Resolving hyporheic and groundwater components of streambed water flux
Aditi S. Bhaskar, Judson W. Harvey, Eric J. Henry
2012, Water Resources Research (48)
Hyporheic and groundwater fluxes typically occur together in permeable sediments beneath flowing stream water. However, streambed water fluxes quantified using the thermal method are usually interpreted as representing either groundwater or hyporheic fluxes. Our purpose was to improve understanding of co-occurring groundwater and hyporheic fluxes using streambed temperature measurements and...
Monitoring subsurface hydrologic response for precipitation-induced shallow landsliding in the San Francisco Bay area, California, USA
Brian D. Collins, Jonathan D. Stock, Lisa C. Weber, K. Whitman, N. Knepprath
2012, Conference Paper, Landslides and engineered slopes: Protecting society through improved understanding, Proceedings of the 11th International Symposium on Landslides
Intense winter storms in the San Francisco Bay area (SFBA) of California, USA often trigger shallow landslides. Some of these landslides mobilize into potentially hazardous debris flows. A growing body of research indicates that rainfall intensity-duration thresholds are insufficient for accurate prediction of landslide occurrence. In response, we have begun...
Interactive terrain visualization enables virtual field work during rapid scientific response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake
Eric Cowgill, Tony S. Bernardin, Michael E. Oskin, Christopher Bowles, M. Burak Yikilmaz, Oliver Kreylos, Austin J. Elliott, Scott Bishop, Ryan D. Gold, Alexander Morelan, Gerald W. Bawden, Bernd Hamann, Louise Kellogg
2012, Geosphere (8) 787-804
The moment magnitude (Mw) 7.0 12 January 2010 Haiti earthquake is the first major earthquake for which a large-footprint LiDAR (light detection and ranging) survey was acquired within several weeks of the event. Here, we describe the use of virtual reality data visualization to analyze massive amounts (67 GB on...
Post-fire land treatments and wind erosion -- lessons from the Milford Flat Fire, UT, USA
Mark E. Miller, Matthew A. Bowker, Richard L. Reynolds, Harland L. Goldstein
2012, Aeolian Research (7) 29-44
We monitored sediment flux at 25 plots located at the northern end of the 2007 Milford Flat Fire (Lake Bonneville Basin, west-central Utah) to examine the effectiveness of post-fire rehabilitation treatments in mitigating risks of wind erosion during the first 3 years post fire. Maximum values were recorded during Mar–Jul...
Automated measurement of diatom size
Sarah A. Spaulding, David H. Jewson, Rebecca J. Bixby, Harry Nelson, Diane M. McKnight
2012, Limnology and Oceanography: Methods (10) 882-890
Size analysis of diatom populations has not been widely considered, but it is a potentially powerful tool for understanding diatom life histories, population dynamics, and phylogenetic relationships. However, measuring cell dimensions on a light microscope is a time-consuming process. An alternative technique has been developed using digital flow cytometry on...
Structural equation modeling and the analysis of long-term monitoring data
James B. Grace, Jon E. Keeley, Darren Johnson, A Kenneth Bollen Kenneth
2012, Book chapter, Design and analysis of long-term ecological monitoring studies
The analysis of long-term monitoring data is increasingly important; not only for the discovery and documentation of changes in environmental systems, but also as an enterprise whose fruits validate the allocation of effort and scarce funds to monitoring. In simple terms, we may distinguish between the detection of change in...
Extended Kalman Filter framework for forecasting shoreline evolution
Joseph Long, Nathaniel G. Plant
2012, Geophysical Research Letters (39)
A shoreline change model incorporating both long- and short-term evolution is integrated into a data assimilation framework that uses sparse observations to generate an updated forecast of shoreline position and to estimate unobserved geophysical variables and model parameters. Application of the assimilation algorithm provides quantitative statistical estimates of combined model-data...
Helicopter electromagnetic data map ice thickness at Mount Adams and Mount Baker, Washington, USA
Carol A. Finn, Maria Deszcz-Pan, Paul A. Bedrosian
2012, Journal of Glaciology (58) 1133-1143
Ice-thickness measurements critical for flood and mudflow hazard studies are very sparse on Cascade Range (North America) volcanoes. Helicopter electromagnetic (HEM) data collected to detect hydrothermal alteration are used to determine ice thickness over portions of Mount Baker and Mount Adams volcanoes. A laterally continuous inversion method provides good estimates...
