Slow-moving and far-travelled dense pyroclastic flows during the Peach Spring super-eruption
Olivier Roche, David C. Buesch, Greg A. Valentine
2016, Nature Communications (7) 1-8
Explosive volcanic super-eruptions of several hundred cubic kilometres or more generate long run-out pyroclastic density currents the dynamics of which are poorly understood and controversial. Deposits of one such event in the southwestern USA, the 18.8 Ma Peach Spring Tuff, were formed by pyroclastic flows that travelled >170 km...
Network global navigation satellite system surveys to harmonize American and Canadian datum for the Lake Champlain Basin
Robert H. Flynn, Paul H. Rydlund Jr., Daniel J. Martin
2016, Scientific Investigations Report 2016-5009
Historically high flood levels were observed during flooding in Lake Champlain and the Richelieu River from late April through May 2011. Flooding was caused by record spring precipitation and snowmelt from the third highest cumulative snowfall year on record, which included a warm, saturated late spring snowpack. Flood stage was...
Identifying and preserving high-water mark data
Todd A. Koenig, Jennifer L. Bruce, Jim O’Connor, Benton D. McGee, Robert R. Holmes Jr., Ryan Hollins, Brandon T. Forbes, Michael S. Kohn, Mathew Schellekens, Zachary W. Martin, Marie C. Peppler
2016, Techniques and Methods 3-A24
High-water marks provide valuable data for understanding recent and historical flood events. The proper collection and recording of high-water mark data from perishable and preserved evidence informs flood assessments, research, and water resource management. Given the high cost of flooding in developed areas, experienced hydrographers, using the best available techniques,...
Landscape characteristics and livestock presence influence common ravens: Relevance to greater sage-grouse conservation
Peter S. Coates, Brianne E. Brussee, Kristy Howe, K. Benjamin Gustafson, Michael L. Casazza, David J. Delehanty
2016, Ecosphere (7) e01203
Common raven (Corvus corax; hereafter, raven) population abundance in the sagebrush steppe of the American West has increased threefold during the previous four decades, largely as a result of unintended resource subsidies from human land-use practices. This is concerning because ravens frequently depredate nests of species of conservation concern, such...
Supporting diverse data providers in the open water data initiative: Communicating water data quality and fitness of use
Sara Larsen, Stuart Hamilton, Jessica M. Lucido, Bradley D. Garner, Dwane Young
2016, Journal of the American Water Resources Association (52) 859-872
Shared, trusted, timely data are essential elements for the cooperation needed to optimize economic, ecologic, and public safety concerns related to water. The Open Water Data Initiative (OWDI) will provide a fully scalable platform that can support a wide variety of data from many diverse providers. Many of these will...
Uncertainty analysis of the Operational Simplified Surface Energy Balance (SSEBop) model at multiple flux tower sites
Mingshi Chen, Gabriel B. Senay, Ramesh K. Singh, James P. Verdin
2016, Journal of Hydrology (536) 384-399
Evapotranspiration (ET) is an important component of the water cycle – ET from the land surface returns approximately 60% of the global precipitation back to the atmosphere. ET also plays an important role in energy transport among the biosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere. Current regional to global and daily to annual...
DOI/GTN-P Climate and active-layer data acquired in the National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, 1998–2014
Frank E. Urban, Gary D. Clow
2016, Data Series 977
This report provides data collected by the climate monitoring array of the U.S. Department of the Interior on Federal lands in Arctic Alaska over the period August 1998 to July 2014; this array is part of the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost (DOI/GTN-P). In addition to presenting data, this report...
Groundwater quality, age, and susceptibility and vulnerability to nitrate contamination with linkages to land use and groundwater flow, Upper Black Squirrel Creek Basin, Colorado, 2013
Tristan P. Wellman, Michael G. Rupert
2016, Scientific Investigations Report 2016-5020
The Upper Black Squirrel Creek Basin is located about 25 kilometers east of Colorado Springs, Colorado. The primary aquifer is a productive section of unconsolidated deposits that overlies bedrock units of the Denver Basin and is a critical resource for local water needs, including irrigation, domestic, and commercial use. The...
Geologic map of the Sauvie Island quadrangle, Multnomah and Columbia Counties, Oregon, and Clark County, Washington
Russell C. Evarts, Jim O’Connor, Charles M. Cannon
2016, Scientific Investigations Map 3349
Introduction The Sauvie Island 7.5' quadrangle is situated in the Puget-Willamette Lowland northwest of downtown Portland, Oreg. This lowland, which extends from Puget Sound to west-central Oregon, is a complex structural and topographic trough between the Coast Range and the Cascade Range. Since late Eocene time, the Cascade Range has been...
