Flood-inundation maps for the White River at Indianapolis, Indiana, 2014
Elizabeth A. Nystrom
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5051
Digital flood-inundation maps for a 6.4-mile reach of the White River in Indianapolis, Indiana, from 0.3 miles upstream of Michigan Street to the Harding Street Generating Station dam (at the confluence with Lick Creek), were created by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in cooperation with the Indiana Office of Community...
Scientific information in support of water resource management of the Big River area, Rhode Island
David S. Armstrong, John P. Masterson, Keith W. Robinson, Kathleen M. Crawley
2015, Fact Sheet 2015-3035
The Rhode Island Water Resources Board (RIWRB) is concerned that the demand for water may exceed the available public water supply in central and southern Rhode Island. Although water is often assumed to be plentiful in Rhode Island because of abundant rainfall, an adequate supply of water is not always...
Gravity data from the Sierra Vista Subwatershed, Upper San Pedro Basin, Arizona
Jeffrey R. Kennedy
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1086
Observations of very small changes of Earth’s gravitational field (time-lapse gravity) provide a direct, non-invasive method for measuring changes in aquifer storage change. An existing network of gravity stations in the Sierra Vista Subwatershed was revised in 2014 to better understand the spatial distribution of changes in aquifer storage, especially...
The natural sediment regime in rivers: broadening the foundation for ecosystem management
Ellen E. Wohl, Brian P. Bledsoe, Robert B. Jacobson, N. LeRoy Poff, Sara L. Rathburn, David M. Walters, Andrew C. Wilcox
2015, BioScience (65) 358-371
Water and sediment inputs are fundamental drivers of river ecosystems, but river management tends to emphasize flow regime at the expense of sediment regime. In an effort to frame a more inclusive paradigm for river management, we discuss sediment inputs, transport, and storage within river systems; interactions among water, sediment,...
Indian National Gas Hydrate Program Expedition 01 report
Timothy S. Collett, M. Riedel, R. Boswell, J. Presley, P. Kumar, A. Sathe, A. Sethi, M.V. Lall, NGHP Expedition Scientists
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5054
Gas hydrate is a naturally occurring “ice-like” combination of natural gas and water that has the potential to serve as an immense resource of natural gas from the world’s oceans and polar regions. However, gas-hydrate recovery is both a scientific and a technical challenge and much remains to be learned...
Temporal and basin-specific population trends of quagga mussels on soft sediment of a multi-basin reservoir
Timothy J Caldwell, Michael R. Rosen, Sudeep Chandra, Kumud Acharya, Andrea M Caires, Clinton J. Davis, Melissa Thaw, Daniel M. Webster
2015, Book chapter, Biology and management of invasive Quagga and Zebra Mussels in the western United States
Invasive quagga (Dreissena bugnesis) and zebra (Dreissena ploymorpha) mussels have rapidly spread throughout North America. Understanding the relationships between environmental variables and quagga mussels during the early stages of invasion will help management strategies and allow researchers to predict patterns of future invasions. Quagga mussels were detected in Lake Mead,...
Peak flow regression equations For small, ungaged streams in Maine: Comparing map-based to field-based variables
Pamela J. Lombard, Glenn A. Hodgkins
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5049
Regression equations to estimate peak streamflows with 1- to 500-year recurrence intervals (annual exceedance probabilities from 99 to 0.2 percent, respectively) were developed for small, ungaged streams in Maine. Equations presented here are the best available equations for estimating peak flows at ungaged basins in Maine with drainage areas from...
Summary of oceanographic and water-quality measurements in Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge, Wells, Maine, in 2013
Ellyn T. Montgomery, Neil K. Ganju, Patrick J. Dickhudt, Jonathan Borden, Marinna A. Martini, Sandra M. Brosnahan
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1072
Suspended-sediment transport is a critical element controlling the geomorphology of tidal wetland complexes. Wetlands rely on organic material and inorganic sediment deposition to maintain their elevation relative to sea level. The U.S. Geological Survey performed observational deployments to measure suspended-sediment concentration and water flow rates in the tidal channels of...
Coupled interactions between volatile activity and Fe oxidation state during arc crustal processes
Madeleine C.S. Humphreys, R Brooker, D.C. Fraser, A Burgisser, Margaret T. Mangan, C McCammon
2015, Journal of Petrology 1-20
Arc magmas erupted at the Earth’s surface are commonly more oxidized than those produced at mid-ocean ridges. Possible explanations for this high oxidation state are that the transfer of fluids during the subduction process results in direct oxidation of the sub-arc mantle wedge, or that oxidation is caused by the...
