Earthquake intensity distributions: a new view
Susan E. Hough
2014, Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering (12) 135-155
Pioneering work by Nicolas Ambraseys and many collaborators demonstrates both the tremendous value of macroseismic data and the perils of its uncritical assessment. In numerous publications he shows that neglect of original sources and/or failure to appreciate the context of historical accounts, as well as use of unreliable indicators such as landslid- ing to...
Simulation of groundwater flow in the Edwards-Trinity and related aquifers in the Pecos County region, Texas
Brian R. Clark, Johnathan R. Bumgarner, Natalie A. Houston, Adam L. Foster
2014, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5228
The Edwards-Trinity aquifer is a vital groundwater resource for agricultural, industrial, and public supply uses in the Pecos County region of western Texas. The U.S. Geological Survey completed a comprehensive, integrated analysis of available hydrogeologic data to develop a numerical groundwater-flow model of the Edwards-Trinity and related aquifers in the...
Nocturnal field use by fall migrating American woodcock in the Delta of Arkansas
David G. Krementz, Richard Crossett II, Sarah E. Lehnen
2014, Journal of Wildlife Management (78) 264-272
The American woodcock (Scolopax minor) population has declined since the late 1960s across its range and is now considered a species of special concern. Research on woodcock habitat use during migration and migratory routes through the Central Flyway has been limited. We assessed woodcock phenology, estimated density, and nocturnal habitat...
Reconstruction of historic sea ice conditions in a sub-Arctic lagoon
Chris Petrich, Adrienne C. Tivy, David H. Ward
2014, Cold Regions Science and Technology (98) 55-62
Historical sea ice conditions were reconstructed for Izembek Lagoon, Bering Sea, Alaska. This lagoon is a crucial staging area during migration for numerous species of avian migrants and a major eelgrass (Zostera marina) area important to a variety of marine and terrestrial organisms, especially Pacific Flyway black brant geese (Branta...
A radiogenic isotope tracer study of transatlantic dust transport from Africa to the Caribbean
A. Kumar, W. Abouchami, S.J.G. Galer, V.H. Garrison, E. Williams, M.O. Andreae
2014, Atmospheric Environment (82) 130-143
Many studies have suggested that long-range transport of African desert dusts across the Atlantic Ocean occurs, delivering key nutrients and contributing to fertilization of the Amazon rainforest. Here we utilize radiogenic isotope tracers – Sr, Nd and Pb – to derive the provenance, local or remote, and pathways of dust...
Regional distribution models with lack of proximate predictors: Africanized honeybees expanding north
Catherine S. Jarnevich, Wayne E. Esaias, Peter L.A. Ma, Jeffery T. Morisette, Jaime E. Nickeson, Thomas J. Stohlgren, Tracy R. Holcombe, Joanne M. Nightingale, Robert E. Wolfe, Bin Tan
2014, Diversity and Distributions (20) 193-201
Species distribution models have often been hampered by poor local species data, reliance on coarse-scale climate predictors and the assumption that species–environment relationships, even with non-proximate predictors, are consistent across geographical space. Yet locally accurate maps of invasive species, such as the Africanized honeybee (AHB) in North America, are needed...
Increased flexibility for modeling telemetry and nest-survival data using the multistate framework
Olivier Devineau, William L. Kendall, Paul F. Doherty Jr., Tanya M. Shenk, Gary C. White, Paul M. Lukacs, Kenneth P. Burnham
2014, Journal of Wildlife Management (78) 224-230
Although telemetry is one of the most common tools used in the study of wildlife, advances in the analysis of telemetry data have lagged compared to progress in the development of telemetry devices. We demonstrate how standard known-fate telemetry and related nest-survival data analysis models are special cases of the...
Africa-wide monitoring of small surface water bodies using multisource satellite data: A monitoring system for FEWS NET
Naga Manohar Velpuri, Gabriel B. Senay, James Rowland, James P. Verdin, Henok Alemu
Assefa M. Melesse, Wossenu Abtew, Shimelis G. Setegn, editor(s)
2014, Book chapter, Nile River Basin
Continental Africa has the highest volume of water stored in wetlands, large lakes, reservoirs, and rivers, yet it suffers from problems such as water availability and access. With climate change intensifying the hydrologic cycle and altering the distribution and frequency of rainfall, the problem of water availability and access will...
