Standard operating procedures for collection of soil and sediment samples for the Sediment-bound Contaminant Resiliency and Response (SCoRR) strategy pilot study
Shawn C. Fisher, Timothy J. Reilly, Daniel K. Jones, William Benzel, Dale W. Griffin, Keith A. Loftin, Luke R. Iwanowicz, Jonathan A. Cohl
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1188-B
An understanding of the effects on human and ecological health brought by major coastal storms or flooding events is typically limited because of a lack of regionally consistent baseline and trends data in locations proximal to potential contaminant sources and mitigation activities, sensitive ecosystems, and recreational facilities where exposures are...
Functional response of ungulate browsers in disturbed eastern hemlock forests
Stephen DeStefano
2015, Forest Ecology and Management (32) 177-183
Ungulate browsing in predator depleted North American landscapes is believed to be causing widespread tree recruitment failures. However, canopy disturbances and variations in ungulate densities are sources of heterogeneity that can buffer ecosystems against herbivory. Relatively little is known about the functional response (the rate of consumption in relation to...
Quantifying 10 years of improved earthquake-monitoring performance in the Caribbean region
Daniel E. McNamara, Christa Hillebrandt-Andrade, Jean-Marie Saurel, V. Huerfano-Moreno, Lloyd Lynch
2015, Seismological Research Letters (87)
Over 75 tsunamis have been documented in the Caribbean and adjacent regions during the past 500 years. Since 1500, at least 4484 people are reported to have perished in these killer waves. Hundreds of thousands are currently threatened along the Caribbean coastlines. Were a great tsunamigenic earthquake to occur in...
Mudpuppy (Necturus maculosus maculosus ) spatial distribution, breeding water depth, and use of artificial spawning habitat in the Detroit River
Jaquelyn M. Craig, David A. Mifsud, Andrew S. Briggs, James C. Boase, Gregory W. Kennedy
2015, Herpetological Conservation and Biology (10) 926-934
Mudpuppy (Necturus maculosus maculosus) populations have been declining in the Great Lakes region of North America. However, during fisheries assessments in the Detroit River, we documented Mudpuppy reproduction when we collected all life stages from egg through adult as by-catch in fisheries assessments. Ten years of fisheries sampling resulted in...
Qualitative assessment of selected areas of the world for undiscovered sediment-hosted stratabound copper deposits: Chapter Y in Global mineral resource assessment
Michael L. Zientek, Niki E. Wintzer, Timothy S. Hayes, Heather L. Parks, Deborah A. Briggs, J. Douglas Causey, Shyla A. Hatch, M. Christopher Jenkins, David J. Williams
Michael L. Zientek, Jane M. Hammarstrom, Kathleen M. Johnson, editor(s)
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2010-5090-Y
A qualitative mineral resource assessment of sediment-hosted stratabound copper mineralized areas for undiscovered copper deposits was performed for 10 selected areas of the world. The areas, in alphabetical order, are (1) Belt-Purcell Basin, United States and Canada; (2) Benguela and Cuanza Basins, Angola; (3) Chuxiong Basin, China; (4) Dongchuan Group...
Assessing local population vulnerability to wind energy development with branching process models: an application to wind energy development
Richard A. Erickson, Eric A. Eager, Jessica C. Stanton, Julie A. Beston, James E. Diffendorfer, Wayne E. Thogmartin
2015, Ecosphere (6)
Quantifying the impact of anthropogenic development on local populations is important for conservation biology and wildlife management. However, these local populations are often subject to demographic stochasticity because of their small population size. Traditional modeling efforts such as population projection matrices do not consider this source of variation whereas individual-based...
Sediment transport and evaluation of sediment surrogate ratings in the Kootenai River near Bonners Ferry, Idaho, Water Years 2011–14
Molly S. Wood, Ryan L. Fosness, Alexandra B. Etheridge
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5169
The Kootenai River white sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus) and other native fish species are culturally important to the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho, but their habitat and recruitment have been affected by anthropogenic changes to the river. Although the interconnections among anthropogenic changes and their impacts on fish are complex, the Kootenai...
Mapping geoelectric fields during magnetic storms: Synthetic analysis of empirical United States impedances
Paul A. Bedrosian, Jeffrey J. Love
2015, Geophysical Research Letters (42) 10160-10170
Empirical impedance tensors obtained from EarthScope magnetotelluric data at sites distributed across the midwestern United States are used to examine the feasibility of mapping magnetic storm induction of geoelectric fields. With these tensors, in order to isolate the effects of Earth conductivity structure, we perform a synthetic analysis—calculating geoelectric field...