Establishment of sentinel sampling sites to monitor changes in water and sediment quality and biota related to visitor use at Lake Powell, Arizona and Utah, 2004-2006
Robert J. Hart, Howard E. Taylor, G.M. Anderson
2012, Open-File Report 2012-1237
Twenty sentinel sampling sites were established and sampled during 2004–06 at Lake Powell, Arizona and Utah, by the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Park Service—Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. The sentinel sampling sites provide sampling locations on Lake Powell, the Nation’s second largest reservoir that can be visited and...
A general theory of multimetric indices and their properties
Donald R. Schoolmaster Jr., James B. Grace, E. William Schweiger
2012, Methods in Ecology and Evolution (3) 773-781
1. Stewardship of biological and ecological resources requires the ability to make integrative assessments of ecological integrity. One of the emerging methods for making such integrative assessments is multimetric indices (MMIs). These indices synthesize data, often from multiple levels of biological organization, with the goal of deriving a single index...
Telemetry techniques: A user guide for fisheries research
Noah Adams, John W. Beeman, John H. Eiler, editor(s)
2012, Book
Telemetry provides a powerful and flexible tool for studying fish and other aquatic animals, and its use has become increasingly commonplace. However, telemetry is gear intensive and typically requires more specialized knowledge and training than many other field techniques. As with other scientific methods, collecting good data is dependent on...
Genetic variation reveals influence of landscape connectivity on population dynamics and resiliency of western trout in disturbance-prone habitats
Helen M. Neville, Robert E. Gresswell, Jason B. Dunham
2012, Technical Report RMRS-GTR-290
Salmonid fishes have evolved and persisted in dynamic ecosystems where disturbance events vary in frequency, magnitude, timing, and duration, as well as the specific nature of associated effects (e.g., changes in thermal or flow regimes, geomorphology, or water chemistry). In the western United States, one of the major drivers of...
A program for handling map projections of small-scale geospatial raster data
Michael P. Finn, Daniel R. Steinwand, Jason R. Trent, Robert A. Buehler, David M. Mattli, Kristina H. Yamamoto
2012, Cartographic Perspectives (71) 53-67
Scientists routinely accomplish small-scale geospatial modeling using raster datasets of global extent. Such use often requires the projection of global raster datasets onto a map or the reprojection from a given map projection associated with a dataset. The distortion characteristics of these projection transformations can have significant effects on modeling...
Status and trends of prey fish populations in Lake Michigan, 2012
David B. Bunnell, Charles P. Madenjian, Timothy J. Desorcie, Melissa Jean Kostich, Kelley Smith, Jean V. Adams
2012, Report
The U.S. Geological Survey Great Lakes Science Center has conducted lake-wide surveys of the fish community in Lake Michigan each fall since 1973 using standard 12-m bottom trawls towed along contour at depths of 9 to 110 m at each of seven index transects. The resulting data on relative abundance,...
Status of pelagic prey fishes in Lake Michigan, 2012
David M. Warner, Timothy P. O’Brien, Steve A. Farha, Randall M. Claramunt, Dale Hanson
2012, Report
Acoustic surveys were conducted in late summer/early fall during the years 1992-1996 and 2001-2012 to estimate pelagic prey fish biomass in Lake Michigan. Midwater trawling during the surveys as well as target strength provided a measure of species and size composition of the fish community for use in scaling acoustic...
Basin thickness variations at the Junction of the Eastern California Shear Zone and the San Bernardino Mountains, California: How thick could the Pliocene sections be?
Victoria E. Langenheim, Tammy L. Surko, Phillip A. Armstrong, Jonathan C. Matti
2012, Conference Paper, Searching for the Pliocene: southern exposures, Annual Desert Symposium Proceedings
We estimate the thickness of Neogene basin fill along the junction of the Eastern California Shear Zone and the North Frontal thrust system of the San Bernardino Mountains using gravity data with geologic and well log constraints. The geometry of the basin fill is of interest for groundwater assessment and location of potential...
