A maximum rupture model for the southern San Andreas and San Jacinto Faults California, derived from paleoseismic earthquake ages: Observations and limitations
Katherine M. Scharer, Doug Yule
2020, Geophysical Research Letters (47)
Paleoseismic rupture histories provide spatiotemporal models of earthquake moment release needed to test numerical models and lengthen the instrumental catalog. We develop a model of the fewest and thus largest magnitude earthquakes permitted by paleoseismic data for the last 1,500 years on the southern San Andreas and San Jacinto Faults, California,...
Estimating soil organic carbon redistribution in three major river basins of China based on erosion processes
Yan Yang, Qiuan Zhu, Jinxun Liu, Mingxu Li, Minshu Yuan, Huai Chen, Changhui Peng, Zhenan Yang
2020, Soil Research (58) 540-550
Soil erosion by water affects soil organic carbon (SOC) migration and distribution, which are important processes for defining ecosystem carbon sources and sinks. Little has been done to quantify soil carbon erosion in the three major basins in China, the Yangtze River, Yellow River and Pearl River Basins, which contain...
Segmentation and supercycles: A catalog of earthquake rupture patterns from the Sumatran Sunda Megathrust and other well-studied faults worldwide
Belle E. Philibosian, Aron J. Meltzner
2020, Quaternary Science Reviews (241)
After more than 100 years of earthquake research, earthquake forecasting, which relies on knowledge of past fault rupture patterns, has become the foundation for societal defense against seismic natural disasters. A concept that has come into focus more recently is that rupture segmentation and cyclicity can be complex, and that...
Development of a two-stage life cycle model for Oncorhynchus kisutch (coho salmon) in the upper Cowlitz River Basin, Washington
John M. Plumb, Russell W. Perry
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1068
Recovery of salmon populations in the upper Cowlitz River Basin depends on trap-and-haul efforts owing to impassable dams. Therefore, successful recovery depends on the collection of out-migrating juvenile salmon at Cowlitz Falls Dam (CFD) for transport below downstream dams, as well as the collection of adults for transport upstream from...
Calibrated simulation of the long-term average surficial groundwater system and derived spatial distributions of its characteristics for the contiguous United States
Wesley O. Zell, Ward E. Sanford
2020, Water Resources Research (56)
While the physical processes governing groundwater flow are well understood, and the computational resources now exist for solving the governing equations in three dimensions over continental-scale domains, there remains substantial uncertainty about the subsurface distribution of the properties that control groundwater flow and transport for much of the contiguous United...
Deep Learning as a tool to forecast hydrologic response for landslide-prone hillslopes
Elijah Orland, Joshua J. Roering, Matthew A. Thomas, Benjamin B. Mirus
2020, Geophysical Research Letters (47)
Empirical thresholds for landslide warning systems have benefitted from the incorporation of soil‐hydrologic monitoring data, but the mechanistic basis for their predictive capabilities is limited. Although physically based hydrologic models can accurately simulate changes in soil moisture and pore pressure that promote landslides, their utility is restricted...
Modeling the surface water and groundwater budgets of the US using MODFLOW-OWHM
Mustafa H Alattar, Tara J Troy, Tess A Russo, Scott Boyce
2020, Advances in Water Resources (143)
Assessments of groundwater and surface water budgets at a large scale, such as the contiguous United States, often separately analyze the complex dynamics linking the surface and subsurface categories of water resources. These dynamics include recharge and groundwater contributions to streamflow. The...
Wildfire-initiated talik development exceeds current thaw projections: Observations and models from Alaska's continuous permafrost zone
David M. Rey, Michelle A. Walvoord, Burke J. Minsley, Brian A. Ebel, Clifford I. Voss, Kamini Singha
2020, Geophysical Research Letters (47)
As the Arctic warms and wildfire occurrence increases, talik formation in permafrost regions is projected to expand and affect the cycling of water and carbon. Yet, few unified field and modeling studies have examined this process in detail, particularly in areas of continuous permafrost. We address this gap by presenting...
Do two wrongs make a right? Persistent uncertainties regarding environmental selenium-mercury interactions
Jacqueline R. Gerson, David Walters, Collin A. Eagles-Smith, Emily S. Bernhardt, Jessica E Brandt
2020, Environmental Science and Technology (54) 9228-9234
Mercury (Hg) is a pervasive environmental pollutant and contaminant of concern for both people and wildlife that has been a focus of environmental remediation efforts for decades. A growing body of literature has motivated calls for revising Hg consumption advisories to...
The role of warm, dry summers and variation in snowpack on phytoplankton dynamics in high-elevation lakes
Isabella A. Oleksy, Whitney Beck, R. Lammers, Cara Steger, Cody Wilson, Kyle Christensen, Kim Vincent, Pieter Johnson, Jill Baron
2020, Ecology (101)
Abstract Climate change is altering biogeochemical, metabolic, and ecological functions in lakes across the globe. Historically, mountain lakes in temperate regions have been unproductive due to brief ice-free seasons, a snowmelt-driven hydrograph, cold temperatures, and steep topography with low vegetation and soil cover. We tested the relative importance of winter and...
