The U.S. Geological Survey Bird Banding Laboratory: an integrated scientific program supporting research and conservation of North American birds
Gregory J. Smith
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1238
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Bird Banding Laboratory (BBL) was established in 1920 after ratification of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act with the United Kingdom in 1918. During World War II, the BBL was moved from Washington, D.C., to what is now the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center (PWRC). The...
Effects of stock use and backpackers on water quality in wilderness in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, USA
David W. Clow, Harrison Forrester, Benjamin Miller, Heidi Roop, James O. Sickman, Hodon Ryu, Jorge Santo Domingo
2013, Environmental Management (52) 1400-1414
During 2010-2011, a study was conducted in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks (SEKI) to evaluate the influence of pack animals (stock) and backpackers on water quality in wilderness lakes and streams. The study had three main components: (1) a synoptic survey of water quality in wilderness areas of...
Laboratory evaluation of the Level TROLL 100 manufactured by In-Situ Inc.: results of pressure and temperature tests
Mark V. Carnley, Janice M. Fulford, Myron H. Brooks
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1173
The Level TROLL 100 manufactured by In-Situ Inc. was evaluated by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Hydrologic Instrumentation Facility (HIF) for conformance to the manufacturer’s accuracy specifications for measuring pressure throughout the device’s operating temperature range. The Level TROLL 100 is a submersible, sealed, water-level sensing device with an operating...
Enhancements to the Mississippi Embayment Regional Aquifer Study (MERAS) groundwater-flow model and simulations of sustainable water-level scenarios
Brian R. Clark, Drew A. Westerman, D. Todd Fugitt
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5161
Arkansas continues to be one of the largest users of groundwater in the Nation. As such, long-term planning and management are essential to ensure continued availability of groundwater and surface water for years to come. The Mississippi Embayment Regional Aquifer Study (MERAS) model was developed previously as a tool to...
Use of multi-node wells in the Groundwater-Management Process of MODFLOW-2005 (GWM-2005)
David P. Ahlfeld, Paul M. Barlow
2013, Techniques and Methods 6-A47
Many groundwater wells are open to multiple aquifers or to multiple intervals within a single aquifer. These types of wells can be represented in numerical simulations of groundwater flow by use of the Multi-Node Well (MNW) Packages developed for the U.S. Geological Survey’s MODFLOW model. However, previous versions of the...
Characterization of water quality and biological communities, Fish Creek, Teton County, Wyoming, 2007-2011
Cheryl A. Eddy-Miller, David A. Peterson, Jerrod D. Wheeler, C. Scott Edmiston, Michelle L. Taylor, Daniel J. Leemon
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5117
Fish Creek, an approximately 25-kilometer-long tributary to Snake River, is located in Teton County in western Wyoming near the town of Wilson. Fish Creek is an important water body because it is used for irrigation, fishing, and recreation and adds scenic value to the Jackson Hole properties it runs through....
Estimation of sediment inflows to Lake Tuscaloosa, Alabama, 2009-11
K.G. Lee
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5152
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the City of Tuscaloosa, evaluated the concentrations, loads, and yields of suspended sediment in the tributaries to Lake Tuscaloosa in west-central Alabama, from October 1, 2008, to January 31, 2012. The collection and analysis of these data will facilitate the comparison with historical...
Geospatial compilation of historical water-level altitudes in the Chicot and Evangeline aquifers 1977-2013 and Jasper aquifer 2000-13 in the Gulf Coast aquifer system, Houston-Galveston Region, Texas
Michaela R. Johnson, Robert H.H. Ellis
2013, Data Series 793
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in cooperation with the Harris-Galveston Subsidence District, City of Houston, Fort Bend Subsidence District, Lone Star Groundwater Conservation District, and Brazoria County Groundwater Conservation District has produced a series of annual reports depicting groundwater-level altitudes in the Chicot, Evangeline, and Jasper aquifers of the Gulf...
