Vascular flora of saline lakes in the southern high plains of Texas and eastern New Mexico
David J. Rosen, Warren C. Conway, David A. Haukos, Amber D. Caskey
2013, Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas (7) 595-602
Saline lakes and freshwater playas form the principal surface hydrological feature of the High Plains of the Southern Great Plains. Saline lakes number less than 50 and historically functioned as discharge wetlands with relatively consistent water availability due to the presence of one or more springs. Currently, less than ten...
Rapid chemical evolution of tropospheric volcanic emissions from Redoubt Volcano, Alaska, based on observations of ozone and halogen-containing gases
Cynthia A. Werner, Peter J. Kelly, Christoph Kern, T.J. Roberts, A. Aluppe
2013, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research (259) 317-333
We report results from an observational and modeling study of reactive chemistry in the tropospheric plume emitted by Redoubt Volcano, Alaska. Our measurements include the first observations of Br and I degassing from an Alaskan volcano, the first study of O3 evolution in a volcanic plume, as well as the first...
Incorporating probabilistic seasonal climate forecasts into river management using a risk-based framework
Richard S. Sojda, Erin Towler, Mike Roberts, Balaji Rajagopalan
2013, Water Resources Research (49) 4997-5008
[1] Despite the influence of hydroclimate on river ecosystems, most efforts to date have focused on using climate information to predict streamflow for water supply. However, as water demands intensify and river systems are increasingly stressed, research is needed to explicitly integrate climate into streamflow forecasts that are relevant to...
Cross-scale modeling of surface temperature and tree seedling establishment inmountain landscapes
John Dingman, Lynn C. Sweet, Ian M. McCullough, Frank W. Davis, Alan L. Flint, Janet Franklin, Lorraine E. Flint
2013, Ecological Processes (2)
Abstract: Introduction: Estimating surface temperature from above-ground field measurements is important for understanding the complex landscape patterns of plant seedling survival and establishment, processes which occur at heights of only several centimeters. Currently, future climate models predict temperature at 2 m above ground, leaving ground-surface microclimate not well characterized. Methods:...
Formation of a low-crystalline Zn-silicate in a stream in SW Sardinia, Italy
Richard B. Wanty, G. De Giudici, P. Onnis, D. Rutherford, B. A. Kimball, F. Podda, R. Cidu, P. Lattanzi, D. Medas
2013, Procedia Earth and Planetary Science (7) 888-891
n southwestern Sardinia, Italy, the Rio Naracauli drains a catchment that includes several abandoned mines. The drainage from the mines and associated waste rocks has led to extreme concentrations of dissolved Zn, but because of the near-neutral pH, concentrations of other metals remain low. In the reach from approximately 2300...
Conflation and aggregation of spatial data improve predictive models for species with limited habitats: a case of the threatened yellow-billed cuckoo in Arizona, USA
Miguel L. Villarreal, Charles van Riper III, Roy E. Petrakis
2013, Applied Geography (47) 57-69
Riparian vegetation provides important wildlife habitat in the Southwestern United States, but limited distributions and spatial complexity often leads to inaccurate representation in maps used to guide conservation. We test the use of data conflation and aggregation on multiple vegetation/land-cover maps to improve the accuracy of habitat models for the...
Water-quality data of lakes and wetlands in the Yukon Flats, Alaska, 2007–2009
Douglas R. Halm, Nikki Guldager
2013, Open-File Report 2012-1208
Over a three-year period (2007–2009), in-situ measurements were taken and water-quality samples were collected from 111 lakes and wetlands located in the Yukon Flats, Alaska, during a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wetlands inventory. The U.S. Geological Survey performed the chemical analyses on the retrieved water-quality samples. Results from the...
Water column and bed-sediment core samples collected from Brownlee Reservoir near Oxbow, Oregon, 2012
Ryan L. Fosness, Jesse Naymik, Candice B. Hopkins, John F. DeWild
2013, Data Series 809
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with Idaho Power Company, collected water-column and bed-sediment core samples from eight sites in Brownlee Reservoir near Oxbow, Oregon, during May 5–7, 2012. Water-column and bed-sediment core samples were collected at each of the eight sites and analyzed for total mercury and methylmercury. Additional...
Early responses to zebra mussels in the Great Lakes: a journey from information vacuum to policy and regulation
Ronald W. Griffiths, Don W. Schloesser, William P. Kovalak
2013, Book chapter, Quagga and zebra mussels: biology, impacts, and control
Invasive species such as zebra mussels pose a threat to the economies and environments of coastal and fresh-water habitats around the world. Consequently, it is important that government policies and programs be adequate to protect these waters from invaders. This chapter documents key events that took place in the early...