Dating silica sinter (geyserite): A cautionary tale
Dakota M. Churchill, Michael Manga, Shaul Hurwitz, Sara Peek, Joseph Licciardi, James B. Paces
2020, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research (402)
We describe a new effort to date hydrothermal silica sinter deposits (geyserite) from the Upper Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park using 14C of co-deposited organic matter, U-series and cosmogenic 10Be methods. A majority of the samples were collected from stratigraphic sections, mainly at Riverside, Giant, and Castle Geysers. Ages...
Hydrologic modeling to examine the influence of the forestry reclamation approach and climate change on mineland hydrology
Tanja N. Williamson, Chris D. Barton
2020, Science of the Total Environment (743)
Forests in the Appalachian region of the U.S. are threatened by a variety of short- and long-term pressures, including climate change, invasive species, and resource extraction. Surface mining for coal is one of the most important drivers of land-use...
Methods to quality assure, plot, summarize, interpolate, and extend groundwater-level information—Examples for the Mississippi River Valley alluvial aquifer
William H. Asquith, Ronald C. Seanor, Virginia L. McGuire, Wade Kress
2020, Journal of Environmental Modelling and Software (134)
Large-scale computational investigations of groundwater levels are proposed to accelerate science delivery through a workflow spanning database assembly, statistics, and information synthesis and packaging. A water-availability study of the Mississippi River alluvial plain, and particularly the Mississippi River Valley alluvial aquifer...
msocc: Fit and analyse computationally efficient multi‐scale occupancy models in R
Christian Stratton, Adam J. Sepulveda, Andrew B. Hoegh
2020, Methods in Ecology and Evolution (11) 1113-1120
Environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling is a promising tool for the detection of rare and cryptic taxa, such as aquatic pathogens, parasites and invasive species. Environmental DNA sampling workflows commonly rely on multi‐stage hierarchical sampling designs that induce complicated dependencies within the data. This complex dependence structure can be intuitively...
Selective sediment transport during Hurricane Sandy on Fire Island (New York, USA): Inferences from heavy-mineral assemblages
Joao Cascalho, Pedro Costa, Guy R. Gelfenbaum, SeanPaul La Selle, Bruce E. Jaffe
2020, Journal of Sedimentary Research (90) 269-285
In October 2012, Hurricane Sandy caused severe erosion on beaches and dunes of Fire Island (New York, USA). Major shoreline changes occurred with erosional dominance in the upper shoreline and aggradation in the lowermost section of the beach due to the deposition of eroded upper beach and dune sediment. Sand...
Space use and relative habitat selection for immature green turtles within a Caribbean marine protected area
Lucas P Griffin, Brian J. Smith, Michael Cherkiss, Andrew Crowder, Clayton G Pollock, Zandy Hillis-Starr, Andy J. Danylchuk, Kristen Hart
2020, Animal Biotelemetry (8)
Background A better understanding of sea turtle spatial ecology is critical for the continued conservation of imperiled sea turtles and their habitats. For resource managers to develop the most effective conservation strategies, it is especially important to examine how turtles use and select for habitats within their developmental foraging grounds. Here,...
Prioritizing river basins for intensive monitoring and assessment by the US Geological Survey
Peter C. Van Metre, Sharon L. Qi, Jeffrey R. Deacon, Cheryl A. Dieter, Jessica M. Driscoll, Michael N. Fienen, Terry A. Kenney, Patrick M. Lambert, David P. Lesmes, Christopher Allen Mason, Anke Mueller-Solger, MaryLynn Musgrove, Jaime A. Painter, Donald O. Rosenberry, Lori A. Sprague, Anthony J. Tesoriero, Lisamarie Windham-Myers, David M. Wolock
2020, Environmental Modeling & Assessment (192)
The US Geological Survey (USGS) is currently (2020) integrating its water science programs to better address the nation’s greatest water resource challenges now and into the future. This integration will rely, in part, on data from 10 or more intensively monitored river basins from across the USA. A team of...
