Purpose and benefits of U.S. Geological Survey Trusted Digital Repositories
Natalie Latysh, Keith G. Kirk, John Faundeen
2020, Fact Sheet 2020-3032
Federal mandates and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS, also known as the Bureau) Fundamental Science Practices (FSP) policies require that publicly funded scientific data, publications, and derivative works be openly accessible to researchers and the public. Open access helps to leverage the public investment by making the acquired data and published...
Quantifying the contribution of habitats and pathways to a spatially structured population facing environmental change
Christine Sample, Joanna A. Bieri, Benjamin L. Allen, Yulia Dementieva, Alyssa Carson, Connor Higgins, Sadie Piatt, Shirley Qiu, Summer Stafford, Brady J. Mattsson, Darius J. Semmens, James E. Diffendorfer, Wayne E. Thogmartin
2020, American Naturalist (196) 157-168
The consequences of environmental disturbance and management are difficult to quantify for spatially structured populations because changes in one location carry through to other areas as a result of species movement. We develop a metric, G, for measuring the contribution of a habitat or pathway to network-wide population...
Geochronologic and Hf-isotope framework of Proterozoic rocks from central New Mexico, USA: Formation of the Mazatzal crustal province in an extended continental margin arc
Mark E. Holland, Tyler A. Grambling, Karl E. Karlstrom, James V. Jones III, Kimberly N. Nagotko, Christopher G. Daniel
2020, Precambrian Research (347)
The growth of southern Laurentia has been attributed to the accretion of juvenile arc terranes during the successive 1.74-1.68 Ga Yavapai and 1.65-1.60 Ga Mazatzal orogenies. However, in light of the increasing importance of the ca. 1.49-1.40 Ga Mesoproterozoic Picuris orogeny, the tectonic setting in which the Mazatzal crustal province...
Potential for recreational restrictions to reduce grizzly bear–caused human injuries
Kerry A. Gunther, Mark A. Haroldson
2020, Ursus (2020)
In 2011, 2 hikers were killed by grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) in separate incidents on backcountry trails in Hayden Valley, Yellowstone National Park, USA (YNP). Hayden Valley provides prime habitat for grizzly bears and is known to have high densities of bears. During 1970–2017, 23% (10 of 44) of all...
Land use effects on sediment nutrient processes in a heavily modified watershed using structural equation models
Rebecca M. Kreiling, Martin C. Thoms, Lynn A. Bartsch, James H. Larson, Victoria Christensen
2020, Water Resources Research (56)
Contemporary land use can affect sediment nutrient processes in rivers draining heavily modified watersheds; however, studies linking land use to sediment nutrient processes in large river networks are limited. In this study, we developed and evaluated structural equation models (SE models) for denitrification and phosphorus retention capacity to determine direct...
A non-linear relationship between marsh size and sediment trapping capacity compromises salt marshes’ resilience to sea-level rise
Carmine Donatelli, Xiaohe Zhang, Neil K. Ganju, Alfredo Aretxabaleta, Sergio Fagherazzi, Nicoletta Leonardi
2020, Geology (48) 966-970
Global assessments predict the impact of sea-level rise on salt marshes with present-day levels of sediment supply from rivers and the coastal ocean. However, these assessments do not consider that variations in marsh extent and the related reconfiguration of intertidal area affect local sediment dynamics, ultimately...
Submarine landslide kinematics derived from high-resolution imaging in Port Valdez, Alaska
Emily Roland, Peter J. Haeussler, Thomas E. Parsons, Patrick E. Hart
2020, Journal of Geophysical Research - Solid Earth (125)
Submarine landslides caused by strong ground shaking during the M9.2 1964 Great Alaska earthquake generated a tsunami that destroyed much of the old town of Valdez, Alaska, and was responsible for 32 deaths at that location. We explore structural details of the 1964 landslide deposit, as well...
First recorded observations of conspecific egg and nestling consumption in common ravens (Corvus corax)
Joseph Atkinson, Peter S. Coates, Brianne E. Brussee, David J. Delehanty
2020, Western North American Naturalist (80) 236-242
We observed cannibalism, the act of consuming a conspecific, of eggs and nestlings by Common Ravens (Corvus corax; hereafter “raven”) by video-monitoring nests in Nevada and California. Specifically, within the sagebrush steppe of Nevada, adult ravens killed and consumed raven chicks from an active...
