Temporal influences on selenium partitioning, trophic transfer, and exposure in a major U.S. river
Jessica E Brandt, James Roberts, Craig A. Stricker, Holly Rogers, Patricia Nease, Travis S. Schmidt
2021, Environmental Science and Technology (55) 3645-3656
Hydrologic and irrigation regimes mediate the timing of selenium (Se) mobilization to rivers, but the extent to which patterns in Se uptake and trophic transfer through recipient food webs reflect the temporal variation in Se delivery is unknown. We investigated Se mobilization, partitioning, and trophic transfer along approximately 60 river...
Redefining the age of the lower Colorado River, southwestern United States
Ryan S. Crow, J. Schwing, K. E. Karlstrom, M. Heizler, P. A. Pearthree, P. K. House, S. Dulin, S. U. Janecke, Mark E. Stelten, L. J. Crossey
2021, Geology (49) 635-640
Sanidine dating and magnetostratigraphy constrain the timing of integration of the lower Colorado River (southwestern United States and northern Mexico) with the evolving Gulf of California. The Colorado River arrived at Cottonwood Valley (Nevada and Arizona) after 5.24 Ma (during or after the Thvera subchron). The river reached the proto–Gulf...
Evaluating fish rescue as a drought adaptation strategy using a life cycle modeling approach for imperiled coho salmon
Brittany A Beebe, Kale T Bentley, Thomas W. Buehrens, Russell Perry, Jonathan B. Armstrong
2021, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (41) 3-18
Projected intensification of drought as a result of climate change may reduce the capacity of streams to rear fish, exacerbating the challenge of recovering salmonid populations listed under the Endangered Species Act. Without management intervention, some stocks will likely go extinct as stream drying and fragmentation reduce juvenile survival to...
Discovery of a large subsoil nitrate reservoir in an arroyo floodplain and associated aquifer contamination
Benjamin Shawn Linhoff, John Joseph Lunzer
2021, Geology (49) 667-671
In an area of elevated nitrate (NO3) groundwater concentrations in the northern Chihuahuan Desert in central New Mexico (United States), a large reservoir of nitrate was found in the subsoil of an arroyo floodplain. Nitrate inventories in the floodplain subsoils ranged from 10,000 to 38,000...
Estimating blue carbon sequestration under coastal management scenarios
Monica Mei Jeen Moritsch, Mary Alida Young, Paul Carnell, Peter I Macreadie, Catherine E. Lovelock, Emily Nicholson, Peter T. Raimondi, Lisa M. Wedding, Daniel Ierodiaconou
2021, Science of the Total Environment (777)
Restoring and protecting “blue carbon” ecosystems - mangrove forests, tidal marshes, and seagrass meadows - are actions considered for increasing global carbon sequestration. To improve understanding of which management actions produce the greatest gains in sequestration, we used a spatially explicit model to compare carbon sequestration and its economic...
Using decision science for monitoring threatened western snowy plovers to inform recovery
Bruce G. Marcot, James E. Lyons, Daniel C Elbert, Laura Todd
2021, Animals (11)
Western Snowy Plovers (Charadrius nivosus nivosus) are federally listed under the US Endangered Species Act as Threatened. They occur along the US Pacific coastline and are threatened by habitat loss and destruction and excessive levels of predation and human disturbance. Populations have been monitored since the...
Extreme Quaternary plate boundary exhumation and strike slip localized along the southern Fairweather fault, Alaska, USA
Richard O. Lease, Peter J. Haeussler, Robert C. Witter, Daniel F. Stockli, Adrian Bender, Harvey Kelsey, Paul O’Sullivan
2021, Geology (49) 602-606
The Fairweather fault (southeastern Alaska, USA) is Earth’s fastest-slipping intracontinental strike-slip fault, but its long-term role in localizing Yakutat–(Pacific–)North America plate motion is poorly constrained. This plate boundary fault transitions northward from pure strike slip to transpression where it comes onshore and undergoes a <25°, 30-km-long restraining double bend. To...
