An automated approach for mapping persistent ice and snow cover over high latitude regions
David J. Selkowitz, Richard R. Forster
2016, Remote Sensing (8)
We developed an automated approach for mapping persistent ice and snow cover (glaciers and perennial snowfields) from Landsat TM and ETM+ data across a variety of topography, glacier types, and climatic conditions at high latitudes (above ~65°N). Our approach exploits all available Landsat scenes acquired during the late summer (1...
A manual to identify sources of fluvial sediment
Allen C. Gellis, Faith A. Fitzpatrick, Joseph Schubauer-Berigan
2016, Report
Sediment is an important pollutant of concern that can degrade and alter aquatic habitat. A sediment budget is an accounting of the sources, storage, and export of sediment over a defined spatial and temporal scale. This manual focuses on field approaches to estimate a sediment budget. We also highlight the...
Transport of atrazine and dicamba through silt and loam soils
James A. Tindall, Michael J. Friedel
2016, Global Journal of Earth Science and Engineering (3) 27-42
The objectives of this research were to determine the role of preferential flow paths in the transport of atrazine (2-chloro-4-(ethylamino)-6-(isopropylamino)-s-triazine) and dicamba (3-6-dichloro-2-methoxybenzoic acid) through silt and loam soils overlying the High Plains aquifer in Nebraska. In a previous study, 3 of...
Genetic structure and viability selection in the golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos), a vagile raptor with a Holarctic distribution
Jacqueline M. Doyle, Todd E. Katzner, Gary Roemer, James W. Cain III, Brian Millsap, Carol McIntyre, Sarah A. Sonsthagen, Nadia B. Fernandez, Maria Wheeler, Zafer Bulut, Peter Bloom, J. Andrew DeWoody
2016, Conservation Genetics (17) 1307-1322
Molecular markers can reveal interesting aspects of organismal ecology and evolution, especially when surveyed in rare or elusive species. Herein, we provide a preliminary assessment of golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) population structure in North America using novel single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). These SNPs included one molecular sexing marker,...
Reconstructing surface ocean circulation with 129I time series records from corals
Ching-Chih Chang, George S. Burr, A. J. Timothy Jull, Joellen L. Russell, Dana Biddulph, Lara White, Nancy G. Prouty, Yue-Gau Chen, Chuan-Chou Shen, Weijian Zhou, Doan Dinh Lam
2016, Journal of Environmental Radioactivity (165) 144-150
The long-lived radionuclide 129I (half-life: 15.7 × 106 yr) is well-known as a useful environmental tracer. At present, the global 129I in surface water is about 1–2 orders of magnitude higher than pre-1960 levels. Since the 1990s, anthropogenic 129I produced from industrial nuclear fuels reprocessing plants has been the primary source of 129I...
Investigating dynamic sources of pharmaceuticals: Demographic and seasonal use are more important than down-the-drain disposal in wastewater effluent in a University City setting
Christine Vatovec, Patrick J. Phillips, Emily Van Wagoner, Tia-Marie Scott, Edward T. Furlong
2016, Science of the Total Environment (572) 906-914
Pharmaceutical pollution in surface waters poses risks to human and ecosystem health. Wastewater treatment facilities are primary sources of pharmaceutical pollutants, but little is known about the factors that affect drugs entering the wastewater stream. This paper investigates the effects of student pharmaceutical use and disposal behaviors and an...
Sharing our data—An overview of current (2016) USGS policies and practices for publishing data on ScienceBase and an example interactive mapping application
Katherine J. Chase, Andrew R. Bock, Roy Sando
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1202
This report provides an overview of current (2016) U.S. Geological Survey policies and practices related to publishing data on ScienceBase, and an example interactive mapping application to display those data. ScienceBase is an integrated data sharing platform managed by the U.S. Geological Survey. This report describes resources that U.S. Geological...
Genetic structure of faucet snail, Bithynia tentaculata populations in North Americal based on microsattelite markers
Kathryn E. Perez, Rebecca L. Werren, Christopher A. Lynum, Levi A. Hartman, Gabor Majoros, Rebecca A. Cole
2016, Freshwater Mollusk Biology and Conservation (19) 56-68
Bithynia tentaculata is believed to have been extirpated from North America during the last glacial maximum. It was reintroduced into North America via the Great Lakes basin in the 1800’s and has recently been expanding its geographic range. This snail serves as intermediate host for three trematodes that cause extensive...
