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Various GIS-generated land-use predictor variables, physical habitat metrics, and water chemistry variables from 75 reference streams and 351 randomly sampled sites throughout Washington State were evaluated for effectiveness at discriminating reference from random sites within level III ecoregions. A combination of multivariate clustering and ordination techniques were used. We describe average...

The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) is responsible for protecting the natural resources and heritage contained on almost 20 percent of the land in the United States. This responsibility requires acquisition of remotely sensed data throughout vast lands, including areas that are remote and potentially dangerous to access. One...

An oceanographic field study during February through May 2014 investigated processes that control the sediment-transport dynamics along the western part of Fire Island, New York. This report describes the project background, field program, instrumentation configuration, and locations of the sensors deployed. The data collected, including meteorological observations, are presented as...

In October 2011, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) contracted airborne magnetic and electromagnetic surveys of the Paradox and San Luis Valleys in southern Colorado, United States. These airborne geophysical surveys provide high-resolution and spatially comprehensive datasets characterizing the resistivity structure of the shallow subsurface of each survey region, accompanied by...

In 2010, scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center collected sediment cores from coastal waters offshore of the Mississippi barrier islands. With funding support from the Northern Gulf of Mexico (NGOM) Ecosystem Change and Hazard Susceptibility project, 65 subaqueous sediment cores were collected over...

In synoptic surveys of surface-water quality across the United States, a large group of organic chemicals associated with agricultural, household, and industrial waste have been detected. These chemicals are referred to collectively as chemicals of emerging concern (CECs) and include prescription drugs and antibiotics, over-the-counter medications, reproductive hormones, personal-care products,...

Sea otters are well-known tool users, employing objects such as rocks or shells to break open hard-shelled invertebrate prey. However, little is known about how the frequency of tool use varies among sea otter populations and the factors that drive these differences. We examined 17 years of observational data on...

Abundance estimation of carnivore populations is difficult and has prompted the use of non-invasive detection methods, such as remotely-triggered cameras, to collect data. To analyze photo data, studies focusing on carnivores with unique pelage patterns have utilized a mark-recapture framework and studies of carnivores without unique pelage patterns have used...

Citizen science is commonly cited as an effective approach to expand the scale of invasive species data collection and monitoring. However, researchers often hesitate to use these data due to concerns over data quality. In light of recent research on the quality of data collected by volunteers, we aimed to...

Introduction The UJNR Panel on Earthquake Research promotes advanced study toward a more fundamental understanding of the earthquake process and hazard estimation. The Ninth Joint meeting was extremely beneficial in furthering cooperation and deepening understanding of problems common to both the U.S. and Japan. The meeting included productive exchanges of information...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) South Atlantic Water Science Center (SAWSC) Georgia office, in cooperation with local, State, and other Federal agencies, maintains a long-term hydrologic monitoring network of more than 340 real-time continuous-record streamflow-gaging stations (streamgages), including 10 real-time lake-level monitoring stations, 67 real-time surface-water-quality monitors, and several water-quality...

Over timescales of soil development (millennia), the capacity of soils to stabilize soil organic carbon (SOC) is linked to soil development through changes in soil mineralogy and other soil properties. In this study, an extensive dataset of soil profile chemistry and mineralogy is compiled from the Cowlitz River Chronosequence (CRC),...

Fish passage facilities for reservoir dams have been used to restore habitat connectivity within riverine networks by allowing upstream passage for native species. These facilities may also support the spread of invasive species, an unintended consequence and potential downside of upstream passage structures. We documented...

Acoustic surveys were conducted in late summer/early fall during the years 1992-1996 and 2001-2014 to estimate pelagic prey fish biomass in Lake Michigan. Midwater trawling during the surveys as well as target strength provided a measure of species and size composition of the fish community for use in scaling acoustic...

Contaminants introduced into the subsurface of Pahute Mesa, Nevada National Security Site, by underground nuclear testing are of concern to the U.S. Department of Energy and regulators responsible for protecting human health and safety. The potential for contaminant movement away from the underground test areas at Pahute Mesa and into...

Researchers have cautioned against the borrowing of consumption and growth parameters from other species and life stages in bioenergetics growth models. In particular, the function that dictates temperature dependence in maximum consumption (Cmax) within the Wisconsin bioenergetics model for Chinook Salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha produces estimates that are lower than those measured in...

The maps and graphs in this summary describe streamflow conditions for water year 2014 (October 1, 2013, to September 30, 2014) in the context of the 85-year period from 1930 through 2014, unless otherwise noted. The illustrations are based on observed data from the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) National Streamflow...

Elevation data are essential to a broad range of applications, including forest resources management, wildlife and habitat management, national security, recreation, and many others. For the State of Nevada, elevation data are critical for infrastructure and construction management, natural resources conservation, flood risk management, geologic resource assessment and hazard mitigation,...

The U.S. Geological Survey Great Lakes Science Center has conducted lake-wide surveys of the fish community in Lake Michigan each fall since 1973 using standard 12-m bottom trawls towed along contour at depths of 9 to 110 m at each of seven index transects. The resulting data on relative...

Mobilization of natural and septic nitrate from the unsaturated zone as a result of managed aquifer recharge has degraded water quality from public-supply wells near Yucca Valley in the western Mojave Desert, California. The effect of nitrate storage and potential for denitrification in the unsaturated zone to mitigate increasing nitrate...

We investigate the impact of superstorm Sandy on the lower shoreface and inner shelf offshore the barrier island system of Fire Island, NY using before-and-after surveys involving swath bathymetry, backscatter and CHIRP acoustic reflection data. As sea level rises over the long term, the shoreface and inner shelf are eroded...

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, assessed hydraulic properties of geologic material, recharge, and evapotranspiration, and the effects of ditching on the groundwater resources in the Stoney Brook watershed in the Fond du Lac Reservation. Geologic, groundwater, and surface-water data...

The satellite-derived growing season time-integrated Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (GSN) has been used as a proxy for vegetation biomass productivity. The 250-m GSN data estimated from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensors have been used for terrestrial ecosystem modeling and monitoring. High temporal resolution with a wide range of...

The U.S. Geological Survey collaborated with international colleagues to assess undiscovered resources in porphyry copper deposits in the Central Asian Orogenic Belt and eastern Tethysides. These areas host 20 known porphyry copper deposits, including the world class Oyu Tolgoi deposit in Mongolia that was discovered in the late 1990s. The...

The induced magnetic field and the remanent magnetic field of rock masses are important to geologic modeling based on Earth’s magnetic field data. The orientation of the induced magnetic field is approximately parallel to the orientation of Earth’s geomagnetic field and its intensity can be derived from measured magnetic susceptibilities...