Quagga and zebra mussels: biology, impacts, and control
Thomas F. Nalepa, Donald W. Schloesser, editor(s)
2013, Book
Quagga and Zebra Mussels: Biology, Impacts, and Control, Second Edition provides a broad view of the zebra/quagga mussel issue, offering a historic perspective and up-to-date information on mussel research. Comprising 48 chapters, this second edition includes reviews of mussel morphology, physiology, and behavior. It details mussel distribution and spread in...
Preparation and characterization of nickel-spiked freshwater sediments for toxicity tests: toward more environmentally realistic nickel partitioning
William G. Brumbaugh, John M. Besser, Christopher G. Ingersoll, Thomas W. May, Chris D. Ivey, Christian E. Schlekat, Emily R. Garman
2013, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (32) 2482-2494
Two spiking methods were compared and nickel (Ni) partitioning was evaluated during a series of toxicity tests with 8 different freshwater sediments having a range of physicochemical characteristics. A 2-step spiking approach with immediate pH adjustment by addition of NaOH at a 2:1 molar ratio to the spiked Ni was...
Characterization of hydrodynamic and sediment conditions in the lower Yampa River at Deerlodge Park, east entrance to Dinosaur National Monument, northwest Colorado, 2011
Cory A. Williams
2013, Scientific Investigations Map 3273
The Yampa River in northwestern Colorado is the largest, relatively unregulated river system in the upper Colorado River Basin. Water from the Yampa River Basin continues to be sought for a number of municipal, industrial, and energy uses. It is anticipated that future water development within the Yampa River Basin...
Evaporation from Lake Mead, Nevada and Arizona, March 2010 through February 2012
Michael T. Moreo, Amy Swancar
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5229
Evaporation from Lake Mead was measured using the eddy-covariance method for the 2-year period starting March 2010 and ending February 2012. When corrected for energy imbalances, annual eddy-covariance evaporation was 2,074 and 1,881 millimeters (81.65 and 74.07 inches), within the range of previous estimates. There was a 9-percent decrease in...
Preliminary estimates of annual agricultural pesticide use for counties of the conterminous United States, 2010-11
Nancy T. Baker, Wesley W. Stone
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1295
This report provides preliminary estimates of annual agricultural use of 374 pesticide compounds in counties of the conterminous United States in 2010 and 2011, compiled by means of methods described in Thelin and Stone (2013). U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) county-level data for harvested-crop acreage were used in conjunction with...
Selenium in ecosystems within the mountaintop coal mining and valley-fill region of southern West Virginia-assessment and ecosystem-scale modeling
Theresa S. Presser
2013, Professional Paper 1803
Coal and associated waste rock are among environmental selenium (Se) sources that have the potential to affect reproduction in fish and aquatic birds. Ecosystems of southern West Virginia that are affected by drainage from mountaintop coal mines and valleys filled with waste rock in the Coal, Gauley, and Lower Guyandotte...
Evaluation of total phosphorus mass balance in the lower Boise River and selected tributaries, southwestern Idaho
Alexandra B. Etheridge
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5220
he U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, developed spreadsheet mass-balance models for total phosphorus using results from three synoptic sampling periods conducted in the lower Boise River watershed during August and October 2012, and March 2013. The modeling reach spanned 46.4 river miles (RM)...
Base of the upper layer of the phase-three Elkhorn-Loup groundwater-flow model, north-central Nebraska
Jennifer S. Stanton
2013, Scientific Investigations Map 3259
The Elkhorn and Loup Rivers in Nebraska provide water for irrigation, recreation, hydropower production, aquatic life, and municipal water systems for the Omaha and Lincoln metropolitan areas. Groundwater is another important resource in the region and is extracted primarily for agricultural irrigation. Water managers of the area are interested in...
Changes in types and area of postharvest flooded fields available to waterbirds in Tulare Basin, California
Joseph P. Fleskes, Daniel A. Skalos, Melissa A. Farinha
2013, Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management (4) 351-361
Conservation efforts to restore historic waterbird distribution and abundance in the Central Valley of California require information on current and historic areas of waterbird habitat. To provide this information, we mapped the area of agricultural fields in the vicinity of the historic Tulare Lake Bed in the Tulare Basin, California,...
