Filtering of cyclic period infiltration in a layered vadose zone: 1. Approximation of damping and time lags
Jesse E. Dickinson, T. P. A Ferre
2018, Vadose Zone Journal (17) 1-16
Core IdeasWe describe an approximation for filtering of periodic infiltration in layered soil.Transitions in soil‐water properties between soil layers affect the filtering.Errors are smaller in soils where changes in soil‐water properties are small.Infiltration and downward percolation of water in the vadose zone are important processes...
Shared habitat use by juveniles of three sea turtle species
Margaret M. Lamont, Autumn R. Iverson
2018, Marine Ecology Progress Series (606) 187-200
The first step in understanding how sympatric species share habitat is defining spatial boundaries. While home range data for juvenile sea turtles exists, few studies have examined spatial overlap of multiple species in foraging habitat. Using satellite tracking technology, we define home ranges for juveniles of 3 sea turtle species...
Multi-scale effects of land cover and urbanization on the habitat suitability of an endangered toad
Michael L. Treglia, Adam C Landon, Robert N. Fisher, Gerard Kyle, Lee A. Fitzgerald
2018, Biological Conservation (228) 310-318
Habitat degradation, entwined with land cover change, is a major driver of biodiversity loss. Effects of land cover change on species can be direct (when habitat is converted to alternative land cover types) or indirect (when land outside of the species habitat is altered). Hydrologic and ecological connections between terrestrial and aquatic...
Monitoring framework for evaluating hydrogeomorphic and vegetation responses to environmental flows in the Middle Fork Willamette, McKenzie, and Santiam River Basins, Oregon
J. Rose Wallick, Leslie B. Bach, Mackenzie K. Keith, Melissa Olson, Joseph F. Mangano, Krista L. Jones
2018, Open-File Report 2018-1157
This report summarizes a framework for monitoring hydrogeomorphic and vegetation responses to environmental flows in support of the Willamette Sustainable Rivers Program (SRP). The SRP is a partnership between The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to provide ecologically sustainable flows downstream of dams while still...
Deep aquifer recharge in the Columbia River Basalt Group, upper Umatilla River Basin, northeastern Oregon
Esther M. Pischel, Henry M. Johnson, Stephen B. Gingerich
2018, Scientific Investigations Report 2018-5110
Groundwater is an important component of the water resources of the upper Umatilla River Basin of northeastern Oregon. As such, understanding the capacity of the resource is vital. Past studies have estimated recharge in the study area. One recent study of the upper Umatilla River Basin indicated that about...
Evaluation of chronic toxicity of sodium chloride or potassium chloride to a unionid mussel (Lampsilis siliquoidea) in water exposures using standard and refined toxicity testing methods
Ning Wang, James L. Kunz, Rebecca A. Dorman, Christopher G. Ingersoll, Jeffery A. Steevens, Edward J. Hammer, Candice R. Bauer
2018, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (37) 3050-3062
Freshwater mussels are generally underrepresented in toxicity databases used to derive water quality criteria, especially for long‐term exposures. Multiple tests were conducted to determine the chronic toxicity of sodium chloride (NaCl) or potassium chloride (KCl) to a unionid mussel (fatmucket, Lampsilis siliquoidea). Initially, a 4‐wk NaCl test...
Land-cover changes associated with oil and natural-gas production and concentrations of selected constituents in surface-water and streambed-sediment samples collected upstream from and within an area of oil and natural-gas production, south Texas, 2008–17
Cassi L. Crow, Stephen P. Opsahl, Diana E. Pedraza, Emily C. Pease, Ross K. Kushnereit
2018, Scientific Investigations Report 2018-5119
The extensive development of oil and natural-gas resources in south Texas during the past 10 years has led to questions regarding possible environmental effects of processes associated with oil and natural-gas production, in particular the process of hydraulic fracturing, on water and other natural resources. Part of the lower San...
Hydrology and hydrodynamics on the Sacramento River near the Fremont Weir, California—Implications for juvenile salmon entrainment estimates
Paul R. Stumpner, Aaron R. Blake, Jon R. Burau
2018, Scientific Investigations Report 2018-5115
Estimates of fish entrainment on the Sacramento River near the Fremont Weir are a critical component in determining the feasibility and design of a proposed notch in the weir to increase access to the Yolo Bypass, a seasonal floodplain of the Sacramento River. Detailed hydrodynamic and velocity measurements were made...
Assessment of managed aquifer recharge at Sand Hollow Reservoir, Washington County, Utah, updated to conditions through 2016
Thomas M. Marston, Nora C. Nelson
2018, Open-File Report 2018-1140
Sand Hollow Reservoir in Washington County, Utah, was completed in March 2002 and is operated primarily for managed aquifer recharge by the Washington County Water Conservancy District. From 2002 through 2016, surface-water diversions of about 256,000 acre-feet (acre-ft) to Sand Hollow Reservoir have allowed the reservoir to remain nearly full...
