Report of the River Master of the Delaware River for the period December 1, 2010–November 30, 2011
Vincent J. DiFrenna, William J. Andrews, Kendra L. Russell, J. Michael Norris, Robert R. Mason, Jr.
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1020
A Decree of the Supreme Court of the United States, entered June 7, 1954, established the position of Delaware River Master within the U.S. Geological Survey. In addition, the Decree authorizes diversion of water from the Delaware River Basin and requires compensating releases from certain reservoirs, owned by New York...
Robust ecological drought projections for drylands in the 21st century
John B. Bradford, Daniel Rodolphe Schlaepfer, William K. Lauenroth, Kyle A. Palmquist
2020, Global Change Biology (26) 3906-3919
(Bradford) Dryland ecosystems may be especially vulnerable to expected 21st century increases in temperatures and aridity because they are tightly controlled by patterns of moisture availability. However, climate impact assessments in drylands are difficult because ecological dynamics are dictated by drought conditions that are difficult to define and complex to...
A novel quantitative framework for riverscape genetics
Shannon L. White, Ephraim M. Hanks, Tyler Wagner
2020, Ecological Applications (30)
Riverscape genetics, which applies concepts in landscape genetics to riverine ecosystems, lack appropriate quantitative methods that address the spatial autocorrelation structure of linear stream networks and account for bidirectional geneflow. To address these challenges, we present a general framework for the design and analysis of riverscape...
High spatial fidelity among foraging trips of Masked Boobies from Pedro Cays, Jamaica
Bradley P. Wilkinson, Ann M. Haynes-Sutton, Llewelyn Meggs, Patrick G.R. Jodice
William David Halliday, editor(s)
2020, PLoS ONE (15) 1-12
In marine environments, tropical and subtropical habitats are considered to be inherently less productive than more temperate systems. As such, foraging site fidelity among vertebrate predators occupying low-latitude marine systems is generally low as a response to an increased unpredictability of resources. We investigated the foraging movements of Masked Boobies...
Unexpected hybridization reveals the utility of genetics in native plant restoration
Daniel E. Winkler, Robert Massatti
2020, Restoration Ecology (28) 1047-1052
Native plant materials (NPMs) are increasingly utilized during the restoration of disturbed plant communities. Here, we analyze next‐generation genetic sequencing data for Hilaria jamesii, a dominant graminoid across drylands of the southwestern United States, and document that the species' only commercially‐available NPM, ‘Viva’, is a hybrid between H. jamesii and its sister species, H....
Post-1978 tumescence at Long Valley Caldera, California: A geophysical perspective
David P. Hill, Emily K. Montgomery-Brown, David R. Shelly, Ashton F. Flinders, Stephanie Prejean
2020, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research (400)
Long Valley Caldera has been restless since at least 1978. Prominent symptoms of this unrest include earthquake swarms and tumescence (inflation) centered on the resurgent dome. Over the years, interpretations of physical processes underlying this unrest have varied considerably. Results from...
Book review: Proceedings of the First International Snakehead Symposium
Stephen Walsh
2020, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (149) 364-365
Snakehead fishes (family Channidae) are among the most maligned aquatic invasive species in the USA and some other countries where they have been introduced outside of their native range in Asia and Africa. Nevertheless, snakeheads continue to be widely exploited in the live‐food trade in aquaculture and wild‐capture fisheries, are...
Threshold responses of songbirds to forest loss and fragmentation across the Marcellus-Utica shale gas region
Laura S. Farwell, Petra B. Wood, Randy Dettmers, Margaret C. Brittingham
2020, Landscape Ecology (35) 1353-1370
Context Since 2005, unconventional gas develop[1]ment has rapidly altered forests across the Marcellus[1]Utica shale basin in the central Appalachian region of the eastern United States, an area of high conservation value for biodiversity. Much is still unknown about ecological impacts of associated land cover change. Objectives Our goal was to...
The incubation environment of nests deposited by a genetically distinct group of loggerhead sea turtles in Northwest Florida
Margaret Lamont, Darren Johnson, Raymond Carthy
2020, Global Ecology and Conservation (23)
The warming climate presents a challenge to conservation of all threatened and endangered species but particularly to those that exhibit temperature-dependent sex determination such as sea turtles. Changes in temperature may result in changes in the sex ratio of the population which can directly affect reproductive rate, abundance and population...
