Low-frequency earthquakes track the motion of a captured slab fragment
David R. Shelly, Amanda M. Thomas, Kathryn Z. Materna, Robert J. Skoumal
2026, Science (391) 294-299
Accurate tectonic models are essential for assessing seismic hazard and fault interactions. However, the plate configuration at the complex Mendocino triple junction, where the San Andreas Fault and the Cascadia subduction zone meet, remains uncertain. We analyzed fault slip associated with a recently identified zone of tectonic tremor and low-frequency...
Ground-motion simulations for the 2024 Mw 4.8 Tewksbury, New Jersey, earthquake
Oliver S. Boyd, Ebru Bozdağ, Haiyang Liam Kehoe, Morgan P. Moschetti
2026, Seismological Research Letters (97) 755-766
Ground-motion simulations of notable earthquakes in the central and eastern United States are limited and typically assume one-dimensional (1D) Earth structure. In this study, we use a three-dimensional (3D) seismic velocity model to better constrain the depth and focal mechanism of the April 5th, 2024, moment magnitude 4.8 Tewksbury earthquake...
More water, more of the time: Spatial changes in flooding over 83 years in the upper Mississippi River floodplain and relationships with streamgage-derived proxies
Molly Van Appledorn, Nathan R. De Jager, Jason J. Rohweder, Marcella Windmuller-Campione, Daniel Griffin
2026, Water Resources Research (62)
The hydrologic regime of the upper Mississippi River (UMR) has become wetter, with greater discharges, longer-lasting high-flow conditions, and seasonal shifts in these patterns over the past several decades. How these changes are expressed spatially as floodplain inundation area, frequency, depth, duration, and timing is not well understood. It is...
The contribution of a surge event to infilling in a barrier-enclosed estuary: Insights from field observations
Sanne M. Vaassen, Karin R. Bryan, Andrew Swales, Joel Carr, Conrad A. Pilditch
2026, Earth Surface Processes and Landforms (51)
Many estuaries worldwide face increasing sediment loading caused by catchment land use change and intensification, creating subsequent adverse effects on estuarine ecosystems. Extreme weather events can disproportionately alter sediment pathways and loading. Although storm-driven sediment exchange has been widely examined at open coasts and inlets, key transport mechanisms within constricted,...
Unveiling a legacy of fish introductions to mountain lakes using historical records and eDNA surveys in a National Park
Samuel J. Brenkman, Jeffrey J. Duda, Rebecca M. McCaffery, Katie E. Kierczynski, Marshal S. Hoy, Trevor J. Kumec, William Baccus, Caren Suzanne Goldberg, Carl O. Ostberg, Steven C. Fradkin
2026, Frontiers in Conservation Science (6)
Across the western United States, introductions of non-native fish into historically fishless mountain lakes have impacted native biota. Understanding the impacts of fish introductions is essential for conservation in Olympic National Park, a Biosphere Reserve. We reconstructed fish plantings using records dating back to 1930, followed by...
The magmatic-hydrothermal system of the Three Sisters volcanic cluster, Oregon, imaged from field gravity measurements
Helene Le Mevel, Nathan Lee Andersen, Annika E. Dechert, Josef Dufek
2026, JGR Solid Earth (131)
From 2019 to 2024, gravity surveys were conducted at the Three Sisters volcanic cluster (TSVC), measuring 246 gravity sites using a spring relative gravimeter. We calculated the residual Bouguer anomaly and identified three main zones with negative anomalies, ranging from −4 to −8 mGal, located southwest and west of South...
Plasticity in the reproductive biology of Yellowstone cutthroat trout Oncorhynchus virginalis bouvieri in Yellowstone Lake following lake trout Salvelinus namaycush invasion
Michelle A. Briggs, Molly A. Webb, Christopher S. Guy, Todd M. Koel
2026, Journal of Fish Biology
Yellowstone cutthroat trout Oncorhynchus virginalis bouvieri in Yellowstone Lake are the focus of intensive conservation efforts due to the threat of predation by invasive lake trout Salvelinus namaycush. Suppression gillnetting has reduced the abundance of predatory lake trout, and the Yellowstone cutthroat trout population is recovering. Long-term monitoring indicates the size structure of...
Identifying headwater streams across the conterminous United States
Charles R. Lane, Ellen D’Amico, Jay R. Christensen, Heather E. Golden, Frederick Y. Cheng, John C. Hammond, Admin Husic, Kristin L. Jaeger, C. Nathan Jones, Christa A. Kelleher, Li Li, D. Tyler Mahoney, Hilary K. McMillan, Adam N. Price, Roy Sando, Catalina Segura, Erin C. Seybold, Adam S. Ward, Margaret Zimmer
2026, Ecosystems (29)
Headwater streams play critical roles in hydrologic and biogeochemical processes and functions, yet their spatial distribution and land cover context remain poorly understood at continental scales, and no dedicated geospatial dataset exists. Building from a high-resolution conterminous United States (CONUS) hydrography network dataset, we quantified the spatial...