Effect of calcium on the bioavailability of dissolved uranium(VI) in plant roots under circumneutral pH
Eliane El Hayek, Chris Torres, Lucia Rodriguez-Freire, Johanna M. Blake, Cherie L. De Vore, Adrian J. Brearley, Michael N. Spilde, Stephen Cabaniss, Abdul-Mehdi S. Ali, Jose M. Cerrato
2018, Environmental Science & Technology (52) 13089-13098
We integrated field measurements, hydroponic experiments, microscopy, and spectroscopy to investigate the effect of Ca(II) on dissolved U(VI) uptake by plants in 1 mM HCO3– solutions at circumneutral pH. The accumulation of U in plants (3.1–21.3 mg kg–1) from the stream bank of the Rio Paguate, Jackpile Mine, New Mexico served...
Volcanic hail detected with GPS: The 2011 eruption of Grímsvötn Volcano, Iceland
Ronni Grapenthin, Sigrun Hreinsdottir, Alexa R. Van Eaton
2018, Geophysical Research Letters (45) 12,236-12,243
Volcanic plumes are challenging to detect and characterize rapidly, but insights into processes such as hail formation or ash aggregation are valuable to hazard forecasts during volcanic crises. Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS, which includes GPS) signals traveling from satellites to ground receivers can be disturbed by...
Application of the Stream Salmonid Simulator (S3) to the restoration reach of the Trinity River, California—Parameterization and calibration
Russell W. Perry, Edward C. Jones, John M. Plumb, Nicholas A. Som, Nicholas J. Hetrick, Thomas B. Hardy, Joseph C Polos, Aaron C. Martin, Justin S. Alvarez, Kyle P. De Juilio
2018, Open-File Report 2018-1174
Executive SummaryIn this report, we constructed and parameterized the Stream Salmonid Simulator (S3) for the 64-kilometer “Restoration Reach” of the Trinity River, just downstream of Lewiston Dam in northern California. S3 is a deterministic life-stage-structured population model that tracks daily growth, movement, and survival of juvenile salmon. A key...
Bias correction of simulated historical daily streamflow at ungauged locations by using independently estimated flow duration curves
William H. Farmer, Thomas M. Over, Julie E. Kiang
2018, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (22) 5741-5758
In many simulations of historical daily streamflow distributional bias arising from the distributional properties of residuals has been noted. This bias often presents itself as an underestimation of high streamflow and an overestimation of low streamflow. Here, 1168 streamgages across the conterminous USA, having at least 14 complete water years of daily data...
Hydrology-driven chemical loads transported by the Green River to the Lower Duwamish Waterway near Seattle, Washington, 2013–17
Kathleen E. Conn, Robert W. Black, Craig A. Senter, Norman T. Peterson, Ann Vanderpool-Kimura
2018, Scientific Investigations Report 2018-5133
The sediments in the Lower Duwamish Waterway Superfund site in Seattle, Washington, are contaminated with chemicals including metals such as arsenic, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (cPAHs), and dioxins/furans from decades of intense anthropogenic activities. The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Washington State Department of Ecology,...
Geologic map of the Fort Collins 30'×60' quadrangle, Larimer and Jackson Counties, Colorado, and Albany and Laramie Counties, Wyoming
Jeremiah B. Workman, James C. Cole, Ralph R. Shroba, Karl S. Kellogg, Wayne R. Premo
2018, Scientific Investigations Map 3399
The rocks and landforms of the Fort Collins 30′ × 60′ 1:100,000-scale U.S. Geological Survey quadrangle reveals a particularly complete record of geologic history in the northern Front Range of Colorado. The Proterozoic basement rocks exposed in the core of the range preserve evidence of Paleoproterozoic marine sedimentation, volcanism, and...
Human-associated indicator bacteria and human-specific viruses in surface water: a spatial assessment with implications on fate and transport
Peter L. Lenaker, Steven R. Corsi, Sandra L. McLellan, Mark A. Borchardt, Hayley T. Olds, Deborah K. Dila, Susan K. Spencer, Austin K. Baldwin
2018, Environmental Science & Technology (52) 12162-12171
Hydrologic, seasonal, and spatial variability of sewage contamination was studied at six locations within a watershed upstream from water reclamation facility (WRF) effluent to define relative loadings of sewage from different portions of the watershed. Fecal pollution from human sources was spatially quantified by measuring two human-associated indicator bacteria (HIB)...
Nutrient enrichment in wadeable urban streams in the piedmont ecoregion of the southeastern United States
Celeste A. Journey, Peter C. Van Metre, Daniel T. Button, Jimmy M. Clark, Mark D. Munn, Naomi Nakagaki, Sharon L. Qi, Ian R. Waite, Paul M. Bradley
2018, Heliyon (4) 1-24
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Southeastern Stream Quality Assessment (SESQA) collected weekly samples for nitrogen and phosphorus in 76 wadeable streams in the urbanized Piedmont ecoregion of the Southeastern United States, during April–June 2014. Total nitrogen (TN) concentrations in excess of EPA guidelines and statistically greater than at reference locations...