Coseismic and post-seismic gravity disturbance induced by seismic sources using a 2.5-D spectral element method
Frederick Pollitz
2020, Geophysical Journal International (122) 827-844
I present a prescription for computing free-air coseismic and post-seismic gravity changes induced by seismic sources in a viscoelastic earth model. I assume a spherical earth geometry and a 2.5-D calculation, that is, 3-D motions that satisfy the equations of quasi-static equilibrium on a 2-D viscoelastic structure. The prescription...
Modelling grass carp egg transport using a 3-D hydrodynamic river model: The role of egg retention in dead zones on spawning success
Tej Heer, Mathew G. Wells, P. Ryan Jackson, Nicholas E. Mandrak
2020, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (77) 1379-1392
Invasive grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) are known to spawn in the Sandusky River, Ohio, USA, within the Great Lakes Basin, and are threatening to expand throughout the Great Lakes. Successful spawning is thought to require that eggs remain in suspension until hatching, which depends on river hydrodynamics and temperature-dependent egg...
Lessons from a post-eruption landscape
Jon J. Major, Charles M. Crisafulli, Frederick J. Swanson
2020, Eos, Earth and Space Science News (101) 34-40
From March to May 1980, magma rose high into Mount St. Helens (MSH), swelling and—as it turned out—destabilizing its north flank. Scientists knew the volcano had been highly active at times over the past 40,000 years, but the mountain, located amid the Cascade Range in southwestern Washington, had been mostly...
A two-stage step-wise framework for fast optimization of well placement in coalbed methane reservoirs
Jiyuan Zhang, Qihong Feng, Xianmin Zhang, Jia Bai, C. Ozgen Karacan, Derek Elsworth
2020, International Journal of Coal Geology (225)
Coalbed methane (CBM) has emerged as a clean energy resource in the global energy mix, especially in countries such as Australia, China, India and the USA. The economical and successful development of CBM requires a thorough evaluation and optimization of well placement prior to field-scale exploitation. This paper presents a...
The role of seismic and slow slip events in triggering the 2018 M7.1 Anchorage earthquake in the Southcentral Alaska subduction zone
Margarita Segou, Thomas E. Parsons
2020, Geophysical Research Letters (47)
The M 7.1 2018 Anchorage earthquake occurred in the bending part of the subducting North Pacific plate near the geometrical barrier formed by the underthrusting Yakutat terrane. We calculate the triggering potential related with stress redistribution from deformation sources including the M 9.2 1964 earthquake coseismic slip, postseismic deformation, slip from...
Salt flushing, salt storage, and controls on selenium: A 31-year mass-balance analysis of an irrigated, semiarid valley
Carleton R. Bern, Michael J. Holmberg, Zachary D. Kisfalusi
2020, Journal of the American Water Resources Association (56) 647-668
Salinity, selenium, and uranium pose water‐quality challenges for the Arkansas River in southeastern Colorado and other rivers that support irrigation in semiarid regions. This study used 31 years of continuous discharge and specific conductance (SC) monitoring data to assess interannual patterns in water quality using mass balance on a 120‐km reach...
Model selection for the North American Breeding Bird Survey
William A. Link, John R. Sauer, Daniel K Niven
2020, Ecological Applications (30)
The North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) provides data that can be used in complex, multiscale analyses of population change, while controlling for scale‐specific nuisance factors. Many alternative models can be fit to the data, but most model selection procedures are not appropriate for hierarchical models. Leave‐one‐out cross‐validation (LOOCV), in...
Variable prey consumption leads to distinct regional differences in Chinook salmon growth during the early marine critical period
Melanie J Davis, Joshua W. Chamberlin, Jennifer R. Gardner, Kristin A. Connelly, Madilyn M. Gamble, Brian R. Beckman, David Beauchamp
2020, Marine Ecology Progress Series (640) 147-169
Growth during the early marine critical period is positively associated with survival and recruitment for Pacific salmon Oncorhynchus spp., so it is important to understand how certain foraging strategies may bolster growth in estuarine and marine environments. To elucidate how spatiotemporal and demographic differences in diet contribute to growth rate variability, we...
Comparing environmental flow implementation options with structured decision making: Case study from the Willamette River, Oregon
J. Tyrell DeWeber, James Peterson
2020, Journal of the American Water Resources Association (56) 599-614
Many frameworks have been used to identify environmental flows for sustaining river ecosystems or specific taxa in the face of widespread flow alteration for human use. However, these methods mostly focus on identifying suitable flows and largely ignore the important links between management actions, resulting flows, flow variability, and ecosystem...