A combined microbial and ecosystem metric of carbon retention efficiency explains land cover-dependent soil microbial biodiversity–ecosystem function relationships
Jessica G. Ernakovich, Jeffrey R Baldock, Courtney Creamer, Jonathan Sanderman, Karsten Kalbitz, Mark Farrell
2021, Biogeochemistry Letters (153) 1-15
While soil organic carbon (C) is the foundation of productive and healthy ecosystems, the impact of the ecology of microorganisms on C-cycling remains unknown. We manipulated the diversity, applied here as species richness, of the microbial community present in similar soils on two contrasting land-covers—an adjacent pasture and forest—and observed...
Amateur radio operators help fill earthquake donut holes
David J. Wald, Vince Quitoriano, Oliver Dully
2021, Eos, American Geophysical Union (102)
If you’ve ever seen tall antennas rising from everyday residences in your community and wondered what they are for, it could be that those homes belong to ham radio enthusiasts who enjoy communicating with each other over the airwaves. In addition to having fun with their radios and finding camaraderie, many ham...
Riverscape nesting dynamics of Neosho Smallmouth Bass: To cluster or not to cluster?
Andrew D. Miller, Shannon K. Brewer
2021, Diversity and Distributions (27) 1005-1018
AimHierarchical stream habitat conditions influence patterns of fish abundance and population dynamics. The spawning period is important for stream fishes but coincides with unpredictable environmental conditions and stressors. Thus, identifying habitats that confer suitable spawning is crucial to managing vulnerable fish populations, including narrow-range endemics. Here, we...
Local explosion detection and infrasound localization by reverse time migration using 3-D finite-difference wave propagation
David Fee, Liam Toney, Keehoon Kim, Richard Sanderson, Alexandra M. Iezzi, Robin S Matoza, Silvio DeAngelis, Art Jolly, John J. Lyons, Matthew M. Haney
2021, Frontiers in Earth Science (9)
Infrasound data are routinely used to detect and locate volcanic and other explosions, using both arrays and single sensor networks. However, at local distances (<15 km) topography often complicates acoustic propagation, resulting in inaccurate acoustic travel times leading to biased source locations when assuming straight-line propagation. Here we...
Gulf of Mexico blue hole harbors high levels of novel microbial lineages
N.V. Patin, Z.A. Dietrich, A. Stancil, M. Quinan, J.S. Beckler, E. R. Hall, J Culter, Christopher G. Smith, Martial Taillefert, F.J. Stewart
2021, Interational Society of Microbial Ecology (ISME) Journal (15) 2206-2232
Exploration of oxygen-depleted marine environments has consistently revealed novel microbial taxa and metabolic capabilities that expand our understanding of microbial evolution and ecology. Marine blue holes are shallow karst formations characterized by low oxygen and high organic matter content. They are logistically challenging to sample, and thus our understanding of...
Azorella compacta's long-term growth rate, longevity, and potential for dating geomorphological and archaeological features in the arid southern Peruvian Andes
Christopher Harpel, Catherine Kleier, Rigoberto Aguilar
2021, Journal of Arid Environments (188)
We determine the long-term growth rate and longevity of an Azorella compacta growing on Misti volcano, near Arequipa, Peru to investigate the species' capacity as a geochronological resource. Using 14C dating on stem pieces sequestered within the plant's cushion, which grows larger through time, we obtain ages of 15 ± 15 14C yrs BP and 165 ± 15 14C...
Long-term trends in regional wet mercury deposition and lacustrine mercury concentrations in four lakes in Voyageurs National Park
Mark E. Brigham, David D. VanderMeulen, Collin A. Eagles-Smith, David P. Krabbenhoft, Ryan P. Maki, John F. DeWild
2021, Applied Sciences (11)
Although anthropogenic mercury (Hg) releases to the environment have been substantially lowered in the United States and Canada since 1990, concerns remain for contamination in fish from remote lakes and rivers where atmospheric deposition is the predominant source of mercury. How have aquatic ecosystems responded? We report on one of...