Wave-like patterns of plant phenology determine ungulate movement tactics
Ellen O. Aikens, Atle Mysterud, Jerod A. Merkle, Francesca Cagnacci, Inger Maren Rivrud, Mark Hebblewhite, Mark Hurley, Wibke Peters, Scott Bergen, Johannes De Groeve, Samantha P. H. Dwinnell, Benedikt Gehr, Marco Heurich, A. J. Mark Hewison, Anders Jarnemo, Petter Kjellander, Max Kroschel, Alain Licoppe, John D. C. Linnell, Evelyn H. Merrill, Arthur D. Middleton, Nicolas Morellet, Lalenia Neufeld, Anna C. Ortega, Katherine L. Parker, Luca Pedrotti, Kelly Proffitt, Sonia Said, Hall Sawyer, Brandon M. Scurlock, Johannes Signer, Patrick Stent, Pavel Sustr, Tara Szkorupa, Kevin L. Monteith, Matthew J. Kauffman
2020, Current Biology (30) 3444-3449
Animals exhibit a diversity of movement tactics [1]. Tracking resources that change across space and time is predicted to be a fundamental driver of animal movement [2]. For example, some migratory ungulates (i.e., hooved mammals) closely track the progression of highly nutritious plant green-up, a phenomenon called “green-wave surfing” [3-5]....
Report on the workshop ‘Next Steps in Developing Nature Futures’
Machteld Schoolenberg, Sana Okayasu, Rob Alkemade, Amanda Krijgsman, Ana Paula Dutra de Aguiar, Shizuka Hashimoto, Carolyn J. Lundquist, Laura M. Pereira, Garry Peterson, Dolors Armenteras, William W. L. Cheung, Mariteuw Chimere Diaw, America Paz Duran, Maria Gasalla, Ghassen Halouani, Paula Harrisson, Sylvia Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen, HyeJin Kim, Jan J. Kuiper, Brian W. Miller, Yasuo Takahashi, Ramon Pichs
2020, Report
The workshop ‘New Narratives for Nature: operationalizing the IPBES Nature Futures Scenarios’ was organised by the IPBES task force on scenarios and models and hosted by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), with support from the research team on “Predicting and Assessing Natural Capital and Ecosystem Services through an...
Characterizing benthic macroinvertebrate and algal biological condition gradient models for California wadeable Streams, USA
Michael J. Paul, Ben Jessup, Larry R. Brown, James Carter, Marco Cantonati, Donald F. Charles, Jeroen Gerritsen, Dave Herbst, Rosalina Stancheva, Jeanette K. Howard, Bill Isham, Rex Lowe, Raphael D Mazor, Patina K. Mendez, Peter R Ode, Alison O’Dowd, Yangdong Pan, Andrew C. Rehn, Sarah A. Spaulding, Martha Sutula, Susanna Theroux
2020, Ecological Indicators (117)
The Biological Condition Gradient (BCG) is a conceptual model that describes changes in aquatic communities under increasing levels of anthropogenic stress. The BCG helps decision-makers connect narrative water quality goals (e.g., maintenance of natural structure and function) to quantitative measures of...
The potential of using dynamic strains in earthquake early warning applications
Noha Sameh Ahmed Farghal, Andrew J Barbour, John Langbein
2020, Seismological Research Letters (91) 2817-2827
We investigate the potential of using borehole strainmeter data from the Network of the Americas (NOTA) and the U.S. Geological Survey networks to estimate earthquake moment magnitudes for earthquake early warning (EEW) applications. We derive an empirical equation relating peak dynamic strain, earthquake moment magnitude, and hypocentral distance, and investigate...
Living on the edge: Multi-scale analyses of bird habitat use in coastal marshes of Barataria Basin, Louisiana, USA
Brett Patton, J. A. Nyman, Megan K. La Peyre
2020, Wetlands (40) 2041-2054
Coastal marsh loss, combined with expected sea-level rise, will cause inundation and extensive shifts to vegetation and salinity regimes that may affect the bird species dependent on coastal ecosystems worldwide. Within coastal marsh habitats, birds provide key targets for coastal management goals. However, limited information on bird-habitat relationships within coastal...
Regionally continuous Miocene rhyolites beneath the eastern Snake River Plain reveal localized flexure at its western margin: Idaho National Laboratory and vicinity
Kyle L. Schusler, David M. Pearson, Michael J. McCurry, Roy C. Bartholomay, Mark H. Anders
2020, The Mountain Geologist (57) 241-270
The eastern Snake River Plain (ESRP) is a northeast-trending topographic basin interpreted to be the result of the time-transgressive track of the North American plate above the Yellowstone hotspot. The track is defined by the age progression of silicic volcanic rocks exposed along the margins of the ESRP. However, the...
A summary of water-quality monitoring in San Francisco Bay in water year 2017
Daniel N. Livsey, Maureen A. Downing-Kunz
2020, Scientific Investigations Report 2020-5064
This report summarizes the activities of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) San Francisco Bay Water-Quality Monitoring and Sediment Transport Project during water year 2017, including an explanation of methods employed, stations operated, and a graphical summary of data for the period of record for stations operational in water year 2017....
Elevation-derived hydrography acquisition specifications
Silvia Terziotti, Christy-Ann Archuleta
2020, Techniques and Methods 11-B11
Hydrographic features derived from U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) 3D Elevation Program data, and collected for use by the USGS, must meet the specifications described in this document. The specifications described herein pertain to the final product delivered to the USGS, not to methods used to derive the hydrographic features. The...
