Sediment data collected in 2014 and 2015 from around Breton and Gosier Islands, Breton National Wildlife Refuge, Louisiana
Julie Bernier, Kyle W. Kelso, Thomas M. Tuten, Chelsea A. Stalk, James G. Flocks
2017, Data Series 1037
Breton Island, located at the southern end of the Chandeleur Islands, supports one of Louisiana’s largest historical brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) nesting colonies. Although the brown pelican was delisted as an endangered species in 2009, nesting areas are threatened by continued land loss and are extremely vulnerable to storm impacts....
Predicted pH at the domestic and public supply drinking water depths, Central Valley, California
Celia Z. Rosecrans, Bernard T. Nolan, Jo Ann M. Gronberg
2017, Scientific Investigations Map 3377
This scientific investigations map is a product of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) project modeling and mapping team. The prediction grids depicted in this map are of continuous pH and are intended to provide an understanding of groundwater-quality conditions at the domestic and public supply drinking...
The effects of forest cover on base flow of streams in the mountainous interior of Puerto Rico, 2010
Jesús Rodriguez-Martínez , Marilyn Santiago
2017, Scientific Investigations Report 2016-5142
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources, completed a study to determine whether a relation exists between the extent of forest cover and the magnitude of base flow at two sets of paired drainage basins in the highlands of the municipalities...
Vertical datum conversion process for the inland and coastal gage network located in the New England, Mid-Atlantic, and South Atlantic-Gulf hydrologic regions
Paul H. Rydlund Jr., Michael L. Noll
2017, Techniques and Methods 11-B8
Datum conversions from the National Geodetic Vertical Datum of 1929 to the North American Vertical Datum of 1988 among inland and coastal gages throughout the hydrologic regions of New England, the Mid-Atlantic, and the South Atlantic-Gulf have implications among river and storm surge forecasting, general commerce, and water-control operations. The...
Isotopic data for Late Cretaceous intrusions and associated altered and mineralized rocks in the Big Belt Mountains, Montana
Edward A. du Bray, Daniel M. Unruh, Albert H. Hofstra
2017, Data Series 1040
The quartz monzodiorite of Mount Edith and the concentrically zoned intrusive suite of Boulder Baldy constitute the principal Late Cretaceous igneous intrusions hosted by Mesoproterozoic sedimentary rocks of the Newland Formation in the Big Belt Mountains, Montana. These calc-alkaline plutonic masses are manifestations of subduction-related magmatism that prevailed along the...
Prediction and visualization of redox conditions in the groundwater of Central Valley, California
Celia Z. Rosecrans, Bernard T. Nolan, JoAnn M. Gronberg
2017, Journal of Hydrology (546) 341-356
Regional-scale, three-dimensional continuous probability models, were constructed for aspects of redox conditions in the groundwater system of the Central Valley, California. These models yield grids depicting the probability that groundwater in a particular location will have dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations less than selected threshold values representing anoxic groundwater conditions,...
Enhanced and updated spatially referenced statistical assessment of dissolved-solids load sources and transport in streams of the Upper Colorado River Basin
Matthew P. Miller, Susan G. Buto, Patrick M. Lambert, Christine A. Rumsey
2017, Scientific Investigations Report 2017-5009
Approximately 6.4 million tons of dissolved solids are discharged from the Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB) to the Lower Colorado River Basin each year. This results in substantial economic damages, and tens of millions of dollars are spent annually on salinity control projects designed to reduce salinity loads in surface...
Mineral potential mapping in an accreted island-arc setting using aeromagnetic data: An example from southwest Alaska
Eric D. Anderson, Thomas Monecke, Murray W. Hitzman, Wendy Zhou, Paul A. Bedrosian
2017, Economic Geology (112) 375-396
The distribution of volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS), porphyry-epithermal, Alaska-type ultramafic-mafic complexes, intrusion-related Au, and granitoid Sn-W ore deposits in southwest Alaska supports current metallogenic models linking the formation of these deposit types to the emplacement of different suites of igneous rocks during the evolution of this convergent plate margin....
