Advanced earthquake monitoring system for U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs medical buildings--instrumentation
Erol Kalkan, Krishna Banga, Hasan S. Ulusoy, Jon Peter B. Fletcher, William S. Leith, Shahneam Reza, Timothy Cheng
2012, Open-File Report 2012-1241
In collaboration with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the National Strong Motion Project (NSMP; http://nsmp.wr.usgs.gov/) of the U.S. Geological Survey has been installing sophisticated seismic systems that will monitor the structural integrity of 28 VA hospital buildings located in seismically active regions of the conterminous United...
Interbasin water transfer, riverine connectivity, and spatial controls on fish biodiversity
Evan H. Campbell Grant, Heather J. Lynch, Rachata Muneepeerakul, Arunachalam Muthukumarasamy, Ignacio Rodríguez-Iturbe, William F. Fagan
2012, PLoS ONE (7)
Background Large-scale inter-basin water transfer (IBWT) projects are commonly proposed as solutions to water distribution and supply problems. These problems are likely to intensify under future population growth and climate change scenarios. Scarce data on the distribution of freshwater fishes frequently limits the ability to assess the potential implications of...
Future scenarios of land-use and land-cover change in the United States--the Marine West Coast Forests Ecoregion
Tamara S. Wilson, Benjamin M. Sleeter, Terry L. Sohl, Glenn Griffith, William Acevedo, Stacie Bennett, Michelle Bouchard, Ryan R. Reker, Christy Ryan, Kristi L. Sayler, Rachel Sleeter, Christopher E. Soulard
2012, Open-File Report 2012-1252
Detecting, quantifying, and projecting historical and future changes in land use and land cover (LULC) has emerged as a core research area for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Changes in LULC are important drivers of changes to biogeochemical cycles, the exchange of energy between the Earth’s surface and atmosphere, biodiversity,...
Species, functional groups, and thresholds in ecological resilience
Shana M. Sundstrom, Craig R. Allen, Chris Barichievy
2012, Conservation Biology (26) 305-314
The cross-scale resilience model states that ecological resilience is generated in part from the distribution of functions within and across scales in a system. Resilience is a measure of a system's ability to remain organized around a particular set of mutually reinforcing processes and structures, known as a regime. We...
Do Daphnia use metalimnetic organic matter in a north temperate lake? An analysis of vertical migration
Chase Julian Brosseau, Timothy J. Cline, Jonathan J. Cole, James R. Hodgson, Michael L. Pace, Brian Weidel
2012, Inland Waters (2) 193-198
Diel vertical migration of zooplankton is influenced by a variety of factors including predation, food, and temperature. Research has recently shifted from a focus on factors influencing migration to how migration affects nutrient cycling and habitat coupling. Here we evaluate the potential for Daphnia migrations to incorporate metalimnetic productivity in...
Spring onset variations and trends in the continental United States: past and regional assessment using temperature-based indices
Mark D. Schwartz, Toby R. Ault, Julio L. Betancourt
2012, International Journal of Climatology
Phenological data are simple yet sensitive indicators of climate change impacts on ecosystems, but observations have not been made routinely or extensively enough to evaluate spatial and temporal patterns across most continents, including North America. As an alternative, many studies use weather-based algorithms to simulate specific phenological responses. Spring Indices...
Spectral damping scaling factors for shallow crustal earthquakes in active tectonic regions
Sanaz Rezaeian, Yousef Bozorgnia, I.M. Idriss, Kenneth Campbell, Norman Abrahamson, Walter Silva
2012, PEER Report 2012/01
Ground motion prediction equations (GMPEs) for elastic response spectra, including the Next Generation Attenuation (NGA) models, are typically developed at a 5% viscous damping ratio. In reality, however, structural and non-structural systems can have damping ratios other than 5%, depending on various factors such as structural types, construction materials, level...
Geologic framework for the national assessment of carbon dioxide storage resources
Peter D. Warwick, M.D. Corum, editor(s)
2012, Open-File Report 2012-1024
The 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (Public Law 110–140) directs the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to conduct a national assessment of potential geologic storage resources for carbon dioxide (CO2) and to consult with other Federal and State agencies to locate the pertinent geological data needed for the assessment. The...