Cross-scale interactions: Quantifying multi-scaled cause–effect relationships in macrosystems
Patricia A. Soranno, Kendra S. Cheruvelil, Edward G. Bissell, Mary T. Bremigan, John A. Downing, Carol E. Fergus, Christopher T. Filstrup, Emily N. Henry, Noah R. Lottig, Emily H. Stanley, Craig A. Stow, Pang-Ning Tan, Tyler Wagner, Katherine E. Webster
2014, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment (12) 65-73
Ecologists are increasingly discovering that ecological processes are made up of components that are multi-scaled in space and time. Some of the most complex of these processes are cross-scale interactions (CSIs), which occur when components interact across scales. When undetected, such interactions may cause errors in extrapolation from one region...
Evaluation of wastewater contaminant transport in surface waters using verified Lagrangian sampling
Ronald C. Antweiler, Jeffrey H. Writer, Sheila F. Murphy
2014, Science of the Total Environment (470-471) 551-558
Contaminants released from wastewater treatment plants can persist in surface waters for substantial distances. Much research has gone into evaluating the fate and transport of these contaminants, but this work has often assumed constant flow from wastewater treatment plants. However, effluent discharge commonly varies widely over a 24-hour period, and...
Compilation of hydrologic data for White Sands pupfish habitat and nonhabitat areas, northern Tularosa Basin, White Sands Missile Range and Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, 1911-2008
C. A. Naus, R. G. Myers, D. K. Saleh, N. C. Myers
2014, Data Series 810
The White Sands pupfish (Cyprinodon tularosa), listed as threatened by the State of New Mexico and as a Federal species of concern, is endemic to the Tularosa Basin, New Mexico. Because water quality can affect pupfish and the environmental conditions of their habitat, a comprehensive compilation of hydrologic data for...
Flood-tracking chart for the Withlacoochee and Little River Basins in south-central Georgia and northern Florida
Anthony J. Gotvald, Brian E. McCallum, Jaime A. Painter
2014, General Information Product 155
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with other Federal, State, and local agencies, operates a flood-monitoring system in the Withlacoochee and Little River Basins. This system is a network of automated river stage stations (ten are shown on page 2 of this publication) that transmit stage data through satellite...
Methow and Columbia Rivers studies: summary of data collection, comparison of database structure and habitat protocols, and impact of additional PIT tag interrogation systems to survival estimates, 2008-2012
Kyle D. Martens, Wesley T. Tibbits, Grace A. Watson, Michael A. Newsom, Patrick J. Connolly
2014, Open-File Report 2014-1016
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) received funding from the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) to provide monitoring and evaluation on the effectiveness of stream restoration efforts by Reclamation in the Methow River watershed. This monitoring and evaluation program is designed to partially fulfill Reclamation’s part of the 2008 Biological Opinion for...
Nutrient load summaries for major lakes and estuaries of the Eastern United States, 2002
Michelle C. Moorman, Anne B. Hoos, Suzanne B. Bricker, Richard B. Moore, Ana María García, Scott W. Ator
2014, Data Series 820
Nutrient enrichment of lakes and estuaries across the Nation is widespread. Nutrient enrichment can stimulate excessive plant and algal growth and cause a number of undesirable effects that impair aquatic life and recreational activities and can also result in economic effects. Understanding the amount of nutrients entering lakes and estuaries,...
Benthic-invertebrate, fish-community, and streambed-sediment-chemistry data for streams in the Indianapolis metropolitan area, Indiana, 2009–2012
David C. Voelker
2014, Data Series 819
Aquatic-biology and sediment-chemistry data were collected at seven sites on the White River and at six tributary sites in the Indianapolis metropolitan area of Indiana during the period 2009 through 2012. Data collected included benthic-invertebrate and fish-community information and concentrations of metals, insecticides, herbicides, and semivolatile organic compounds adsorbed to...
A Great Lakes atmospheric mercury monitoring network: evaluation and design
Martin R. Risch, Donna M. Kenski, Gay, A. David
2014, Atmospheric Environment (85) 109-122
As many as 51 mercury (Hg) wet-deposition-monitoring sites from 4 networks were operated in 8 USA states and Ontario, Canada in the North American Great Lakes Region from 1996 to 2010. By 2013, 20 of those sites were no longer in operation and approximately half the geographic area of the...