Concentrations of pharmaceuticals and other micropollutants in groundwater downgradient from large on-site wastewater discharges
Sarah M. Elliott, Melinda L. Erickson, Aliesha L. Krall, Byron A. Adams
2018, PLoS ONE
Large subsurface treatment systems (LSTS) and rapid infiltration basins (RIB) are preferred onsite wastewater treatments compared to direct discharge of treated wastewater to streams and adjacent facilities. Discharge of these wastewater treatments may result in contaminant loading to aquifers that also serve as drinking water sources downgradient from...
Descriptive models for epithermal gold-silver deposits
David A. John, Peter G. Vikre, Edward A. du Bray, Richard J. Blakely, David L. Fey, Barnaby W. Rockwell, Jeffrey L. Mauk, Eric D. Anderson, Frederick Graybeal
2018, Scientific Investigations Report 2010-5070-Q
Epithermal gold-silver deposits are vein, stockwork, disseminated, and replacement deposits that are mined primarily for their gold and silver contents; some deposits also contain substantial resources of lead, zinc, copper, and (or) mercury. These deposits form in the uppermost parts of the crust, at depths less than about 1,500 meters...
Sulfur cycle in the Valles Caldera volcanic complex, New Mexico – Letter 1: Sulfate sources in aqueous system, and implications for S isotope record in Gale Crater on Mars
Anna Szynkiewicz, Fraser E. Goff, David Vaniman, Michael J. Pribil
2018, Earth and Planetary Science Letters (506) 540-551
Initial in situ sulfur (S) isotope measurements of the Martian bedrock in Gale Crater have revealed an unexpectedly wide range of δ34S values (−47 to +28%). Generally, it is unclear what processes could have contributed to these large isotope fractionations. Therefore, we studied S sources and aqueous SO2−4 cycling in...
Contribution of hurricane-induced sediment resuspension to coastal oxygen dynamics
Laura Bianucci, Karthik Balaguru, Richard W. Smith, Ruby Leung, Julia M. Moriarty
2018, Scientific Reports (8) 1-10
Hurricanes passing over the ocean can mix the water column down to great depths and resuspend massive volumes of sediments on the continental shelves. Consequently, organic carbon and reduced inorganic compounds associated with these sediments can be resuspended from anaerobic portions of the seabed and re-exposed to dissolved oxygen...
Revised groundwater-flow model of the glacial aquifer system north of Aberdeen, South Dakota, through water year 2015
Joshua F. Valder, William G. Eldridge, Kyle W. Davis, Colton J. Medler, Karl R. Koth
2018, Scientific Investigations Report 2018-5137
The city of Aberdeen, in northeastern South Dakota, requires an expanded and sustainable supply of water to meet current and future demands. Conceptual and numerical models of the glacial aquifer system in the area north of Aberdeen were developed by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the City of...
Chronic physical disturbance substantially alters the response of biological soil crusts to a wetting pulse, as characterized by metatranscriptomic sequencing
Blaire Steven, Jayne Belnap, Cheryl R. Kuske
2018, Frontiers in Microbiology (9) 1-17
Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) are microbial communities that are a feature of arid surface soils worldwide. In drylands where precipitation is pulsed and ephemeral, the ability of biocrust microbiota to rapidly initiate metabolic activity is critical to their survival. Community gene expression was compared after a short duration (1 hour)...
Natural climate solutions for the United States
Joseph E. Fargione, Steven Bassett, Timothy Boucher, Scott D. Bridgham, Richard T. Conant, Susan C. Cook-Patton, Peter W. Ellis, Alessandra Falcucci, James W. Fourqurean, Trisha Gopalakrishna, Huan Gu, Benjamin Henderson, Matthew D. Hurteau, Kevin D. Kroeger, Timm Kroeger, Tyler J. Lark, Sara M. Leavitt, Guy Lomax, Robert I. McDonald, Patrick Megonigal, Daniela A. Miteva, Curtis J. Richardson, Jonathan Sanderman, David Shoch, Seth A. Spawn, Joseph W. Veldman, Christopher A. Williams, Peter B. Woodbury, Chris Zganjar, Marci Baranski, Patricia Elias, Richard A. Houghton, Emily Landis, Emily McGlynn, William H. Schlesinger, Juha V. Siikamaki, Ariana Sutton-Grier, Bronson W. Griscom
2018, Science (4)
Limiting climate warming to <2°C requires increased mitigation efforts, including land stewardship, whose potential in the United States is poorly understood. We quantified the potential of natural climate solutions (NCS)—21 conservation, restoration, and improved land management interventions on natural and agricultural lands—to increase carbon storage and avoid greenhouse gas emissions...
Bank‐derived material dominates fluvial sediment in a suburban Chesapeake Bay watershed
Matthew J. Cashman, Allen C. Gellis, Lillian E. Gorman Sanisaca, Gregory E. Noe, Vanessa Cogliandro, Anna Baker
2018, River Research and Applications (34) 1032-1044
Excess fine sediment is a leading cause of ecological degradation within the Chesapeake Bay watershed. To effectively target sediment mitigation measures, it is necessary to identify and quantify the delivery of sediment sources to local waterbodies.This study examines the contributions of sediment sources within Upper Difficult Run, a suburbanized watershed...