On the use of wave parameterizations and a storm impact scaling model in National Weather Service Coastal Flood and decision support operations
Anthony Mignone, H. Stockdon, M. Willis, J.W. Cannon, R. Thompson
2012, Conference Paper, 92nd American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting, January 22-26, 2012
National Weather Service (NWS) Weather Forecast Offices (WFO) are responsible for issuing coastal flood watches, warnings, advisories, and local statements to alert decision makers and the general public when rising water levels may lead to coastal impacts such as inundation, erosion, and wave battery. Both extratropical and tropical cyclones can...
Primary mapping and stratigraphic data and field methods for the Snowmastodon Project
Carol Lucking, Kirk R. Johnson, Jeffery S. Pigati, Ian Miller
2012, Technical Report 2012-04
During the Snowmastodon Project, many different people collected data for a wide array of purposes under a variety of conditions. Early in the process and in an attempt to provide project-wide consistency, Kirk Johnson appointed Carol Lucking as the project’s data manager both in the field and the lab. She...
Data-driven modeling of surface temperature anomaly and solar activity trends
Michael J. Friedel
2012, Environmental Modelling and Software (37) 217-232
A novel two-step modeling scheme is used to reconstruct and analyze surface temperature and solar activity data at global, hemispheric, and regional scales. First, the self-organizing map (SOM) technique is used to extend annual modern climate data from the century to millennial scale. The SOM component planes are used to...
A historical estimate of apparent survival of American oystercatcher (Haematopus palliatus) in Virginia
Erica Nol, Sean P. Murphy, Michael D. Cadman
2012, Waterbirds (35) 631-635
Using mark-recapture models, apparent survival was estimated from older banding and re-sighting data (1978–1983) of American Oystercatchers (Haematopus palliatus) nesting on beaches and in salt marshes of coastal Virginia, USA. Oystercatchers nesting in salt marshes exhibited higher apparent survival (0.94 ±0.03) than birds nesting on beaches (0.81 ±0.06), a difference...
Predicting the geographic distribution of a species from presence-only data subject to detection errors
Robert M. Dorazio
2012, Biometrics (68) 1303-1312
Several models have been developed to predict the geographic distribution of a species by combining measurements of covariates of occurrence at locations where the species is known to be present with measurements of the same covariates at other locations where species occurrence status (presence or absence) is unknown. In the...
Late Quaternary sedimentological and climate changes at Lake Bosumtwi Ghana: new constraints from laminae analysis and radiocarbon age modeling
Timothy M. Shanahan, J. Warren Beck, Jonathan T. Overpeck, Nicholas P. McKay, Jeffrey S. Pigati, John A. Peck, Christopher A. Scholz, Clifford W. Heil Jr., John W. King
2012, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology (361-362) 49-60
The Lake Bosumtwi sediment record represents one of the longest and highest-resolution terrestrial records of paleoclimate change available from sub-Saharan Africa. Here we report a new sediment age model framework for the last ~ 45 cal kyr of sedimentation using a combination of high-resolution radiocarbon dating, Bayesian age-depth modeling and...
Characterization of previously unidentified lunar pyroclastic deposits using Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) data
J. Olaf Gustafson, James F. Bell, Lisa R. Gaddis, B. Ray Hawke, Thomas A. Giguere
2012, Journal of Geophysical Research E: Planets (117)
We used a Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) global monochrome Wide-angle Camera (WAC) mosaic to conduct a survey of the Moon to search for previously unidentified pyroclastic deposits. Promising locations were examined in detail using LROC multispectral WAC mosaics, high-resolution LROC Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) images, and Clementine multispectral (ultraviolet-visible...
Assessing consumption of bioactive micro-particles by filter-feeding Asian carp
Nathan R. Jensen, Jon J. Amberg, James A. Luoma, Liza R. Walleser, Mark P. Gaikowski
2012, Journal of Aquaculture Research & Development (3)
Silver carp Hypophthalmichthys molitrix (SVC) and bighead carp H. nobilis (BHC) have impacted waters in the US since their escape. Current chemical controls for aquatic nuisance species are non-selective. Development of a bioactive micro-particle that exploits filter-feeding habits of SVC or BHC could result in a new control tool. It...
Design and development of linked data from the National Map
E. Lynn Usery, Dalia E. Varanka
2012, Semantic Web (3) 371-384
The development of linked data on the World-Wide Web provides the opportunity for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to supply its extensive volumes of geospatial data, information, and knowledge in a machine interpretable form and reach users and applications that heretofore have been unavailable. To pilot a process to take...