The effects of withdrawals and drought on groundwater availability in the Northern Guam Lens Aquifer, Guam
Stephen B. Gingerich
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5216
Owing to population growth, freshwater demand on Guam has increased in the past and will likely increase in the future. During the early 1970s to 2010, groundwater withdrawals from the limestone Northern Guam Lens Aquifer, the main source of freshwater on the island, tripled from about 15 to 45 million...
Laboratory-derived temperature preference and effect on the feeding rate and survival of juvenile Hemimysis anomala
Jennifer Sun, Lars S. Rudstam, Brent T. Boscarino, Maureen G. Walsh, Brian F. Lantry
2013, Journal of Great Lakes Research (39) 630-636
Hemimysis anomala is a warm-water mysid that invaded the Great Lakes region in 2006 and has since rapidly spread throughout the basin. We conducted three laboratory experiments to better define the temperature preference, tolerance limits, and temperature effects on feeding rates of juvenile Hemimysis, using individuals acclimated to mid (16...
Use of reconstituted waters to evaluate effects of elevated major ions associated with mountaintop coal mining on freshwater invertebrates
James L. Kunz, Justin M. Conley, David B. Buchwalter, Norberg-King, J. Teresa, Nile E. Kemble, Ning Wang, Christopher G. Ingersoll
2013, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (32) 2826-2835
In previous laboratory chronic 7-d toxicity tests conducted with the cladoceran Ceriodaphnia dubia, surface waters collected from Appalachian sites impacted by coal mining have shown toxic effects associated with elevated total dissolved solids (TDS). The objective of the present study was to evaluate the effects of elevated major ions in...
Land-cover effects on the fate and transport of surface-applied antibiotics and 17-beta-estradiol on a sandy outwash plain, Anoka County, Minnesota, 2008–09
Jared J. Trost, Richard L. Kiesling, Melinda L. Erickson, Peter J. Rose, Sarah M. Elliott
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5202
A plot-scale field experiment on a sandy outwash plain in Anoka County in east-central Minnesota was used to investigate the fate and transport of two antibiotics, sulfamethazine (SMZ) and sulfamethoxazole (SMX), and a hormone, 17-beta-estradiol (17BE), in four land-cover types: bare soil, corn, hay, and prairie. The SMZ, SMX, and...
Probabilistic analysis showing that a combination of bacteroides and methanobrevibacter source tracking markers is effective for identifying waters contaminated by human fecal pollution
Christopher Johnston, Muruleedhara N. Byappanahalli, Jacqueline MacDonald Gibson, Jennifer A. Ufnar, Richard L. Whitman, Jill R. Stewart
2013, Environmental Science & Technology (47) 13621-13628
Microbial source tracking assays to identify sources of waterborne contamination typically target genetic markers of host-specific microorganisms. However, no bacterial marker has been shown to be 100% host-specific, and cross-reactivity has been noted in studies evaluating known source samples. Using 485 challenge samples from 20 different human and animal fecal...
National Satellite Land Remote Sensing Data Archive
John Faundeen, Francis P. Kelly, Thomas M. Holm, Jenna E. Nolt
2013, Fact Sheet 2013-3100
The National Satellite Land Remote Sensing Data Archive (NSLRSDA) resides at the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. Through the Land Remote Sensing Policy Act of 1992, the U.S. Congress directed the Department of the Interior (DOI) to establish a permanent Government archive containing satellite...
Multi-laboratory evaluations of the performance of Catellicoccus marimammalium PCR assays developed to target gull fecal sources
Christopher D. Sinigalliano, Jared S. Ervin, Laurie C. Van De Werfhorst, Brian D. Badgley, Elisenda Ballestee, Jakob Bartkowiaka, Alexandria B. Boehm, Muruleedhara N. Byappanahalli, Kelly D. Goodwin, Michele Gourmelon, John Griffith, Patricia A. Holden, Jenny Jay, Blythe Layton, Cheonghoon Lee, Jiyoung Lee, Wim G. Meijer, Rachel Noble, Meredith Raith, Hodon Ryu, Michael J. Sadowsky, Alexander Schriewer, Dan Wang, David Wanless, Richard Whitman, Stefan Wuertz, Jorge W. Santo Domingo
2013, Water Research (47) 6883-6896
Here we report results from a multi-laboratory (n = 11) evaluation of four different PCR methods targeting the 16S rRNA gene of Catellicoccus marimammalium originally developed to detect gull fecal contamination in coastal environments. The methods included a conventional end-point PCR method, a SYBR® Green qPCR method, and two TaqMan® qPCR methods....
