Liu, A. Schmidt, T.J. Roberts, M.A. Pfeffer, Barbara Brooks, T.A. Mather, M. Edmonds, Tamar Elias, David J. Schneider, C. Oppenheimer, A. Dybwad, Patricia A. Nadeau, Christoph Kern
2020, Frontiers in Earth Science (8)
Among the hazards posed by volcanoes are the emissions of gases and particles that can affect air quality and damage agriculture and infrastructure. A recent intense episode of volcanic degassing associated with severe impacts on air quality accompanied the 2018 lower East Rift Zone (LERZ) eruption of Kīlauea volcano,...
Preparing for geophysical science on the surface of the moon enabled by Artemis
Nicholas Schmerr, Jacob A. Richardson, R. Ghent, Matt Seigler, Molly Wasser, Patrick Wheeley, D. Buczkowski, Lynne Carter, Chuck Connor, Laura Connor, Jacob E. Bleacher, M. Fouch, D. Baker, T. Hurford, L. Jozwiak, Sarah Kruse, V. Lekic, A. Naids, Ryan Porter, L. Montesi, Derek Richardson, M. Elise Rumpf, J. Sunshine, Norbert Schorghofer, S. Goossens, Nicole Whelley, D. Wyrick, W. Zhu, Ernie Bell, J. DeMartini, D. Coan, D. Akin, Barbara Cohen, E. Mazarico, Clive Neal, M. Panning, Noah Petro, B. Strauss, Renee Weber, T. Glotch, A. Hendrix, A. Parker, Sarah Wright
2020, Report, Artemis III Science Definition Team White Papers
Geophysical methods have been extremely successful in identifying resources on Earth as they provide a means of characterizing and mapping the sub-surface using data gathered on and above the target structures. Geophysics on the Moon will be an important tool for identifying key targets for geological prospecting, scientific sampling, assessing...
Evolving infrasound detections from Bogoslof volcano, Alaska: Insights from atmospheric propagation modeling
Hans Schwaiger, John J. Lyons, Alexandra M. Iezzi, David Fee, Matthew M. Haney
2020, Bulletin of Volcanology (82)
Bogoslof volcano, a back-arc volcano in Alaska’s Aleutian arc, began an eruptive sequence in mid-December 2016 that ended in late August 2017, with 70 individual eruptive episodes. Because there were no local seismic or infrasound stations on the island, the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) relied on distant geophysical networks and...
Characterizing land surface phenology and exotic annual grasses in dryland ecosystems using Landsat and Sentinel-2 data in harmony
Neal Pastick, Devendra Dahal, Bruce K. Wylie, Sujan Parajuli, Stephen P. Boyte, Zhuoting Wu
2020, Remote Sensing (12)
Invasive annual grasses, such as cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum L.), have proliferated in dryland ecosystems of the western United States, promoting increased fire activity and reduced biodiversity that can be detrimental to socio-environmental systems. Monitoring exotic annual grass cover and dynamics over large areas requires the use of remote sensing that...
The NASA hydrological forecast system for food and water security applications
Kristi Arsenault, Shraddhanand Shukla, Abheera Hazra, Agusto Getirana, Amy McNally, Sujay Kumar, Randal Koster, Christa Peters-Lidard, Ben Zaitchik, Hamada Badr, Hahn Chul Jung, Bala Narapusetty, Navari, Shugong Wang, David M. Mocko, Chris Funk, Laura Harrison, Gregory J. Husak, Alkhalil Adoum, Gideon Galu, Tamuka Magadzire, Jeanne Roningen, Michael J. Shaw, John Eylander, Karim Bergaoui, Rachael A. McDonnell, James Verdin
2020, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (101) E1007-E1025
Many regions in Africa and the Middle East are vulnerable to drought and to water and food insecurity, motivating agency efforts such as the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) to provide early warning of drought events in the region. Each year these...
U.S. Geological Survey science in support of the North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat)
Brian E. Reichert, Suzanna C. Soileau
2020, Fact Sheet 2020-3008
Bats make up one-fifth of all mammalian species worldwide and are found on every continent except Antarctica. They contribute to overall ecosystem health by suppressing pest insects and pollinating plants and spreading seeds. Eight North American bat species are listed as federally endangered or threatened, and more than one-half are...
Assessment of soil and water resources in the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument, New Mexico
Johanna M. Blake, Aurelia C. Mitchell, Zachary M. Shephard, Grady Ball, Shaleene Chavarria, Kyle R. Douglas-Mankin
2020, Scientific Investigations Report 2019-5142
The Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument (Monument) in southern New Mexico was established in 2014. Given anticipated future demands in the Monument for recreation, livestock grazing, and maintenance of rights-of-way (for example, pipelines and powerlines), the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) needs a better understanding of the current soil and...