A hierarchical model of daily stream temperature using air-water temperature synchronization, autocorrelation, and time lags
Benjamin H. Letcher, Daniel Hocking, Kyle O'Neil, Andrew R. Whiteley, Keith H. Nislow, Matthew O’Donnell
2016, PeerJ (4)
Water temperature is a primary driver of stream ecosystems and commonly forms the basis of stream classifications. Robust models of stream temperature are critical as the climate changes, but estimating daily stream temperature poses several important challenges. We developed a statistical model that accounts for many challenges that can make...
Play-level distributions of estimates of recovery factors for a miscible carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery method used in oil reservoirs in the conterminous United States
Emil Attanasi, P.A. Freeman
2016, Open-File Report 2015-1239
In a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) study, recovery-factor estimates were calculated by using a publicly available reservoir simulator (CO2 Prophet) to estimate how much oil might be recovered with the application of a miscible carbon dioxide (CO2) enhanced oil recovery (EOR) method to technically screened oil reservoirs located in onshore...
Groundwater, surface-water, and water-chemistry data, Black Mesa area, northeastern Arizona—2012–2013
Jamie P. Macy, Margot Truini
2016, Open-File Report 2015-1221
The Navajo (N) aquifer is an extensive aquifer and the primary source of groundwater in the 5,400-square-mile Black Mesa area in northeastern Arizona. Availability of water is an important issue in northeastern Arizona because of continued water requirements for industrial and municipal use by a growing population and because of...
The evolution of a thermokarst-lake landscape: Late Quaternary permafrost degradation and stabilization in interior Alaska
Mary E. Edwards, Guido Grosse, Benjamin M. Jones, Patricia F. McDowell
2016, Sedimentary Geology (340) 3-14
Thermokarst processes characterize a variety of ice-rich permafrost terrains and often lead to lake formation. The long-term evolution of thermokarst landscapes and the stability and longevity of lakes depend upon climate, vegetation and ground conditions, including the volume of excess ground ice and its distribution. The current lake status of...
Comparative evaluation of statistical and mechanistic models of Escherichia coli at beaches in southern Lake Michigan
Ammar Safaie, Aaron Wendzel, Zhongfu Ge, Meredith Nevers, Richard L. Whitman, Steven R. Corsi, Mantha S. Phanikumar
2016, Environmental Science & Technology (50) 2442-2449
Statistical and mechanistic models are popular tools for predicting the levels of indicator bacteria at recreational beaches. Researchers tend to use one class of model or the other, and it is difficult to generalize statements about their relative performance due to differences in how the models are developed, tested, and...
Application of hydrogeology and groundwater-age estimates to assess the travel time of groundwater at the site of a landfill to the Mahomet Aquifer, near Clinton, Illinois
Robert T. Kay, Paul M. Buszka
2016, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5159
The U.S. Geological Survey used interpretations of hydrogeologic conditions and tritium-based groundwater age estimates to assess the travel time of groundwater at a landfill site near Clinton, Illinois (the “Clinton site”) where a chemical waste unit (CWU) was proposed to be within the Clinton landfill unit #3 (CLU#3). Glacial deposits...
High-resolution gravity and seismic-refraction surveys of the Smoke Tree Wash area, Joshua Tree National Park, California
Victoria E. Langenheim, Michael J. Rymer, Rufus D. Catchings, Mark R. Goldman, Janet Watt, Robert E. Powell, Jonathan C. Matti
2016, Open-File Report 2016-1027
We describe high-resolution gravity and seismic refraction surveys acquired to determine the thickness of valley-fill deposits and to delineate geologic structures that might influence groundwater flow beneath the Smoke Tree Wash area in Joshua Tree National Park. These surveys identified a sedimentary basin that is fault-controlled. A profile across the...
Development and application of freshwater sediment-toxicity benchmarks for currently used pesticides
Lisa H. Nowell, Julia E. Norman, Christopher G. Ingersoll, Patrick W. Moran
2016, Science of the Total Environment (550) 835-850
Sediment-toxicity benchmarks are needed to interpret the biological significance of currently used pesticides detected in whole sediments. Two types of freshwater sediment benchmarks for pesticides were developed using spiked-sediment bioassay (SSB) data from the literature. These benchmarks can be used to interpret sediment-toxicity data or to assess the potential toxicity...