Depth calibration and validation of the Experimental Advanced Airborne Research Lidar, EAARL-B
C. Wayne Wright, Christine J. Kranenburg, Timothy A. Battista, Christopher Parrish
2016, Journal of Coastal Research (Special Issue 76) 4-17
The original National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Experimental Advanced Airborne Research Lidar (EAARL), was extensively modified to increase the spatial sampling density and improve performance in water ranging from 3–44 m. The new (EAARL-B) sensor features a 300% increase in spatial density, which was achieved by optically splitting each laser pulse into...
Implementation and evaluation of a monthly water balance model over the US on an 800 m grid
Steven W. Hostetler, Jay R. Alder
2016, Water Resources Research (52) 9600-9620
We simulate the 1950–2010 water balance for the conterminous U.S. (CONUS) with a monthly water balance model (MWBM) using the 800 m Parameter-elevation Regression on Independent Slopes Model (PRISM) data set as model input. We employed observed snow and streamflow data sets to guide modification of the snow and potential...
Aging and sexing guide to the forest birds of Hawai‘i Island
Eben H. Paxton, Rachelle McLaughlin, Stephanie Levins, Eric VanderWerf, Nolan Lancaster
2016, Technical Report HCSU-079
We banded birds in Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge from 2012 to 2016, collecting photographs of birds and making detailed observations on coloration, morphology, and molting patterns. While we believe the criteria in this guide are applicable to forest birds across Hawai’i Island, as well as on other Hawaiian islands...
Geography and host species shape the evolutionary dynamics of U genogroup infectious hematopoietic necrosis virus
Allison Black, Rachel Breyta, Trevor Bedford, Gael Kurath
2016, Virus Evolution (2)
Infectious hematopoietic necrosis virus (IHNV) is a negative-sense RNA virus that infects wild and cultured salmonids throughout the Pacific Coastal United States and Canada, from California to Alaska. Although infection of adult fish is usually asymptomatic, juvenile infections can result in high mortality events that impact salmon hatchery programs and...
Spatially explicit models of full-season productivity and implications for landscape management of Golden-winged Warblers in the western Great Lakes Region
Sean M. Peterson, Henry M. Streby, David E. Andersen
2016, Book chapter, Golden-winged Warbler ecology, conservation, and habitat management (Studies in Avian Biology, volume 49)
The relationship between landscape structure and composition and full-season productivity (FSP) is poorly understood for most birds. For species of high conservation concern, insight into how productivity is related to landscape structure and composition can be used to develop more effective conservation strategies that increase recruitment. We monitored nest productivity...
Defining resilience: A preliminary integrative literature review
Bonnie Wilt, Suzanna K. Long, Thomas G. Shoberg
2016, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Management 2016
The term “resilience” is ubiquitous in technical literature; it appears in numerous forms, such as resilience, resiliency, or resilient, and each use may have a different definition depending on the interpretation of the writer. This creates difficulties in understanding what is meant by ‘resilience’ in any given use case, especially...
Water isotope systematics: Improving our palaeoclimate interpretations
M. D. Jones, S. Dee, L. Anderson, A. Baker, G. Bowen, D. Noone
2016, Quaternary Science Reviews (131) 243-249
The stable isotopes of oxygen and hydrogen, measured in a variety of archives, are widely used proxies in Quaternary Science. Understanding the processes that control δ18O change have long been a focus of research (e.g. Shackleton and Opdyke, 1973; Talbot, 1990 ; Leng, 2006). Both the dynamics of water isotope...
Alternative source models of very low frequency events
Joan S. Gomberg, D.C. Agnew, S.Y. Schwartz
2016, Journal of Geophysical Research B: Solid Earth (121) 6722-6740
We present alternative source models for very low frequency (VLF) events, previously inferred to be radiation from individual slow earthquakes that partly fill the period range between slow slip events lasting thousands of seconds and low-frequency earthquakes (LFE) with durations of tenths of a second. We show that VLF events...
Mapping presence and predicting phenological status of invasive buffelgrass in southern Arizona using MODIS, climate and citizen science observation data
Cynthia S.A. Wallace, Jessica J. Walker, Susan M. Skirvin, Caroline Patrick-Birdwell, Jake F. Weltzin, Helen Raichle
2016, Remote Sensing (8) 1-24
The increasing spread and abundance of an invasive perennial grass, buffelgrass (Pennisetum ciliare), represents a critical threat to the native vegetation communities of the Sonoran desert in southern Arizona, USA, where buffelgrass eradication is a high priority for resource managers. Herbicidal treatment of buffelgrass is most effective when the vegetation...