Characterizing the influence of remotely sensed wetland and lake water storage on discharge using LSTM models
Melanie K. Vanderhoof, William Keenan, Wayana Dolan, Heather E. Golden, Charles R. Lane, Jay R. Christensen, Kylen Solvik, Adnan Rajib
2026, Hydrological Sciences Journal (71) 410-436
Globally, many wetlands and lakes are at risk for further loss, which can amplify downstream consequences of flood and drought events. We derived remotely sensed based time series of surface water storage (SWstorage) to determine when and where accounting for SWstorage dynamics improves predictions of river discharge. We...
An entropic explanation for Gutenberg-Richter scaling
Morgan T. Page, Edward H. Field
2026, JGR Solid Earth (131)
We develop a simple explanation for Gutenberg-Richter (G-R) size scaling of earthquakes on a single fault. We discretize the fault and consider all possible contiguous ruptures at that level of discretization. In this static model, we assume that slip scales with rupture length, and that the rupture rates at each...
ENSO and PDO drive shoreline position anomalies in the U.S. Pacific Northwest
Mohsen Taherkhani, Sean Vitousek, Marcan Graffin, Kilian Vos, Jonathan C. Allan, George M. Kaminsky, Peter Ruggiero
2026, PNAS Nexus (5)
Sandy beaches act as buffers against various coastal hazards but are vulnerable to episodic (seasonal) and chronic (interannual) erosion. Understanding the variation of shoreline position, a key metric in coastal morphology, over a spectrum of time scales is therefore crucial in assessing hazard vulnerability. Long-standing research has...
Performance evaluation and methods comparison of transcriptomic-based approaches for the characterization of wastewater treatment effluent
Adam Biales, M. S. Hu, D. C. Bencic, M. J. See, Susan T. Glassmeyer, E.T. Furlong, Julia M. Stelman, W. Huang, Dana W. Kolpin, Marc A. Mills, L. D. Brunelle, Angela L. Batt, S. Thomas Purucker
2026, Environmental Pollution (392)
Wastewater treatment effluents (WWTE) present complex risks to aquatic ecosystems that are difficult to characterize using traditional methods. This study systematically evaluated the consistency and performance of transcriptomic-based approaches over time with repeated sampling and with differing experimental approaches (selection of reference condition, grab vs. composite sampling, deployed vs. laboratory...
The functional effects of African lions on co-occurring carnivores differ across species pairs and with changes in resource availability and lion abundance
Kristoffer T. Everatt, Leah Andresen, Jennifer F. Moore, James E. Hines, Graham I.H. Kerley
2026, Oecologia (208)
Apex carnivores are known to regulate ecosystem structure and function, including via interactions with syntopic, competitively inferior carnivores. These effects may be dependent on relative carnivore density and resource availability or productivity. We investigated the functional effect of African lions as an apex carnivore on the presence...
21st-century mangrove expansion along the southeastern United States
Lucia I.A. Enes Gramoso, Dustin Carrol, Kyle C. Cavanaugh, Remi Bardou, Michael J. Osland, Tom Van der Stocken
2026, Global Change Biology (32)
Warming winter temperatures are driving range expansion of tropical, cold-sensitive mangroves into temperate ecosystems. Along the Atlantic coast of North America, the mangrove range limit is particularly sensitive to climate variability and historical data demonstrate that the mangrove-salt marsh ecotone on this coast has shifted recurrently during recent centuries. However,...
Status assessment of peregrine falcons in North America using integrated population models
Michael J. Gould, Ted Swem, Guthrie S. Zimmerman, Brian A. Millsap, Jay V. Gedir, Fitsum Abadi
2026, Global Ecology and Conservation (65)
Species status assessments require an understanding of underlying population dynamics and important drivers of species demography. Large-scale assessments can be difficult due to challenges collating data obtained through different methods and different sources at multiple scales. Integrated population models (IPMs) provide a unified framework to combine multiple...
Assessing future hydrologic extremes using an integrated hydrology and river operations model in the Russian River watershed
Saalem Tilahun Adera, Ayman H. Alzraiee, Richard G. Niswonger, Enrique Triana, Derek W. Ryter, John A. Engott
2026, Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies (63)
Study regionThe Russian River watershed, situated in coastal, northern California, experiences hydrologic extremes, including periodic droughts and flooding. Water managers are working to maintain sustainable water supplies and environmental flows, while mitigating flood risks.Study focusThis paper...
Magnitude conversion relations create substantial differences in seismic hazard models
Andrea L. Llenos, David R. Shelly, Allison Shumway
2026, Seismological Research Letters
Earthquake catalogs are essential data inputs for seismic hazard modeling. Because earthquake magnitudes are reported in a variety of types (e.g., local magnitudes and moment magnitudes), magnitude conversion relationships must be used to convert the different magnitude types present in a catalog to a uniform magnitude type to avoid biases...
Season and antecedent conditions impact concentration-discharge relationships for dissolved organic carbon and alkalinity in southeast Alaskan watershed
Claire Delbecq, Jason B. Fellman, J. Ryan Bellmore, Emily J. Whitney, Kevin Fitzgerald, Jeffrey A. Falke
2026, JGR Biogeosciences (131)
Fluvial export of dissolved carbon plays an important role in watershed-scale biogeochemistry. Predicted changes in climate are expected to impact watershed hydrologic regimes, and in turn, the sources and export of dissolved carbon from watersheds. Here, we utilize high resolution measurements of discharge and dissolved carbon concentration...