Modified GIC estimation using 3-D Earth conductivity
Anna Kelbert, Greg M. Lucas
2020, Space Weather (18)
Geomagnetically induced currents (GICs) are quasi-direct current (DC) electric currents that flow in technological conductors during geomagnetic storms. Extreme GICs are hazardous to man-made infrastructure. GICs enter and exit the technological systems, such as the electric power grid, at grounding points, and their magnitudes depend on...
Exhumation of the Coyote Mountains metamorphic core complex (Arizona): Implications for orogenic collapse of the southern North American Cordillera.
Raphael Gottardi, Ryan J. McAleer, Gabriele Casale, Megan Borel, Alexander Iriondo, Gilby Jepson
2020, Tectonics (39)
A microstructural and thermochronometric analysis of the Coyote Mountains detachment shear zone provides new insight into the collapse of the southern North American Cordillera. The Coyote Mountains is a metamorphic core complex that makes up the northern end of the Baboquivari Mountains in southern Arizona. The Baboquivari Mountains records several...
A global hybrid VS30 map with a topographic slope–based default and regional map insets
David C. Heath, David J. Wald, C. Bruce Worden, Eric M. Thompson, Gregory M. Smoczyk
2020, Earthquake Spectra (36) 1570-1584
Time-averaged shear wave velocity over the upper 30 m of the earth’s surface (VS30) is a key parameter for estimating ground motion amplification as both a predictive and a diagnostic tool for earthquake hazards. The first-order approximation of VS30 is commonly obtained through a topographic slope–based or terrain proxy due to the widely...
Comparison of SELDM simulated total-phosphorus concentrations with ecological impervious-area criteria
Lillian C. Jeznach, Gregory E. Granato
2020, Journal of Environmental Engineering (146)
Ecological studies indicate that impervious cover (IC) greater than approximately 5%–20% may have adverse effects on receiving-stream ecology. It is difficult to separate the effects of runoff quality from other effects of urbanization on receiving streams. This study presents the results of a numerical experiment to assess...
Groundwater levels and generalized potentiometric surfaces, former Naval Air Warfare Center, West Trenton, New Jersey, 2018
Alex R. Fiore, Pierre J. Lacombe
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1016
Groundwater-level conditions, generalized groundwater potentiometric surfaces, and generalized flow directions at the decommissioned Naval Air Warfare Center in West Trenton, New Jersey, were evaluated for calendar year 2018. Groundwater levels measured continuously in five on-site wells and one nearby off-site well were plotted as hydrographs for January 1, 2018, through...
Characterizing the diverse hydrogeology underlying rivers and estuaries using new floating transient electromagnetic methodology
John W. Lane, Martin A. Briggs, PK Maurya, Eric A. White, JB Pedersen, Esben Auken, Neil Terry, Burke J. Minsley, Wade Kress, Denis R. LeBlanc, Ryan F. Adams, Carole D. Johnson
2020, Science of the Total Environment (740)
The hydrogeology below large surface water features such as rivers and estuaries is universally under-informed at the long reach to basin scales (tens of km+). This challenge inhibits the accurate modeling of fresh/saline groundwater interfaces and groundwater/surface water exchange patterns at management-relevant spatial extents. Here we introduce a towed, floating...
Acris blanchardi (Blanchard's Cricket Frog), Predation
Brittany R. Maldonado, Brad Glorioso, Raymond P. Kidder II
2020, Herpetological Review (51) 296
Invertebrates are well-known predators of amphibians with many documented cases of spiders preying upon anurans (reviewed in Toledo 2005. Herpetol. Rev. 36:395–400). Wolf spiders are known to feed on a variety of frogs, including those in the genus Acris (Blackburn et al. 2002. Herpetol. Rev. 33:299). Although typically terrestrial, wolf...
Low-level detection of SFD-causing Ophidiomyces on Burmese Pythons in southwest Florida, with confirmation of the pathogen on co-occurring native snakes
Brad Glorioso, Ian A. Bartoszek, Jeffrey M. Lorch
2020, Herpetological Review (51) 245-247
Snake fungal disease (SFD), or ophidiomycosis, is caused by the fungus Ophidiomyces ophiodiicola (Allender et al. 2015; Lorch et al. 2015). SFD is widespread across wild populations in the eastern United States (Lorch et al. 2016) and is known to infect more than 30 species of snake in North America...