Measuring distance “as the horse runs”: Cross-scale comparison of terrain-based metrics
Barbara P. Buttenfield, M Ghandehari, S Leyk, Larry V. Stanislawski, M E Brantley, Yi Qiang
2016, Conference Paper
Distance metrics play significant roles in spatial modeling tasks, such as flood inundation (Tucker and Hancock 2010), stream extraction (Stanislawski et al. 2015), power line routing (Kiessling et al. 2003) and analysis of surface pollutants such as nitrogen (Harms et al. 2009). Avalanche risk is based on slope, aspect, and...
Effects of flow regime on metal concentrations and the attainment of water quality standards in a remediated stream reach, Butte, Montana
Robert L. Runkel, Briant A. Kimball, David A. Nimick, Katherine Walton-Day
2016, Environmental Science & Technology (50) 12641-12649
Low-flow synoptic sampling campaigns are often used as the primary tool to characterize watersheds affected by mining. Although such campaigns are an invaluable part of site characterization, investigations which focus solely on low-flow conditions may yield misleading results. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate this point and elucidate...
Seismic‐hazard forecast for 2016 including induced and natural earthquakes in the central and eastern United States
Mark D. Petersen, Charles Mueller, Morgan P. Moschetti, Susan M. Hoover, Andrea L. Llenos, William L. Ellsworth, Andrew J. Michael, Justin L. Rubinstein, Arthur F. McGarr, Kenneth S. Rukstales
2016, Seismological Research Letters (87) 1327-1341
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has produced a one‐year (2016) probabilistic seismic‐hazard assessment for the central and eastern United States (CEUS) that includes contributions from both induced and natural earthquakes that are constructed with probabilistic methods using alternative data and inputs. This hazard assessment builds on our 2016 final model...
A simple rubric for Stratigraphic Fidelity (β) of paleoenvironmental time series
Harry J. Dowsett, Marci M. Robinson, Kevin M. Foley
2016, Stratigraphy (13) 303-305
The Pliocene, specifically the late Pliocene, has been a focus of paleoclimate research formore than 25 years. Synoptic regional and global reconstructions along with high-resolution time-series have produced nuanced conceptual models of paleoenvironmental conditions and enhanced our understanding of climate variability and climate sensitivity from the Late Pliocene, the most recent interval of...
U.S. Geological Survey collections—Preserving the past to inform the future: Tour three federal repositories—Core Research Center, Paleontological Collection, and the NSF National Ice Core Laboratory
Natalie Latysh
2016, Book chapter, Unfolding the Geology of the West
This 2016 Geological Society of America (GSA) Annual Meeting trip will explore the Core Research Center, Paleontological Collection, and National Science Foundation National Ice Core Laboratory—three collections of major national signifi cance managed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Since its inception in 1879, USGS has collected, preserved, and managed physical collections for scientifi...
Leveraging constraints and biotelemetry data to pinpoint repetitively used spatial features
Brian M. Brost, Mevin Hooten, Robert J. Small
2016, Ecology (98) 12-20
Satellite telemetry devices collect valuable information concerning the sites visited by animals, including the location of central places like dens, nests, rookeries, or haul‐outs. Existing methods for estimating the location of central places from telemetry data require user‐specified thresholds and ignore common nuances like measurement error. We present a fully...
Use of lidar point cloud data to support estimation of residual trace metals stored in mine chat piles in the Old Lead Belt of southeastern, Missouri
Emitt C. Witt III
2016, AIMS Environmental Science (3) 509-524
Historic lead and zinc (Pb-Zn) mining in southeast Missouri’s ―Old Lead Belt‖ has left large chat piles dominating the landscape where prior to 1972 mining was the major industry of the region. As a result of variable beneficiation methods over the history of mining activity, these piles remain with large...
Winter and summer home ranges of American White Pelicans (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) captured at loafing sites in the southeastern United States
D. Tommy King, Justin W. Fischer, Bronson K. Strickland, W. David Walter, Fred L. Cunningham, Guiming Wang
2016, Waterbirds (39) 287-294
Satellite telemetry was used to investigate summer and winter home ranges for resident and migrant American White Pelicans (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) captured in the southeastern United States between 2002 and 2007. Home range utilization distributions were calculated using 50% and 95% kernel density estimators with the plug-in bandwidth selector. Mean summer...