Integrating climate data and river modeling to reveal Chinook salmon habitat conditions in subarctic river basins
Rebecca Shaftel, Megan L. Feddern, Stephanie A. McAfee, Erik R. Schoen, Curry Cunningham, Vanessa R. von Biela, Josh Paul, Yifan Cheng, Andrew Newman, Margaret Perdue, Jon Schwenk, Al von Finster, Jeffrey A. Falke
2026, Ecosphere (17)
Climatic extremes can impact the productivity of aquatic species, affecting ecosystems and fishery-dependent communities. Advances in climate products, such as gridded datasets and downscaled projections, may be useful for quantifying freshwater habitat conditions and predicting climate change effects on fish. However, limited guidance exists for selecting climate...
Machine learning generated streamflow drought forecasts for the conterminous United States (CONUS): developing and evaluating an operational tool to enhance sub-seasonal to seasonal streamflow drought early warning for gaged locations
John C. Hammond, Phillip J. Goodling, Jeremy Alejandro Diaz, Hayley R. Corson-Dosch, Aaron Joseph Heldmyer, Scott Douglas Hamshaw, Ryan R. McShane, Jesse Cleveland Ross, Roy Sando, Caelan Simeone, Erik A. Smith, Leah Ellen Staub, David Watkins, Michael Wieczorek, Kendall C. Wnuk, Jacob Aaron Zwart
2026, Frontiers in Water (7)
Forecasts of streamflow drought, when streamflow declines below typical levels, are notably less available than for floods or meteorological drought, despite widespread impacts. We apply machine learning (ML) models to forecast streamflow drought 1–13 weeks ahead at 3,219 streamgages across the conterminous United States. We applied two...
Tectonic implications of transitional melting regimes from petrological, geochronological, and compositional characterization of the ophiolitic Seventymile terrane, Alaska, USA
Erin Todd, Jonathan Saul Caine, Michael Bizimis, Andrew R.C. Kylander-Clark, Robert Reece Hammond, Alicja Wypych
2026, Geosphere
New geochemical, U-Pb geochronology, and Sr-Nd-Hf isotope data provide evidence for the tectonic evolution of the Seventymile terrane in interior Alaska, USA. Ultramafic and mafic rocks of the Seventymile terrane are thought to represent components of a dismembered ophiolite and provide unique constraints on regional terrane evolution and accretion. The...
Is satellite-derived bathymetry vertical accuracy dependent on satellite mission and processing method?
Monica Palaseanu-Lovejoy, Jeffrey J. Danielson, Minsu Kim, Bryan Eder, Gretchen Imahori, Curt D. Storlazzi
2026, Remote Sensing (18)
This research focusses on three satellite-derived bathymetry methods and optical satellite instruments: (1) a stereo photogrammetry bathymetry module (SaTSeaD) developed for the NASA Ames stereo pipeline open-source software (version 3.6.0) using stereo WorldView data; (2) physics-based radiative transfer equations (PBSDB) using Landsat data; and (3) a modified...
Rapid characterization of the 2025 Mw 8.8 Kamchatka, Russia earthquake
Harriet Zoe Yin, Kate E. Allstadt, William D Barnhart, Samantha Ann Clapp, Paul S. Earle, Dara Elyse Goldberg, Alex R. Grant, Matt Herman, Kishor S. Jaiswal, Sara K. McBride, Adam T. Ringler, Max Schneider, Eric M. Thompson, Nicholas van der Elst, David Wald, Dun Wang, Charles Worden, William L. Yeck
2026, The Seismic Record (6) 1-12
The 29 July 2025 Mw 8.8 Kamchatka, Russia, earthquake was the sixth largest instrumentally recorded earthquake. This event was seismically well observed at regional and teleseismic distances, but publicly available near‐source data were sparse at the time of the event, presenting unique challenges for rapid source and impact characterization. The U.S....
Characterization and modeling approach for planning restoration strategies in a complex basin affected by acid mine drainage
Jonatan Romero-Matos, Laura Sánchez-López, Rafael León, Robert L. Runkel, D. Kirk Nordstrom, Carlos R. Cánovas, Francisco Macías, José Miguel Nieto
2026, Journal of Environmental Management (397)
The management of acid mine drainage (AMD) impacted catchments, such as the Odiel River basin, in southwestern Spain, prioritizes reclamation to meet water resources needs. Assessing water composition across its watercourses is needed to identify major AMD contributors and potentially guide remediation efforts. An equilibrium-based mixing model...
Natural source zone depletion of crude oil in the subsurface: Processes controlling mass losses of individual compounds
Barbara Bekins, William Herkelrath
2026, Water Resources Research (62)
At many petroleum hydrocarbon spill sites, residual spilled product forms a long-term source of groundwater contamination. The phrase source zone natural depletion is used to refer to the mass loss rates. Overall mass lost under environmental conditions was analyzed using conservative biomarker concentrations for a 1979 oil spill in northern...