Optimizing earthquake early warning alert distance strategies using the July 2019 Mw6.4 and Mw7.1 Ridgecrest, California, earthquakes
Jessie Kate Saunders, Brad T. Aagaard, Annemarie S. Baltay Sundstrom, Sarah E. Minson
2020, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (110) 1872-1886
The ShakeAlert earthquake early warning system aims to alert people who experience modified Mercalli intensity (MMI) IV+ shaking during an earthquake using source estimates (magnitude and location) to estimate median‐expected peak ground motions with distance, then using these ground motions to determine median‐expected MMI and thus the extent of MMI...
Changes in climate and land cover affect seasonal streamflow forecasts in the Rio Grande headwaters
Colin A. Penn, David W. Clow, Graham A. Sexstone, Sheila F. Murphy
2020, Journal of the American Water Resources Association (56) 882-902
Seasonal streamflow forecast bias, changes in climate, snowpack, and land cover, and the effects of these changes on relations between basin‐wide snowpack, SNOw TELemetry (SNOTEL) station snowpack, and seasonal streamflow were evaluated in the headwaters of the Rio Grande, Colorado. Results indicate that shifts in the seasonality of precipitation and...
The impact of sediment supply on the initiation and magnitude of runoff-generated debris flows
Hui Tang, Luke A. McGuire, Jason W. Kean, Joel B. Smith
2020, Geophysical Research Letters (47)
Rainfall intensity‐duration (ID) thresholds are commonly used to assess the potential for runoff‐generated debris flows, but the sensitivity of these thresholds to sediment supply, which can change rapidly with time, is relatively unexplored. Furthermore, debris flows often self‐organize into distinct surges, but the factors controlling the magnitude and frequency of...
Felsic melt and gas mobilisation during magma solidification: An experimental study at 1.1 kbar
Mattia Pistone, Lukas Baumgartner, Florence Begue, Paul A. Jarvis, Elias Bloch, Martin Robyr, Othmar Muntener, Thomas W. Sisson, Jon D. Blundy
2020, Frontiers in Earth Science (8)
Melt and gas transfer processes are essential to the formation and growth of the Earth’s crust and for sustaining volcanic activity. These processes also play a major role in magma fractionation at shallow depths (<10 km) where magmas stall rheologically and solidify. In this scenario, the conditions of melt and...
Repeatable source, path, and site effects from the 2019 Ridgecrest M7.1 earthquake sequence
Grace Alexandra Parker, Annemarie S. Baltay Sundstrom, John Rekoske, Eric M. Thompson
2020, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (110) 1530-1548
We use a large instrumental dataset from the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake sequence (Rekoske et al., 2019, 2020) to examine repeatable source‐, path‐, and site‐specific ground motions. A mixed‐effects analysis is used to partition total residuals relative to the Boore et al. (2014;...
Observations on the structure of Surtsey
James G. Moore, Marie D. Jackson
2020, Surtsey Research (14) 33-45
Comparison of investigations of the 1979 and 2017 cored boreholes coupled with continued observations of the dynamic surface of Surtsey has modified our concepts of the subsurface structure of the volcano. A geometrical analysis of the 2017 vertical and inclined cores indicates that near-surface layering dips westerly, indicating that the...
Corrigendum to "A remote sensing-based model of tidal marsh aboveground carbon stocks for the conterminous United States" [ISPRS J. Photogram. Rem. Sens.139 (2018) 255-271]
Kristin B. Byrd, Laurel Ballanti, Nathan Thomas, Dung Nguyen, James Holmquist, Marc Simard, Lisamarie Windham-Myers
2020, ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (166) 63-67
The authors regret that two thirds of the San Francisco Bay biomass data included in the Landsat random forest models were not scaled to the proper units of grams per square meter. This error affects the Landsat-only models in the article, which are models #1-4 shown in Table 6. The...
Use of whole blood samples preserved in DNA lysis buffer for serological detection of avian malaria in Hawaiian forest birds
Carter T. Atkinson
2020, Report
Recent detections of avian malarial parasites in native and non-native forest birds at Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge and reports of epidemic transmission of the disease in high elevation habitats as well as controversy over accuracy of the PCR (polymerase chain reaction) diagnostic test that was being used led to...
Source model for Sabancaya volcano constrained by DInSAR and GNSS surface deformation observation
Gregorio Boixart, Luis Cruz, Rafael Miranda, Pablo Euillades, Leonardo Euillades, Maurizio Battaglia
2020, Remote Sensing (12)
Sabancaya is the most active volcano of the Ampato-Sabancaya Volcanic Complex (ASVC) in southern Perú and has been erupting since 2016. The analysis of ascending and descending Sentinel-1 orbits (DInSAR) and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) datasets from 2014 to 2019 imaged a radially symmetric inflating area,...