Broad-scale impacts of an invasive native predator on a sensitive native prey species within the shifting avian community of the North American Great Basin
Peter S. Coates, Shawn O'Neil, Brianne E. Brussee, Mark A. Ricca, Pat J. Jackson, Jonathan B. Dinkins, Kristy B. Howe, Ann M. Moser, Lee J. Foster, David J Delahunty
2020, Biological Conservation (243)
Human enterprise has modified ecosystem processes through direct and indirect alteration of native predators’ distribution and abundance. For example, human activities subsidize food, water, and shelter availability to generalist predators whose subsequent increased abundance impacts lower trophic-level prey species. The common raven (Corvus corax; hereafter, raven) is an avian predator,...
Assessment of population genetics and climatic variability can refine climate‐informed seed transfer guidelines
Robert Massatti, Robert K. Shriver, Daniel E. Winkler, Bryce A. Richardson, John B. Bradford
2020, Restoration Ecology (28) 485-493
Restoration guidelines increasingly recognize the importance of genetic attributes in translocating native plant materials (NPMs). However, when species‐specific genetic information is unavailable, seed transfer guidelines use climate‐informed seed transfer zones (CSTZs) as an approximation. While CSTZs may improve how NPMs are developed and/or matched to restoration...
Multiple-well monitoring site adjacent to the Lost Hills oil field, Kern County, California
Rhett R. Everett, Adam Kjos, Anthony A. Brown, Janice M. Gillespie, Peter B. McMahon
2020, Open-File Report 2019-1114
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the California State Water Resources Control Board, is evaluating several questions about oil and gas development and groundwater resources in California, including (1) the location of groundwater resources; (2) the proximity of oil and gas operations and groundwater and the geologic materials...
Movements and habitat use of loons for assessment of conservation buffer zones in the Arctic Coastal Plain of northern Alaska
Sharon A. Poessel, Brian D. Uher-Koch, John M. Pearce, Joel A. Schmutz, Todd E. Katzner, David C. Douglas, Vanessa R. von Biela, Autumn-Lynne Harrison
2020, Global Ecology and Conservation (22)
Oil and gas development in the Arctic Coastal Plain, Alaska, may pose threats to wildlife. Management guidelines within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska dictate buffer zones for coastal wildlife habitat and for breeding and foraging sites of yellow-billed loons (YBLOs; Gavia adamsii), a species of conservation concern. However, few...
Stormwater quality of infrastructure elements in Rapid City, South Dakota, 2016–18
Galen K. Hoogestraat
2020, Scientific Investigations Report 2020-5004
As runoff flows over the land or impervious surfaces (paved streets, parking lots, and building roofs), it accumulates debris, chemicals, sediment, and other contaminants that can adversely affect water quality if the runoff discharge remains untreated. Pathogens, commonly measured using fecal indicator bacteria such as Escherichia coli, enterococci, or fecal...
Hydrogeology and interactions of groundwater and surface water near Mill Creek and the Herring River, Wellfleet, Massachusetts, 2017–18
John R. Mullaney, Janet R. Barclay, Kaitlin L. Laabs, Katherine D. Lavallee
2020, Scientific Investigations Report 2019-5145
Groundwater levels and stream stage were monitored by the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Friends of Herring River, at 19 sites in the Mill Creek Basin, a tributary of the Herring River in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, on outer Cape Cod, to provide baseline data prior to a proposed restoration...
Paleo-metagenomics of North American fossil packrat middens: Past biodiversity revealed by ancient DNA
Grace Moore, Michael Tessler, Seth Cunningham, Julio L. Betancourt, Robert Harbert
2020, Ecology and Evolution (10) 2530-2544
Fossil rodent middens are powerful tools in paleoecology. In arid parts of western North America, packrat (Neotoma spp.) middens preserve plant and animal remains for tens of thousands of years. Midden contents are so well preserved that fragments of endogenous ancient DNA (aDNA) can be extracted and analyzed across millennia. Here,...
Six-axis ground motion measurements of caldera collapse at Kīlauea Volcano, Hawaiʻi - More data, more puzzles?
Joachim Wassermann, Felix Bernauer, Brian Shiro, Ingrid A. Johanson, Frederic Guattari, Heiner Igel
2020, Geophysical Research Letters (47)
Near‐field recordings of large earthquakes and volcano‐induced events using traditional seismological instrumentation often suffer from unaccounted effects of local tilt and saturation of signals. Recent hardware advances have led to the development of the blueSeis‐3A, a very broadband, highly sensitive rotational motion sensor. We installed this sensor...
Training data selection for annual land cover classification for the LCMAP initiative
Qiang Zhou, Heather J. Tollerud, Christopher P. Barber, Kelcy Smith, Daniel J. Zelenak
2020, Remote Sensing (12)
The U.S. Geological Survey’s Land Change Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection (LCMAP) initiative characterizes changes in land cover, use, and condition with the goal of producing land change information that improves understanding of the earth system and provides insight into the impacts of land change on society. For LCMAP, all available...