A pheromone outweighs temperature in influencing migration of sea lamprey
Cory O. Brant, Ke Li, Nicholas S. Johnson, Weiming Li
2015, Royal Society Open Science (2) 1-7
Organisms continuously acquire and process information from surrounding cues. While some cues complement one another in delivering more reliable information, others may provide conflicting information. How organisms extract and use reliable information from a multitude of cues is largely unknown. We examined movement decisions of sea lampreys (Petromyzon marinus L.) exposed...
Geospatial compilation and digital map of centerpivot irrigated areas in the mid-Atlantic region, United States
Jason S. Finkelstein, Mark R. Nardi
2015, Data Series 932
To evaluate water availability within the Northern Atlantic Coastal Plain, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the University of Delaware Agricultural Extension, created a dataset that maps the number of acres under center-pivot irrigation in the Northern Atlantic Coastal Plain study area. For this study, the extent of the...
Water quality of the Little Arkansas River and Equus Beds Aquifer before and concurrent with large-scale artificial recharge, south-central Kansas, 1995-2012
Daniel J. Tappa, Jennifer L. Lanning-Rush, Brian J. Klager, Cristi V. Hansen, Andrew C. Ziegler
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5023
The city of Wichita artificially recharged about 1 billion gallons of water into the Equus Beds aquifer during 2007–2012 as part of Phase I recharge of the Artificial Storage and Recovery project. This report, prepared in cooperation by the U.S. Geological Survey and the city of Wichita, Kansas, summarizes Little Arkansas River...
Water quality of the Little Arkansas River and Equus Beds Aquifer before and concurrent with large-scale artificial recharge, south-central Kansas, 1995-2012
Daniel J. Tappa, Jennifer L. Lanning-Rush, Andrew C. Ziegler
2015, Fact Sheet 2015-3010
This fact sheet describes baseline water quality of the Equus Beds aquifer and Little Arkansas River and water-quality effects of artificial recharge by the city of Wichita associated with Phase I (2007–present) of the Aquifer Storage and Recovery project. During 1995 through 2012, more than 8,800 surface water and groundwater water-quality samples...
Hydrology of the middle San Pedro area, southeastern Arizona
Jeffrey T. Cordova, Jesse E. Dickinson, Kimberly R. Beisner, Candice B. Hopkins, Jeffrey R. Kennedy, Donald R. Pool, Edward P. Glenn, Pamela L. Nagler, Blakemore E. Thomas
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5040
In the middle San Pedro Watershed in southeastern Arizona, groundwater is the primary source of water supply for municipal, domestic, industrial, and agricultural use. The watershed comprises two smaller subareas, the Benson subarea and the Narrows-Redington subarea. Early 21st century projections for heavy population growth in the watershed have not...
Quantification of shoreline change along Hatteras Island, North Carolina: Oregon Inlet to Cape Hatteras, 1978-2002, and associated vector shoreline data
Cheryl J. Hapke, Rachel E. Henderson
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1002
Shoreline change spanning twenty-four years was assessed along the coastline of Cape Hatteras National Seashore, at Hatteras Island, North Carolina. The shorelines used in the analysis were generated from georeferenced historical aerial imagery and are used to develop shoreline change rates for Hatteras Island, from Oregon Inlet to Cape Hatteras....
Wind River subbasin restoration: Annual report of U.S. Geological Survey activities January 2014 through December 2014
Ian G. Jezorek, Patrick J. Connolly
2015, Report
Executive Summary The Wind River subbasin in southwest Washington State provides habitat for a population of wild Lower Columbia River steelhead Oncorhynchus mykiss, which are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. No hatchery steelhead have been planted in the Wind River subbasin since 1994, and hatchery adults are estimated...
Storm tide monitoring during the blizzard of January 26-28, 2015, in eastern Massachusetts
Andrew J. Massey, Richard J. Verdi
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1081
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) deployed a temporary monitoring network of six storm surge sensors and four barometric pressure sensors along the Atlantic coast in eastern Massachusetts, from Plymouth to Newburyport, before the blizzard of January 26–28, 2015 (Blizzard of January 2015), to record the timing and magnitude of storm...