Bathymetry of Clear Creek Reservoir, Chaffee County, Colorado, 2016
Michael S. Kohn, Paul J. Kinzel, Jacob S. Mohrmann
2017, Scientific Investigations Map 3375
To better characterize the water supply capacity of Clear Creek Reservoir, Chaffee County, Colorado, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Pueblo Board of Water Works and Colorado Mountain College, carried out a bathymetry survey of Clear Creek Reservoir. A bathymetry map of the reservoir is presented here with...
Groundwater quality for 75 domestic wells in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, 2014
Eliza L. Gross, Charles A. Cravotta
2017, Scientific Investigations Report 2016-5143
Groundwater is a major source of drinking water in Lycoming County and adjacent counties in north-central and northeastern Pennsylvania, which are largely forested and rural and are currently undergoing development for hydrocarbon gases. Water-quality data are needed for assessing the natural characteristics of the groundwater resource and the potential effects...
Detecting spatial ontogenetic niche shifts in complex dendritic ecological networks
William R. Fields, Evan H. Campbell Grant, Winsor H. Lowe
2017, Ecosphere (8)
Ontogenetic niche shifts (ONS) are important drivers of population and community dynamics, but they can be difficult to identify for species with prolonged larval or juvenile stages, or for species that inhabit continuous habitats. Most studies of ONS focus on single transitions among discrete habitat patches at local scales. However,...
Landsat eyes help guard the world's forests
Jon Campbell
2017, Fact Sheet 2017-3018
SummaryThe Landsat program is a joint effort between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), but the partner agencies have distinct roles. NASA develops remote-sensing instruments and spacecraft, launches satellites, and validates their performance in orbit. The USGS owns and operates Landsat satellites in...
Pyrogenic carbon distribution in mineral topsoils of the northeastern United States
Verena Jauss, Patrick J. Sullivan, Jonathan Sanderman, David B. Smith, Johannes Lehmann
2017, Geoderma (296) 69-78
Due to its slow turnover rates in soil, pyrogenic carbon (PyC) is considered an important C pool and relevant to climate change processes. Therefore, the amounts of soil PyC were compared to environmental covariates over an area of 327,757 km2 in the northeastern United States in order to understand the controls...
A physics-based earthquake simulator and its application to seismic hazard assessment in Calabria (Southern Italy) region
Rodolfo Console, Anna Nardi, Roberto Carluccio, Maura Murru, Giuseppe Falcone, Thomas E. Parsons
2017, Acta Geophysica (65) 243-257
The use of a newly developed earthquake simulator has allowed the production of catalogs lasting 100 kyr and containing more than 100,000 events of magnitudes ≥4.5. The model of the fault system upon which we applied the simulator code was obtained from the DISS 3.2.0 database, selecting all the faults that...
Geospatial analysis identifies critical mineral-resource potential in Alaska
Susan M. Karl, Keith A. Labay
Katherine Jacques, Claire Landowski, editor(s)
2017, Fact Sheet 2017-3012
Alaska consists of more than 663,000 square miles (1,717,000 square kilometers) of land—more than a sixth of the total area of the United States—and large tracts of it have not been systematically studied or sampled for mineral-resource potential. Many regions of the State are known to have significant mineral-resource potential, and there are currently six operating mines...
Water resources of the Southern Hills regional aquifer system, southeastern Louisiana
Vincent E. White
2017, Fact Sheet 2017-3010
Information concerning the availability, use, and quality of groundwater in the 10 parishes overlying the Southern Hills regional aquifer system of Louisiana (fig. 1) is critical for water-supply management. The purpose of this fact sheet is to present information that can be used by water managers, residents, and others for...
Re-Os systematics and age of pyrite associated with stratiform Zn-Pb mineralization in the Howards Pass district, Yukon and Northwest Territories, Canada
Karen D. Kelley, David Selby, Hendrik Falck, John F. Slack
2017, Mineralium Deposita (52) 317-335
Stratiform Zn-Pb deposits hosted in unmetamorphosed carbonaceous and siliceous mudstones of the Ordovician to Silurian Duo Lake Formation define the Howards Pass district in Yukon Territory and Northwest Territories, western Canada. Collectively, the deposits are amongst the largest in the world, containing drill-indicated and inferred resources of 423 Mt at 4.84 %...