Evaluating changes to reservoir rule curves using historical water-level data
Ethan Mower, Leandro E. Miranda
2013, International Journal of River Basin Management (11) 323-328
Flood control reservoirs are typically managed through rule curves (i.e. target water levels) which control the storage and release timing of flood waters. Changes to rule curves are often contemplated and requested by various user groups and management agencies with no information available about the actual flood risk of such...
Chemistry and age of groundwater in bedrock aquifers of the Piceance and Yellow Creek watersheds, Rio Blanco County, Colorado, 2010-12
P.B. McMahon, J.C. Thomas, A.G. Hunt
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5132
Fourteen monitoring wells completed in the Uinta and Green River Formations in the Piceance Creek and Yellow Creek watersheds in Rio Blanco County, Colorado, were sampled for chemical, isotopic, and groundwater-age tracers to provide information on the overall groundwater quality, the occurrence and distribution of chemicals that could be related...
Ranking contributing areas of salt and selenium in the Lower Gunnison River Basin, Colorado, using multiple linear regression models
Joshua I. Linard
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5075
Mitigating the effects of salt and selenium on water quality in the Grand Valley and lower Gunnison River Basin in western Colorado is a major concern for land managers. Previous modeling indicated means to improve the models by including more detailed geospatial data and a more rigorous method for developing...
Updating the planetary time scale: focus on Mars
Kenneth L. Tanaka, Cathy Quantin-Nataf
2013, Ciencias Da Terra
Formal stratigraphic systems have been developed for the surface materials of the Moon, Mars, Mercury, and the Galilean satellite Ganymede. These systems are based on geologic mapping, which establishes relative ages of surfaces delineated by superposition, morphology, impact crater densities, and other relations and features. Referent units selected from the...
SSR_pipeline: a bioinformatic infrastructure for identifying microsatellites from paired-end Illumina high-throughput DNA sequencing data
Mark P. Miller, Brian J. Knaus, Thomas D. Mullins, Susan M. Haig
2013, Journal of Heredity (104) 881-885
SSR_pipeline is a flexible set of programs designed to efficiently identify simple sequence repeats (e.g., microsatellites) from paired-end high-throughput Illumina DNA sequencing data. The program suite contains 3 analysis modules along with a fourth control module that can automate analyses of large volumes of data. The modules are used to...
A fluid-driven earthquake swarm on the margin of the Yellowstone caldera
David R. Shelly, David P. Hill, Frederick Massin, Jamie Farrell, Robert B. Smith, Taka'aki Taira
2013, Journal of Geophysical Research B: Solid Earth (118) 4872-4886
Over the past several decades, the Yellowstone caldera has experienced frequent earthquake swarms and repeated cycles of uplift and subsidence, reflecting dynamic volcanic and tectonic processes. Here, we examine the detailed spatial-temporal evolution of the 2010 Madison Plateau swarm, which occurred near the northwest boundary of the Yellowstone caldera. To...
Baseline monitoring of the western Arctic Ocean estimates 20% of the Canadian Basin surface waters are undersaturated with respect to aragonite
Lisa L. Robbins, Jonathan G. Wynn, John T. Lisle, Kimberly K. Yates, Paul O. Knorr, Robert H. Byrne, Xuewu Liu, Mark C. Patsavas, Kumiko Azetsu-Scott, Taro Takahashi
2013, PLoS ONE (8)
Marine surface waters are being acidified due to uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide, resulting in surface ocean areas of undersaturation with respect to carbonate minerals, including aragonite. In the Arctic Ocean, acidification is expected to occur at an accelerated rate with respect to the global oceans, but a paucity of...
Regional signatures of plant response to drought and elevated temperature across a desert ecosystem
Seth M. Munson, Esteban H. Muldavin, Jayne Belnap, Debra P.C. Peters, John P. Anderson, M. Hildegard Reiser, Kirsten Gallo, Alicia Melgoza-Castillo, Jeffrey E. Herrick, Tim A. Christiansen
2013, Ecology (94) 2030-2041
The performance of many desert plant species in North America may decline with the warmer and drier conditions predicted by climate change models, thereby accelerating land degradation and reducing ecosystem productivity. We paired repeat measurements of plant canopy cover with climate at multiple sites across the Chihuahuan Desert over the...