ShakeMap Atlas 2.0: an improved suite of recent historical earthquake ShakeMaps for global hazard analyses and loss model calibration
D. Garcia, R.T. Mah, K. L. Johnson, M.G. Hearne, K. D. Marano, K.-W. Lin, D.J. Wald
2012, Conference Paper, The 15th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering: September 24-28, 2012, Lisbon, Portugal
We introduce the second version of the U.S. Geological Survey ShakeMap Atlas, which is an openly-available compilation of nearly 8,000 ShakeMaps of the most significant global earthquakes between 1973 and 2011. This revision of the Atlas includes: (1) a new version of the ShakeMap software that improves data usage and...
Factors influencing geographic patterns in diversity of forest bird communities of eastern Connecticut, USA
Robert J. Craig, Robert W. Klaver
2012, Ecography (36) 599-609
At regional scales, the most important variables associated with diversity are latitudinally-based temperature and net primary productivity, although diversity is also influenced by habitat. We examined bird species richness, community density and community evenness in forests of eastern Connecticut to determine whether: 1) spatial and seasonal patterns exist in diversity,...
An evaluation of a mitigation strategy for deer-vehicle collisions
John A. Bissonette, Silvia Rosa
2012, Wildlife Biology (18) 414-423
High mule deer Odocoileus hemionus mortality in southwestern Utah led to the establishment of a mitigation strategy with two major objectives: 1) reduction of wildlife-vehicle collisions and 2) restoration of landscape connectivity to facilitate wildlife movement across the roaded landscape. During our study, we assessed the effectiveness of the mitigation...
Estimating and predicting collection probability of fish at dams using multistate modeling
John M. Plumb, William P. Connor, Kenneth F. Tiffan, Christine M. Moffitt, Russell W. Perry, Noah S. Adams
2012, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (141) 1364-1373
Dams can be equipped with a bypass that routes a portion of the fish that enter the turbine intakes away from the powerhouse into flumes, where they can be counted. Daily passage abundance can be estimated by dividing the number of fish counted in the bypass by the sampling rate and then...
Using stable isotopes to test for trophic niche partitioning: a case study with stream salamanders and fish
Adam J. Sepulveda, Winsor H. Lowe, Peter P. Marra
2012, Freshwater Biology (57) 1399-1409
1. Stream salamanders and fish often co-occur even though fish prey on and outcompete salamanders. However, the mechanisms that allow palatable salamanders to coexist with fish are unknown. 2. We tested mechanisms in the field that promote coexistence between Idaho giant salamanders (Dicamptodon aterrimus) and stream salmonid fishes in headwater streams. Previous research...
High-frequency remote monitoring of large lakes with MODIS 500 m imagery
Ian M. McCullough, Cynthia S. Loftin, Steven A. Sader
2012, Remote Sensing of Environment (124) 234-241
Satellite-based remote monitoring programs of regional lake water quality largely have relied on Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) owing to its long image archive, moderate spatial resolution (30 m), and wide sensitivity in the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, despite some notable limitations such as temporal resolution (i.e., 16 days), data pre-processing...
Occupancy rates of primary burrowing crayfish in natural and disturbed large river bottomlands
Zachary J. Loughman, Stuart A. Welsh, Thomas P. Simon
2012, Journal of Crustacean Biology (32) 557-564
Among crayfish, primary burrowing species are the least understood ecologically. Many primary burrowing crayfish inhabit floodplains where forested landscapes have been fragmented by agricultural, industrial, or residential uses. In this study, site occupancy rates (ψ) were modeled for two primary burrowing crayfish, Fallicambarus fodiens (Cottle, 1863) and Cambarus thomai Jezerinac,...
Strategies to control a common carp population by pulsed commercial harvest
Michael E. Colvin, Clay Pierce, Timothy W. Stewart, Scott E. Grummer
2012, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (32) 1251-1264
Commercial fisheries are commonly used to manage nuisance fishes in freshwater systems, but such efforts are often unsuccessful. Strategies for successfully controlling a nuisance population of common carp Cyprinus carpio by pulsed commercial harvest were evaluated with a combination of (1) field sampling, (2) population estimation and CPUE indexing, and (3) simulation...