NASA's surface biology and geology designated observable: A perspective on surface imaging algorithms
Kerry Cawse-Nicholson, Philip A. Townsend, David Schimel, Ali M Assiri, Pamela L. Blake, Maria Fabrizia Buongiorno, Petya Campbell, Nimrod Carmon, Kimberly Ann Casey, Rosa Elvira Correa-Pabon, Kyla M. Dahlin, Hamid Dashti, Philip Dennison, Heidi Dierrsen, Adam Erickson, Joshua B. Fisher, Robert Frouin, Charles K. Gatebe, Hamed Gholizadeh, Michelle M. Gierach, Nancy F. Glenn, James A. Goodman, Daniel Mark Griffith, Liane Guild, Christopher R. Hakkenberg, Eric J. Hochberg, Thomas R.H. Holmes, Chaunmin Hu, Glynn Hulley, Karl F. Huemmrich, Raphael M. Kudela, Raymond F. Kokaly, Christine M. Lee, Roberta E. Martin, Charles E. Miller, Wesley J. Moses, Frank E. Muller-Karger, Joseph P. Ortiz, Daniel B. Otis, Nima Pahlevan, Thomas H. Painter, Ryan Pavlick, Benjamin Poulter, Yi Qi, Vincent J. Realmuto, Dar A. Roberts, Michael E. Schaepman, Fabian D Schneider, Florian M. Schwandner, Shawn P. Serbin, Alexey N. Shiklomanov, E. Natasha Stavros, David R. Thompson, Juan L. Torres-Perez, Kevin R. Turpie, Maria Tzortziou, Susan L. Ustin, Qian Yu, Yusri Yusup, Qingyuan Zhang, The SBG Algorithms Working Group Community
2021, Remote Sensing of Environment (257)
The 2017–2027 National Academies' Decadal Survey, Thriving on Our Changing Planet, recommended Surface Biology and Geology (SBG) as a “Designated Targeted Observable” (DO). The SBG DO is based on the need for capabilities to acquire global, high spatial resolution, visible to shortwave...
Salinity changes the dynamics of pyrethroid toxicity in terms of behavioral effects on newly hatched delta smelt larvae
Amelie Segarra, Florian Mauduit, Nermeen Amer, Felix KJ Biefel, Michelle L. Hladik, Richard E Connon, Susanne M. Brander
2021, Toxics (9)
Salinity can interact with organic compounds and modulate their toxicity. Studies have shown that the fraction of pyrethroid insecticides in the aqueous phase increases with increasing salinity, potentially increasing the risk of exposure for aquatic organisms at higher salinities. In the San Francisco Bay Delta (SFBD) estuary,...
Petrology and geochronology of 1.48 to 1.45 Ga igneous rocks in the St. Francois Mountains terrane, southeast Missouri
Edward A. du Bray, John N. Aleinikoff, Warren C. Day, Leonid A. Neymark, Seth D. Burgess
2021, Professional Paper 1866
The igneous geology of the St. Francois Mountains terrane in southeast Missouri is dominated by the products of 1.48 to 1.45 billion year old volcanic and plutonic magmatism but also includes volumetrically minor, compositionally bimodal contributions added during plutonism between 1.34 and 1.27 billion years ago. The 1.48 to 1.45...
Glacier-related outburst floods
John J. Clague, Jim E. O'Connor
2021, Book chapter, Snow and ice-related hazards, risks, and disasters
Water bodies impounded by glaciers, moraines, and ice jams on rivers can drain suddenly, with disastrous downstream consequences. Lakes can form at the margins of an alpine glacier or ice cap, on its surface, or at its base. Smaller pockets of water may also be present within some glaciers....