Characterizing regional soil mineral composition using spectroscopyand geostatistics
V.L. Mulder, S. de Bruin, J. Weyermann, Raymond F. Kokaly, M.E. Schaepman
2013, Remote Sensing of Environment (139) 415-429
This work aims at improving the mapping of major mineral variability at regional scale using scale-dependent spatial variability observed in remote sensing data. Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) data and statistical methods were combined with laboratory-based mineral characterization of field samples to create maps of the distributions...
Recent (circa 1998 to 2011) channel-migration rates of selected streams in Indiana
Bret A. Robinson
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5168
An investigation was completed to document recent (circa 1998 to 2011) channel-migration rates at 970 meander bends along 38 of the largest streams in Indiana. Data collection was completed by using the Google Earth™ platform and, for each selected site, identifying two images with capture dates separated by multiple years....
Quality of groundwater and surface water, Wood River Valley, south-central Idaho, July and August 2012
Candice B. Hopkins, James R. Bartolino
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5163
Residents and resource managers of the Wood River Valley of south-central Idaho are concerned about the effects that population growth might have on the quality of groundwater and surface water. As part of a multi-phase assessment of the groundwater resources in the study area, the U.S. Geological Survey evaluated the...
Geohydrology, geochemistry, and groundwater simulation (1992-2011) and analysis of potential water-supply management options, 2010-60, of the Langford Basin, California
Lois M. Voronin, Jill N. Densmore, Peter Martin, Charles F. Brush, Carl S. Carlson, David M. Miller
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5101
Groundwater withdrawals began in 1992 from the Langford Basin within the Fort Irwin National Training Center (NTC), California. From April 1992 to December 2010, approximately 12,300 acre-feet of water (averaging about 650 acre-feet per year) has been withdrawn from the basin and transported to the adjacent Irwin Basin. Since withdrawals...
Suspended-sediment loads and reservoir sediment trap efficiency for Clinton Lake, Kansas, 2010-12
Kyle E. Juracek
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5153
Continuous streamflow and turbidity data collected from October 1, 2010, to September 30, 2012, at a site upstream and downstream from Clinton Lake, Kansas, were used to compute the total suspended-sediment load delivered to and released from the reservoir as well as the sediment trap efficiency for the reservoir. Ongoing...
Report of geomagnetic pulsation indices for space weather applications
Z. Xu, Jennifer L. Gannon, Erin J. Rigler
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1166
The phenomenon of ultra-low frequency geomagnetic pulsations was first observed in the ground-based measurements of the 1859 Carrington Event and has been studied for over 100 years. Pulsation frequency is considered to be “ultra” low when it is lower than the natural frequencies of the plasma, such as the ion...
Bedrock geology and outcrop fracture trends in the vicinity of the Savage Municipal Well Superfund site, Milford, New Hampshire
William C. Burton, Philip T. Harte
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1224
The Savage Municipal Well Superfund site consists of an eastward-directed plume of volatile organic compounds, principally tetrachloroethylene (PCE), in alluvium and glacial sand and gravel in the Souhegan River valley, just south of the river and about 4 kilometers west of the town of Milford, New Hampshire. Sampling of monitoring...
Biological and geochemical data of gravity cores from Mobile Bay, Alabama
Kathryn A. Richwine, Marci Marot, Christopher G. Smith, Lisa E. Osterman, C. Scott Adams
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1240
A study was conducted to understand the marine-influenced environments of Mobile Bay, Alabama, by collecting a series of box cores and gravity cores. One gravity core in particular demonstrates a long reference for changing paleoenvironmental parameters in Mobile Bay. Due to lack of abundance of foraminifers and (or) lack of...
The 3D Elevation Program: summary for Minnesota
William J. Carswell Jr.
2013, Fact Sheet 2013-3051
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 Minnesota, elevation data are critical for agriculture and precision farming, natural resources conservation, flood risk management, infrastructure and construction management, water supply...