Spatiotemporal seismic structure variations associated with the 2018 Kīlauea eruption based on temporary dense geophone arrays
Sin-Mei Wu, Fan-Chi Lin, Jamie Farrell, Brian Shiro, Leif Karlstrom, Paul G. Okubo, Keith D. Koper
2020, Geophysical Research Letters (47)
During the 2018 Kīlauea volcanic eruption, lava erupted from a series of new fissures in the lower East Rift Zone more than 30 km away from the summit through a dike intrusion. Between late May and early August, variations in the effusion rate at the persistent eruptive vent (Fissure 8)...
Climate change causes river network contraction and disconnection in the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest, Oregon, USA
Adam S Ward, Steven M Wondzell, Noah Schmadel, Skuyler P Herzog
2020, Frontiers in Water (2)
Headwater streams account for more than 89% of global river networks and provide numerous ecosystem services that benefit downstream ecosystems and human water uses. It has been established that changes in climate have shifted the timing and magnitude of observed precipitation, which, at specific gages, have been directly linked...
Holocene relative sea-level change along the tectonically active Chilean coast
Ed Garrett, Daniel Melnick, Tina Dura, Marco Cisternas, Lisa Ely, Robert L. Wesson, Julius Jara-Munoz, Pippa L Whitehouse
2020, Quaternary Science Reviews (236)
We present a comprehensive relative sea-level (RSL) database for north, central, and south-central Chile (18.5°S – 43.6°S) using a consistent, systematic, and internationally comparable approach. Despite its latitudinal extent, this coastline has received little rigorous or systematic attention and details of its RSL history remain largely unexplored. To address this...
Groundwater quality in the Redding–Red Bluff shallow aquifer study unit of the northern Sacramento Valley, California
Jennifer S. Harkness, Jennifer L. Shelton
2020, Fact Sheet 2020-3025
Groundwater provides more than 40 percent of California’s drinking water. To protect this vital resource, the State of California created the Groundwater Ambient Monitoring and Assessment (GAMA) Program. The Priority Basin Project of the GAMA Program provides a comprehensive assessment of the State’s groundwater quality and increases public access to...
Assessment of spatial genetic structure to identify populations at risk for infection of an emerging epizootic disease
William L. Miller, Cassandra M. Miller-Butterworth, Duane R. Diefenbach, W. David Walter
2020, Ecology and Evolution (10) 3977-3990
Understanding the geographic extent and connectivity of wildlife populations can provide important insights into the management of disease outbreaks but defining patterns of population structure is difficult for widely distributed species. Landscape genetic analyses are powerful methods for identifying cryptic structure and movement patterns that may be associated with...
Mitigating land subsidence in the Coachella Valley, California, USA: An emerging success story
Michelle Sneed, Justin T. Brandt
2020, Proceedings of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (382) 809-813
Groundwater has been a major source of agricultural, municipal, and domestic water supply since the early 1920s in the Coachella Valley, California, USA. Land subsidence, resulting from aquifer-system compaction and groundwater-level declines, has been a concern of the Coachella Valley Water District (CVWD) since the mid-1990s. As a result, the...
Airborne lidar and electro-optical imagery along surface ruptures of the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake sequence, Southern California
Kenneth W. Hudnut, Benjamin A. Brooks, Katherine M. Scharer, Janis L. Hernandez, Timothy E. Dawson, Michael E. Oskin, J. Ramon Arrowsmith, Christine A. Goulet, Kelly Blake, Matthew A. Boggie, Stephan Bork, Craig L. Glennie, J.C. Fernandez-Diaz, Abhinav Singhania, Darren Hauser, Sven Sorhus
Benjamin A. Brooks, Katherine M. Scharer, Janis Hernandez, Timothy E. Dawson, Mike Oskin, Ramon Arrowsmith, Christine A. Goulet, Kelly Blake, Matt Boggs, Stephan Bork, Craig Glennie, J.C. Fernandez-Diaz, Abhinav Singhania, Darren L. Hauser, Sven Sorhus, editor(s)
2020, Seismological Research Letters (91) 2096-2107
Surface rupture from the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake sequence, initially associated with the M 6.4 foreshock, occurred on July 4 on a ~17 km long, northeast-southwest oriented, left-lateral zone of faulting. Following the M 7.1 mainshock on July 5 (local time), extensive northwest-southeast-oriented, right-lateral faulting was then also mapped along a...