Monitoring chemical contaminants in the Gulf of Maine, using sediments and mussels (Mytilus edulis): An evaluation
Adria Elskus, Lawrence A LeBlanc, James S Latimer, David Page, Gareth Harding, Peter G Wells
2020, Marine Pollution Bulletin (153)
The objective of this paper is to determine whether contaminant data on mussels and sediments can be used interchangeably, or not, when assessing the degree of anthropogenic contamination of a water body. To obtain adequate coverage of the entire Gulf of Maine, Bay of Fundy sediment samples were collected, analyzed...
Local earthquake Vp and Vs tomography in the Mount St. Helens region with the iMUSH broadband array
Carl W Ulberg, Kenneth C Creager, Seth C. Moran, Geoffrey A Abers, Weston Thelen, Alan Levander, Eric Kiser, Brandon Schmandt, Steven M. Hansen, Robert S. Crosson
2020, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (21)
We present new 3-D P wave and S wave velocity models of the upper 20 km of the Mount St. Helens (MSH) region. These were obtained using local-source arrival time tomography from earthquakes and explosions recorded at 70 broadband stations deployed as part of the imaging Magma Under St. Helens (iMUSH)...
Phase equilibrium of a high-SiO2, andesite at fO2 = RRO: Implications for Augustine volcano and other high-fO2 arc andesites
Sarah H. De Angelis, Jessica F. Larsen, Michelle L. Coombs, James E. P. Utley, Andrew P. Dunn
2020, Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology (175)
Understanding the impact of magmatic plumbing systems on explosive volcanic activity is important for hazard management. This study describes phase equilibria experiments using a high-silica andesite (HSA; SiO2 = 62.5 wt%) from the 2006 eruption of Augustine Volcano, Alaska. Experiments were conducted under H2O saturated conditions, f0<mrow...
Improving geospatial query performance of an interoperable geographic situation-awareness system (IGSAS) for disaster response
Chuanrong Zhang, Tian Zhao, E. Lynn Usery, Dalia E. Varanka, Weidong Li
2020, Transactions in GIS (24) 508-525
Disaster response operations require fast and coordinated actions based on the real-time disaster situation information. Although Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) or crowdsourced geospatial data applications have demonstrated to be valuable tools for gathering real-time disaster situation information, they only provide limited utility for disaster response coordination because of the lack...
Acoustic space occupancy: Combining ecoacoustics and lidar to model biodiversity variation and detection bias across heterogeneous landscapes
Danielle I. Rappaport, J. Andrew Royle, Douglas C. Morton
2020, Ecological Indicators (113)
There is global interest in quantifying changing biodiversity in human-modified landscapes. Ecoacoustics may offer a promising pathway for supporting multi-taxa monitoring, but its scalability has been hampered by the sonic complexity of biodiverse ecosystems and the imperfect detectability of animal-generated sounds. The acoustic signature of a habitat, or soundscape, contains...
Mapping forested wetland inundation in the Delmarva Peninsula, USA: Use of deep learning model
Ling Du, Greg W. McCarty, Xinhow Zhang, Megan W. Lang, Melanie K. Vanderhoof, Xian-Dan Lin, Chengquan Huang, Sangchul Lee, Zhenhua Zou
2020, Remote Sensing (12)
The Delmarva Peninsula in the eastern United States is dominated by thousands of small, forested depressional wetlands that are highly sensitive to climate change and climate variability but provide critical ecosystem services. Due to the relatively small size of these depressional wetlands and occurrence under forest canopy cover, it...
Batch extraction method to estimate total dissolved solids (TDS) release from coal refuse and overburden
L. E. Castillo-Meza, Charles A. Cravotta III, T. L. Tasker, N. R. Warner, W. L. Daniels, Z. W. Orndorff, T. Bergstresser, A. Douglass, G. Kimble, J. Streczywilk, C. Barton, A Thompson, W. D. Burgos
2020, Applied Geochemistry (115)
A rapid batch extraction method was evaluated to estimate potential for total dissolved solids (TDS) release by 65 samples of rock from coal and gas-bearing strata of the Appalachian Basin in eastern USA. Three different extractant solutions were considered: deionized water (DI), DI equilibrated with 10% CO2 atmosphere (DI + CO2), or 30%...
Reduction of taxonomic bias in diatom species data
Meredith Tyree, Ian W. Bishop, Charles P. Hawkins, Richard M. Mitchell, Sarah A. Spaulding
2020, Limnology and Oceanography: Methods (18) 271-279
Inconsistency in taxonomic identification and analyst bias impede the effective use of diatom data in regional and national stream and lake surveys. In this study, we evaluated the effect of existing protocols and a revised protocol on the precision of diatom species counts. The revised protocol adjusts four elements of...
OpenCLC: An open-source software tool for similarity assessment of linear hydrographic features
Ting Li, Larry Stanislawski, Tyler Brockmeyer, Shaowen Wang, Ethan J. Shavers
2020, SoftwareX (11)
The National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) is a foundational geospatial data source in the United States that enables extensive and diverse environmental research and supports decision-making in numerous contexts. However, the NHD requires regular validation and update given possible inconsistent initial collection and...