The role of dynamic surface water-groundwater exchange on streambed denitrification in a first-order, low-relief agricultural watershed
Mina N. Rahimi Kazerooni, Hedeff I. Essaid, John T. Wilson
2015, Water Resources Research (51) 9514-9538
The role of temporally varying surface water-groundwater (SW-GW) exchange on nitrate removal by streambed denitrification was examined along a reach of Leary Weber Ditch (LWD), Indiana, a small, first-order, low-relief agricultural watershed within the Upper Mississippi River basin, using data collected in 2004 and 2005. Stream stage, GW heads (H),...
Shift in Global Tantalum Mine Production, 2000–2014
Donald I. Bleiwas, John F. Papp, Thomas R. Yager
2015, Fact Sheet 2015-3079
Introduction Tantalum has a unique set of properties that make it useful in a number of diverse applications. The ability of the metal to store and release electrical energy makes it ideally suited for use in certain types of capacitors that are widely used in modern electronics. Approximately 60 percent of...
A new method to generate a high-resolution global distribution map of lake chlorophyll
Michael J Sayers, Amanda G. Grimm, Robert A. Shuchman, Andrew M. Deines, David B. Bunnell, Zachary B Raymer, Mark W. Rogers, Whitney Woelmer, David Bennion, Colin N. Brooks, Matthew A. Whitley, David M. Warner, Justin G. Mychek-Londer
2015, International Journal of Remote Sensing (36) 1942-1964
A new method was developed, evaluated, and applied to generate a global dataset of growing-season chlorophyll-a (chl) concentrations in 2011 for freshwater lakes. Chl observations from freshwater lakes are valuable for estimating lake productivity as well as assessing the role that these lakes play in carbon budgets. The standard 4 km...
Status and trends of land change in the Midwest–South Central United States—1973 to 2000
Roger F. Auch, Krista A. Karstensen
Roger F. Auch, Krista A. Karstensen, editor(s)
2015, Professional Paper 1794-C
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Professional Paper 1794–C is the third in a four-volume series on the status and trends of the Nation’s land use and land cover, providing an assessment of the rates and causes of land-use and land-cover change in the Midwest–South Central United States between 1973 and 2000....
Acadia National Park climate change scenario planning workshop summary
Jonathan Star, Nicholas Fisichelli, Alexander Bryan, Amanda Babson, Rebecca Cole-Will, Abraham J. Miller-Rushing
2015, Conference Paper
This report summarizes outcomes from a two-day scenario planning workshop for Acadia National Park, Maine. The primary objective of the workshop was to help Acadia senior leadership make management and planning decisions based on up-to-date climate science and assessments of future uncertainty. The workshop was also designed as a training...
Indicators of climate impacts for forests: Recommendations for the U.S. National Climate Assessment Indicators system
Linda S. Heath, Sarah M. Anderson, Marla R. Emery, Jeffrey A. Hicke, Jeremy S. Littell, Alan Lucier, Jeffrey G. Masek, David L. Peterson, Richard Pouyat, Kevin M. Potter, Guy Robertson, Jinelle Sperry, A. Bytnerowicz, Sarah E. Jovan, Miranda H. Mockrin, Robert Musselman, Bethany K. Schulz, Robert J. Smith, Susan I. Stewart
2015, Report
The Third National Climate Assessment (NCA) process for the United States focused in part on developing a system of indicators to communicate key aspects of the physical climate, climate impacts, vulnerabilities, and preparedness to inform decisionmakers and the public. Initially, 13 active teams were formed to recommend indicators in...
A statistical learning framework for groundwater nitrate models of the Central Valley, California, USA
Bernard T. Nolan, Michael N. Fienen, David L. Lorenz
2015, Journal of Hydrology (531) 902-911
We used a statistical learning framework to evaluate the ability of three machine-learning methods to predict nitrate concentration in shallow groundwater of the Central Valley, California: boosted regression trees (BRT), artificial neural networks (ANN), and Bayesian networks (BN). Machine learning methods can learn complex patterns in the data but because...
Surprise and opportunity for learning in Grand Canyon: the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program
Theodore S. Melis, Carl Walters, Josh Korman
2015, Ecology and Society (20)
With a focus on resources of the Colorado River ecosystem below Glen Canyon Dam, the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program has included a variety of experimental policy tests, ranging from manipulation of water releases from the dam to removal of non-native fish within Grand Canyon National Park. None of...
Simulation of the effects of different inflows on hydrologic conditions in Lake Houston with a three-dimensional hydrodynamic model, Houston, Texas, 2009–10
Samuel H. Rendon, Michael T. Lee
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5153
Lake Houston, an important water resource for the Houston, Texas, area, receives inflows from seven major tributaries that compose the San Jacinto River Basin upstream from the reservoir. The effects of different inflows from the watersheds drained by these tributaries on the residence time of water in Lake Houston and...