1984–2010 trends in fire burn severity and area for the conterminous US
Joshua J. Picotte, Birgit E. Peterson, Gretchen Meier, Stephen M. Howard
2016, International Journal of Wildland Fire (25) 413-420
Burn severity products created by the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) project were used to analyse historical trends in burn severity. Using a severity metric calculated by modelling the cumulative distribution of differenced Normalized Burn Ratio (dNBR) and Relativized dNBR (RdNBR) data, we examined burn area and burn severity...
Determining the 95% limit of detection for waterborne pathogen analyses from primary concentration to qPCR
Joel P. Stokdyk, Aaron D. Firnstahl, Susan K. Spencer, Tucker R Burch, Mark A. Borchardt
2016, Water Research (96) 105-113
The limit of detection (LOD) for qPCR-based analyses is not consistently defined or determined in studies on waterborne pathogens. Moreover, the LODs reported often reflect the qPCR assay alone rather than the entire sample process. Our objective was to develop an approach to determine the 95% LOD (lowest concentration at...
Tarangire revisited: Consequences of declining connectivity in a tropical ungulate population
Thomas A. Morrison, William A. Link, William D. Newmark, Charles A.H. Foley, Douglas T. Bolger
2016, Biological Conservation (197) 53-60
The hyper-abundance of migratory wildlife in many ecosystems depends on maintaining access to seasonally available resources. In Eastern and Southern Africa, land-use change and a loss of connectivity have coincided with widespread declines in the abundance and geographic range of ungulate populations. Using photographic capture-mark-recapture, we examine the historical pattern...
Establishing a pre-mining geochemical baseline at a uranium mine near Grand Canyon National Park, USA
David L. Naftz, Katherine Walton-Day
2016, Geoderma (7) 76-92
During 2012, approximately 404,000 ha of Federal Land in northern Arizona was withdrawn from consideration of mineral extraction for a 20-year period to protect the Grand Canyon watershed from potentially adverse effects of U mineral exploration and development. The development, operation, and reclamation of the Canyon Mine during the withdrawal...
Available data support protection of the Southwestern Willow Flycatcher under the Endangered Species Act
Tad C. Theimer, Aaron D. Smith, Sean M. Mahoney, Kirsten E. Ironside
2016, The Condor (118) 289-299
Zink (2015) argued there was no evidence for genetic, morphological, or ecological differentiation between the federally endangered Southwestern Willow Flycatcher (Empidonax traillii extimus) and other Willow Flycatcher subspecies. Using the same data, we show there is a step-cline in both the frequency of a mtDNA haplotype and in plumage variation roughly...
Predictive mapping of seabirds, pinnipeds and cetaceans off the Pacific Coast of Washington
Charles Menza, Jeffery B. Leirness, Tim White, Arliss Winship, Brian P. Kinlan, Laura Kracker, Jeannette E. Zamon, Lisa Ballance, Elizabeth Becker, Karin A. Forney, Jay Barlow, Josh Adams, David Pereksta, Scott Pearson, John Pierce, Steven J. Jeffries, John Calambokidis, Annie Douglas, Bradford C. Hanson, Scott R. Benson, Liam Antrim
2016, Report
About this report This report supports Washington-led marine spatial planning and responsible stewardship of natural and cultural resources by the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary. Washington state agencies and the sanctuary continually seek the best available science to improve management of marine uses and stewardship of resources (Etheridge et al., 2010;...
Spatial patterns of native freshwater mussels in the Upper Mississippi River
Patricia R. Ries, Nathan R. De Jager, Steven J. Zigler, Teresa Newton
2016, Freshwater Science (35) 934-947
Multiple physical and biological factors structure freshwater mussel communities in large rivers, and their distributions have been described as clumped or patchy. However, few surveys of mussel populations have been conducted over areas large enough and at resolutions fine enough to quantify spatial patterns in their distribution. We used global...
A functional model for characterizing long-distance movement behaviour
Frances E. Buderman, Mevin Hooten, Jacob S. Ivan, Tanya M. Shenk
2016, Methods in Ecology and Evolution (7) 264-273
Advancements in wildlife telemetry techniques have made it possible to collect large data sets of highly accurate animal locations at a fine temporal resolution. These data sets have prompted the development of a number of statistical methodologies for modelling animal movement.Telemetry data sets are often collected for...