Mangrove species’ response to sea-level rise across Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia
Kevin Buffington, Richard A. MacKenzie, Joel A. Carr, Maybeleen Apwong, Ken W. Krauss, Karen M. Thorne
2021, Open-File Report 2021-1002
Mangrove forests are likely vulnerable to accelerating sea-level rise; however, we lack the tools necessary to understand their future resilience. On the Pacific island of Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia, mangroves are habitat to endangered species and provide critical ecosystem services that support local communities. We developed a generalizable modeling...
Nesting, brood rearing, and summer habitat selection by translocated greater sage‐grouse in North Dakota, USA
Kade D. Lazenby, Peter S. Coates, Shawn T. O’Neil, Michel T. Kohl, David K. Dahlgren
2021, Ecology and Evolution (11) 2741-2760
Human enterprise has led to large‐scale changes in landscapes and altered wildlife population distribution and abundance, necessitating efficient and effective conservation strategies for impacted species. Greater sage‐grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus; hereafter sage‐grouse) are a widespread sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) obligate species that has experienced population declines since the mid‐1900s resulting from habitat loss...
Response study of a 51-story-tall Los Angeles, California building inferred from motions of the Mw7.1 July 5, 2019 Ridgecrest, California earthquake
Mehmet Celebi, Dan Swensen, Hamid Haddadi
2021, Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering (19) 1797-1814
A 51-story building in downtown Los Angeles that is equipped with a seismic monitoring accelerometric array recorded the Mw7.1 Ridgecrest, California earthquake of July 5, 2019. The building is a dual-core reinforced-concrete shear-wall and perimeter-column structure with ~ 80% of floors constructed as post-tensioned flat slabs, which makes it a trending design....
Re‐purposing groundwater flow models for age assessments: Important characteristics
Paul F. Juckem, J. Jeffrey Starn
2021, Groundwater (59) 710-727
Groundwater flow model construction is often time‐consuming and costly, with development ideally focused on a specific purpose, such as quantifying well capture from water bodies or providing flow fields for simulating advective transport. As environmental challenges evolve, the incentive to re‐purpose existing groundwater flow models may...
Determination of vadose zone and saturated zone nitrate lag times using long-term groundwater monitoring data and statistical machine learning
Martin J. Wells, Troy E. Gilmore, Natalie Nelson, Aaron Mittelstet, J.K. Bohlke
2021, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (25) 811-829
In this study, we explored the use of statistical machine learning and long-term groundwater nitrate monitoring data to estimate vadose zone and saturated zone lag times in an irrigated alluvial agricultural setting. Unlike most previous statistical machine learning studies that sought to predict groundwater nitrate concentrations within aquifers, the focus...
National-scale reservoir thermal energy storage pre-assessment for the United States
Jeff D. Pepin, Erick R. Burns, Jesse E. Dickinson, Leslie L. Duncan, Eve L. Kuniansky, Howard W. Reeves
2021, Conference Paper, Proceedings, 46th workshop on geothermal reservoir engineering
The U.S. Geological Survey is performing a pre-assessment of the cooling potential for reservoir thermal energy storage (RTES) in five generalized geologic regions (Basin and Range, Coastal Plains, Illinois Basin, Michigan Basin, Pacific Northwest) across the United States. Reservoir models are developed for the metropolitan areas of eight cities (Albuquerque,...
Towards an urgent yet deliberate conservation strategy: Sustaining social-ecological systems in rangelands of the Northern Great Plains, Montana
Katie Epstein, David J. A. Wood, Kelli Roemer, Bryce Currey, Hannah Duff, Justin D Gay, Hannah Goemann, Sasha Loewen, Megan C Milligan, John A F Wendt, E N Jack Brookshire, Bruce D. Maxwell, Lance B. McNew, Dave B McWethy, Paul C. Stoy, Julia Hobson Haggerty
2021, Ecology and Society (1)
Urgency and deliberateness are often at odds when executing conservation projects, especially as the scale and complexity of objectives increases. The pace of environmental degradation supports immediate and measurable action. However, best practices for adaptive governance and building resilient social-ecological systems call for more deliberate efforts and participatory processes,...