Geologic Cross Section I–I′ Through the Appalachian Basin from the Eastern Margin of the Illinois Basin, Jefferson County, Kentucky, to the Valley and Ridge Province, Scott County, Virginia
Robert T. Ryder, Michael H. Trippi, Christopher S. Swezey
2015, Scientific Investigations Map 3343
Geologic cross section I‒I’ is the fourth in a series of cross sections constructed by the U.S. Geological Survey to document and improve understanding of the geologic framework and petroleum systems of the Appalachian basin. Cross section I‒I’ provides a regional view of the structural and stratigraphic framework of the...
Reviews and syntheses: Effects of permafrost thaw on Arctic aquatic ecosystems
J.E. Vonk, S.E. Tank, W.B. Bowden, I. Laurion, W.F. Vincent, P. Alekseychik, Y. Amyot, M.F. Billet, J. Canario, R.M. Cory, B.N. Deshpande, M. Helbig, M. Jammet, J. Karlsson, J. Larouche, G. MacMillan, Milla Rautio, K.M. Walter Anthony, Kimberly P. Wickland
2015, Biogeosciences (12) 7129-7167
The Arctic is a water-rich region, with freshwater systems covering about 16 % of the northern permafrost landscape. Permafrost thaw creates new freshwater ecosystems, while at the same time modifying the existing lakes, streams, and rivers that are impacted by thaw. Here, we describe the current state of knowledge...
The climate hazards infrared precipitation with stations—a new environmental record for monitoring extremes
Chris Funk, Pete Peterson, Martin Landsfeld, Diego Pedreros, James Verdin, Shraddhanand Shukla, Gregory Husak, James Rowland, Laura Harrison, Andrew Hoell, Joel Michaelsen
2015, Scientific Data (2)
The Climate Hazards group Infrared Precipitation with Stations (CHIRPS) dataset builds on previous approaches to ‘smart’ interpolation techniques and high resolution, long period of record precipitation estimates based on infrared Cold Cloud Duration (CCD) observations. The algorithm i) is built around a 0.05° climatology that incorporates satellite information to represent...
Occurrence and transport of selected constituents in streams near the Stibnite mining area, Central Idaho, 2012–14
Alexandra B. Etheridge
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5166
Mining of stibnite (antimony sulfide), tungsten, gold, silver, and mercury near the town of Stibnite in central Idaho has left a legacy of trace element contamination in local streams. Water-quality and streamflow monitoring data from a network of five streamflow-gaging stations were used to estimate trace-element and suspended-sediment loads and...
Hydrodynamic assessment data associated with the July 2010 line 6B spill into the Kalamazoo River, Michigan, 2012–14
Paul C. Reneau, David T. Soong, Christopher J. Hoard, Faith A. Fitzpatrick
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1205
Hydrodynamic-assessment data for the Kalamazoo River were collected by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) during 2012–14 to augment other hydrodynamic data-collection efforts by Enbridge Energy L.P. and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency associated with the 2010 Enbridge Line 6B oil spill. Specifically, the USGS data-collection efforts were focused on additional...
Occupancy estimation for rare species using a spatially-adaptive sampling design
Krishna Pacifici, Brian J. Reich, Robert Dorazio, Michael J. Conroy
2015, Methods in Ecology and Evolution (7) 285-293
Summary 1. Spatially clustered populations create unique challenges for conservation monitoring programmes. Advances in methodology typically are focused on either the design or the modelling stage of the study but do not involve integration of both. 2. We integrate adaptive cluster sampling and spatial occupancy modelling by developing two models to handle...
A hybrid model for mapping relative differences in belowground biomass and root: Shoot ratios using spectral reflectance, foliar N and plant biophysical data within coastal marsh
Jessica L. O'Connell, Kristin B. Byrd, Maggi Kelly
2015, Remote Sensing (12) 16480-16503
Broad-scale estimates of belowground biomass are needed to understand wetland resiliency and C and N cycling, but these estimates are difficult to obtain because root:shoot ratios vary considerably both within and between species. We used remotely-sensed estimates of two aboveground plant characteristics, aboveground biomass and % foliar N to explore...
Using a Bayesian network to predict barrier island geomorphologic characteristics
Benjamin T. Gutierrez, Nathaniel G. Plant, E. Robert Thieler, Aaron Turecek
2015, Journal of Geophysical Research (120) 2452-2475
Quantifying geomorphic variability of coastal environments is important for understanding and describing the vulnerability of coastal topography, infrastructure, and ecosystems to future storms and sea level rise. Here we use a Bayesian network (BN) to test the importance of multiple interactions between barrier island geomorphic variables. This approach models complex...