Assessing streamflow sensitivity to variations in glacier mass balance
Shad O’Neel, Eran Hood, Anthony Arendt, Louis C. Sass
2014, Climatic Change (123) 329-341
The mountains ringing the Gulf of Alaska (GOA) receive upwards of 4–8 m yr−1 of precipitation (Simpson et al.2005; Weingartner et al. 2005; O’Neel 2012), much of which runs off into productive coastal waters. The alpine landscape is heavily glacierized, and storage and turnover of water by glaciers substantially influences...
Slip rate and tremor genesis in Cascadia
Aaron G. Wech, Noel M. Bartlow
2014, Geophysical Research Letters (41) 392-398
At many plate boundaries, conditions in the transition zone between seismogenic and stable slip produce slow earthquakes. In the Cascadia subduction zone, these events are consistently observed as slow, aseismic slip on the plate interface accompanied by persistent tectonic tremor. However, not all slow slip at other plate boundaries coincides...
Dynamics of submarine groundwater discharge and associated fluxes of dissolved nutrients, carbon, and trace gases to the coastal zone (Okatee River estuary, South Carolina)
W.P. Porubsky, N.B. Weston, W.S. Moore, C. Ruppel, S.B. Joye
2014, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (131) 81-97
Multiple techniques, including thermal infrared aerial remote sensing, geophysical and geological data, geochemical characterization and radium isotopes, were used to evaluate the role of groundwater as a source of dissolved nutrients, carbon, and trace gases to the Okatee River estuary, South Carolina. Thermal infrared aerial remote sensing surveys illustrated the...
Undersampling power-law size distributions: effect on the assessment of extreme natural hazards
Eric L. Geist, Thomas E. Parsons
2014, Natural Hazards (72) 565-595
The effect of undersampling on estimating the size of extreme natural hazards from historical data is examined. Tests using synthetic catalogs indicate that the tail of an empirical size distribution sampled from a pure Pareto probability distribution can range from having one-to-several unusually large events to appearing depleted, relative to...
National requirements for improved elevation data
Gregory I. Snyder, Larry J. Sugarbaker, Allyson L. Jason, David F. Maune
2014, Open-File Report 2013-1237
This report presents the results of surveys, structured interviews, and workshops conducted to identify key national requirements for improved elevation data for the United States and its territories, including coastlines. Organizations also identified and reported the expected economic benefits that would be realized if their requirements for improved elevation were...
Trends in major-ion constituents and properties for selected sampling sites in the Tongue and Powder River watersheds, Montana and Wyoming, based on data collected during water years 1980-2010
Steven K. Sando, Aldo V. Vecchia, Elliott P. Barnhart, Roy Sando, Melanie L. Clark, David L. Lorenz
2014, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5179
The primary purpose of this report is to present information relating to flow-adjusted temporal trends in major-ion constituents and properties for 16 sampling sites in the Tongue and Powder River watersheds based on data collected during 1980–2010. In association with this primary purpose, the report presents background information on major-ion...
Simulated and observed 2010 flood-water elevations in selected river reaches in the Moshassuck and Woonasquatucket River Basins, Rhode Island
Phillip J. Zarriello, David E. Straub, Stephen M. Westenbroek
2014, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5191
Heavy persistent rains from late February through March 2010 caused severe flooding and set, or nearly set, peaks of record for streamflows and water levels at many long-term U.S. Geological Survey streamgages in Rhode Island. In response to this flood, hydraulic models were updated for selected reaches covering about 33...
Simulated and observed 2010 floodwater elevations in the Pawcatuck and Wood Rivers, Rhode Island
Phillip J. Zarriello, David E. Straub, Thor E. Smith
2014, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5193
Heavy, persistent rains from late February through March 2010 caused severe flooding that set, or nearly set, peaks of record for streamflows and water levels at many long-term U.S. Geological Survey streamgages in Rhode Island. In response to this flood, hydraulic models of Pawcatuck River (26.9 miles) and Wood River...
Simulated and observed 2010 floodwater elevations in selected river reaches in the Pawtuxet River Basin, Rhode Island
Phillip J. Zarriello, Scott A. Olson, Robert H. Flynn, Kellan R. Strauch, Elizabeth A. Murphy
2014, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5192
Heavy, persistent rains from late February through March 2010 caused severe flooding that set, or nearly set, peaks of record for streamflows and water levels at many long-term streamgages in Rhode Island. In response to this event, hydraulic models were updated for selected reaches covering about 56 river miles in...