Temporal patterns in adult salmon migration timing across southeast Alaska
Ryan P. Kovach, Stephen Ellison, Sanjay Pyare, David Tallmon
2015, Global Change Biology (21) 1821-1833
Pacific salmon migration timing can drive population productivity, ecosystem dynamics, and human harvest. Nevertheless, little is known about long-term variation in salmon migration timing for multiple species across broad regions. We used long-term data for five Pacific salmon species throughout rapidly warming southeast Alaska to describe long-term changes in salmon...
AMDTreat 5.0+ with PHREEQC titration module to compute caustic chemical quantity, effluent quality, and sludge volume
Charles A. Cravotta III, Brent P Means, Willam Arthur, Robert M McKenzie, David L. Parkhurst
2015, Mine Water and the Environment (34) 136-152
Alkaline chemicals are commonly added to discharges from coal mines to increase pH and decrease concentrations of acidity and dissolved aluminum, iron, manganese, and associated metals. The annual cost of chemical treatment depends on the type and quantities of chemicals added and sludge produced. The AMDTreat computer program, initially developed...
Experimental dosing of wetlands with coagulants removes mercury from surface water and decreases mercury bioaccumulation in fish
Joshua T. Ackerman, Tamara E.C. Kraus, Jacob A. Fleck, David P. Krabbenhoft, William R. Horwarth, Sandra M. Bachand, Mark P. Herzog, C. Alex Hartman, Philip Bachand
2015, Environmental Science & Technology (49) 6304-6311
Mercury pollution is widespread globally, and strategies for managing mercury contamination in aquatic environments are necessary. We tested whether coagulation with metal-based salts could remove mercury from wetland surface waters and decrease mercury bioaccumulation in fish. In a complete randomized block design, we constructed nine experimental wetlands in California’s Sacramento–San...
Inter-laboratory variation in the chemical analysis of acidic forest soil reference samples from eastern North America
Donald S. Ross, Scott W Bailiey, Russell D Briggs, Johanna Curry, Ivan J. Fernandez, Guinevere Fredriksen, Christine L. Goodale, Paul W. Hazlett, Paul R Heine, Chris E. Johnson, John T Larson, Gregory B. Lawrence, Randy K Kolka, Ouimet, D Pare, Daniel D. Richter, Charles D Shirmer, Richard A.F. Warby
2015, Ecosphere (6) 1-22
Long-term forest soil monitoring and research often requires a comparison of laboratory data generated at different times and in different laboratories. Quantifying the uncertainty associated with these analyses is necessary to assess temporal changes in soil properties. Forest soil chemical properties, and methods to measure these properties, often differ from...
Dam-breach analysis and flood-inundation mapping for selected dams in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and near Atoka, Oklahoma
Molly J. Shivers, S. Jerrod Smith, Trevor S. Grout, Jason M. Lewis
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5052
Dams provide beneficial functions such as flood control, recreation, and storage of water supplies, but they also entail risk; dam breaches and resultant floods can cause substantial property damage and loss of life. The State of Oklahoma requires each owner of a high-hazard dam, which the Federal Emergency Management Agency...
First record of a banded Sandwich Tern (Thalasseus sandvicensis) moving from England to the United States
Jeffrey A. Spendelow
2015, Waterbirds (38) 425-426
A Sandwich Tern (Thalasseus sandvicensis sandvicensis) banded as a chick in 2002 at Coquet Island off the northeast coast of Great Britain was observed at two locations on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, USA, in August and September 2013. This is the first record of a banded Sandwich Tern from the United...
Comparison of three preservation techniques for slowing dissolution of calcareous nannofossils in organic rich sediments
Ellen Seefelt, Jean Self-Trail, Arthur P. Schultz
2015, Micropaleontology (61) 149-164
In an attempt to halt or reduce dissolution of calcareous nannofossils in organic and/or pyrite-rich sediments, three different methods of short-term storage preservation were tested for efficacy: vacuum packing, argon gas replacement, and buffered water. Abundance counts of calcareous nannofossil assemblages over a six month period showed that none of...
Structure, diversity, and biophysical properties of old-growth forestsin the Klamath region, USA
Phillip J. van Mantgem, Daniel A Starr
2015, Northwest Science (89) 170-181
The diverse old-growth forests in Klamath region of northern California and southern Oregon provide valuable ecosystem services (e.g., maintaining watersheds, wildlife habitat, recreation), but may be vulnerable to a wide range of stressors, including invasive species, disrupted disturbance regimes, and climatic change. Yet our understanding of how forest structure in...