Walrus haul-out and in water activity levels relative to sea ice availability in the Chukchi Sea
Chadwick V. Jay, Rebecca L. Taylor, Anthony S. Fischbach, Mark S. Udevitz, William S. Beatty
2017, Journal of Mammalogy (98) 386-396
An animal’s energetic costs are dependent on the amount of time it allocates to various behavioral activities. For Arctic pinnipeds, the time allocated to active and resting behaviors could change with future reductions in sea ice cover and longer periods of open water. The Pacific walrus (Odobenus rosmarus divergens) is...
Autumn olive (Elaeagnus umbellata) presence and proliferation on former surface coal mines in Eastern USA
Adam J. Oliphant, R.H. Wynne, Carl E. Zipper, W. Mark Ford, P. F. Donovan, Jing Li
2017, Biological Invasions (19) 179-195
Invasive plants threaten native plant communities. Surface coal mines in the Appalachian Mountains are among the most disturbed landscapes in North America, but information about land cover characteristics of Appalachian mined lands is lacking. The invasive shrub autumn olive (Elaeagnus umbellata) occurs on these sites and interferes with...
Relations of alpine plant communities across environmental gradients: Multilevel versus multiscale analyses
George P. Malanson, Dale L. Zimmerman, Mitch Kinney, Daniel B. Fagre
2017, Annals of the Association of American Geographers (107) 41-53
Alpine plant communities vary, and their environmental covariates could influence their response to climate change. A single multilevel model of how alpine plant community composition is determined by hierarchical relations is compared to a separate examination of those relations at different scales. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling of species cover for plots...
South Polar Skua breeding populations in the Ross Sea assessed from demonstrated relationship with Adélie Penguin numbers
Deborah J. Wilson, Phil O’B. Lyver, Terry C. Greene, Amy L. Whitehead, Katie M. Dugger, Brian J. Karl, James R. F. Barringer, Roger McGarry, Annie M. Pollard, David G. Ainley
2017, Polar Biology (40) 577-592
In the Ross Sea region, most South Polar Skuas (Stercorarius maccormicki) nest near Adélie Penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) colonies, preying and scavenging on fish, penguins, and other carrion. To derive a relationship to predict skua numbers from better-quantified penguin numbers, we used distance sampling to estimate breeding...
Subsurface volatile content of martian double-layer ejecta (DLE) craters
Donna Viola, Alfred S. McEwen, Colin M. Dundas, Shane Byrne
2017, Icarus (284) 325-343
Excess ice is widespread throughout the martian mid-latitudes, particularly in Arcadia Planitia, where double-layer ejecta (DLE) craters also tend to be abundant. In this region, we observe the presence of thermokarstically-expanded secondary craters that likely form from impacts that destabilize a subsurface layer of excess ice, which subsequently sublimates. The...
Current limitations and recommendations to improve testing for the environmental assessment of endocrine active substances
Katherine K. Coady, Ronald C. Biever, Nancy D. Denslow, Melanie Gross, Patrick D. Guiney, Henrik Holbech, Natalie K. Karouna-Renier, Ioanna Katsiadaki, Hank Krueger, Steven L. Levine, Gerd Maack, Mike Williams, Jeffrey C. Wolf, Gerald T. Ankley
2017, Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management (13) 302-316
In the present study, existing regulatory frameworks and test systems for assessing potential endocrine active chemicals are described, and associated challenges are discussed, along with proposed approaches to address these challenges. Regulatory frameworks vary somewhat across geographies, but all basically evaluate whether a chemical possesses endocrine activity and whether this...
Broadband seismic noise attenuation versus depth at the Albuquerque Seismological Laboratory
Charles R. Hutt, Adam T. Ringler, Lind Gee
2017, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (107) 1402-1412
Seismic noise induced by atmospheric processes such as wind and pressure changes can be a major contributor to the background noise observed in many seismograph stations, especially those installed at or near the surface. Cultural noise such as vehicle traffic or nearby buildings with air handling equipment also contributes to...
New insights into nitrate dynamics in a karst groundwater system gained from in situ high-frequency optical sensor measurements
Stephen P. Opsahl, MaryLynn Musgrove, Richard N. Slattery
2017, Journal of Hydrology (546) 179-188
Understanding nitrate dynamics in groundwater systems as a function of climatic conditions, especially during contrasting patterns of drought and wet cycles, is limited by a lack of temporal and spatial data. Nitrate sensors have the capability for making accurate, high-frequency measurements of nitrate in situ, but have not yet been...