Sexual selection and mating chronology of Lesser Prairie-Chickens
Adam C. Behney, Blake A. Grisham, Clint W. Boal, Heather A. Whitlaw, David A. Haukos
2012, Wilson Journal of Ornithology (124) 96-105
Little is known about mate selection and lek dynamics of Lesser Prairie-Chickens (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus). We collected data on male territory size and location on leks, behavior, and morphological characteristics and assessed the importance of these variables on male Lesser Prairie-Chicken mating success during spring 2008 and 2009 in the Texas...
Using computational modeling of river flow with remotely sensed data to infer channel bathymetry
Jonathan M. Nelson, Richard R. McDonald, Paul J. Kinzel, Y. Shimizu
2012, Conference Paper, IAHR Riverflow 2012 Conference Proceedings
As part of an ongoing investigation into the use of computational river flow and morphodynamic models for the purpose of correcting and extending remotely sensed river datasets, a simple method for inferring channel bathymetry is developed and discussed. The method is based on an inversion of the equations expressing conservation...
Concurrent speciation in the eastern woodland salamanders (Genus Plethodon):DNA sequences of the complete albumin nuclear and partialmitochondrial 12s genes
Richard Highton, Amy Picard Hastings, Catherine Palmer, Richard Watts, Carla A. Hass, Melanie Culver, Stevan Arnold
2012, Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution (63) 278-290
Salamanders of the North American plethodontid genus Plethodon are important model organisms in a variety of studies that depend on a phylogenetic framework (e.g., chemical communication, ecological competition, life histories, hybridization, and speciation), and consequently their systematics has been intensively investigated over several decades. Nevertheless, we lack a synthesis of...
Digital elevation model generation from satellite interferometric synthetic aperture radar: Chapter 5
Zhong Lu, Daniel Dzurisin, Hyung-Sup Jung, Lei Zhang, Wonjin Lee, Chang-Wook Lee
2012, Book chapter, Advances in mapping from remote sensor imagery
An accurate digital elevation model (DEM) is a critical data set for characterizing the natural landscape, monitoring natural hazards, and georeferencing satellite imagery. The ideal interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) configuration for DEM production is a single-pass two-antenna system. Repeat-pass single-antenna satellite InSAR imagery, however, also can be used to...
Distributional changes of American martens and fishers in eastern North America, 1699-2001: Chapter 4
William B. Krohn
2012, Book chapter, Biology and Conservation of Martens, Sables, and Fishers: A New Synthesis
Contractions in the geographic distributions of the American marten ( Martes americana) and fi sher ( M. pennanti) in eastern North America south of the St. Lawrence River between Colonial times (ca. 1650–1800) and the fi sher’s recent range expansion (ca. 1930–present) are well documented, but causal factors in these...
Stochastic analyses to identify wellfield withdrawal effects on surface-water and groundwater in Miami-Dade County, Florida
Eric Swain
2012, Journal of Environmental Management (113) 15-21
Several stochastic analyses were conducted in Miami-Dade County, Florida, to evaluate the effects of wellfield withdrawal on aquifer water levels, canal stage, and canal flow. Multiyear data for withdrawals at four water-supply wellfields, water levels at the S-121 canal control structure and groundwater head at a nearby monitoring well were used to determine...
Borehole geophysical, fluid, and hydraulic properties within and surrounding the freshwater/saline-water transition zone, San Antonio segment of the Edwards aquifer, south-central Texas, 2010-11
Jonathan V. Thomas, Gregory P. Stanton, Rebecca B. Lambert
2012, Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5285
The freshwater zone of the San Antonio segment of the Edwards aquifer is used by residents of San Antonio and numerous other rapidly growing communities in south-central Texas as their primary water supply source. This freshwater zone is bounded to the south and southeast by a saline-water zone with an...
Stratigraphic cross section of measured sections and drill holes of the Neslen Formation and adjacent formations, Book Cliffs Area, Colorado and Utah
Mark A. Kirschbaum, Brianne D. Spear
2012, Open-File Report 2012-1260
This study updates a stratigraphic cross section published as plate 2 in Kirschbaum and Hettinger (2004) Digital Data Series 69-G (http://pubs.usgs.gov/dds/dds-069/dds-069-g/). The datum is a marine/tidal ravinement surface within the Cozzette Sandstone Member of the Iles Formation and the Thompson Canyon Sandstone and Sulphur Canyon Sandstone Beds of...
Assessing potential effects of changes in water use with a numerical groundwater-flow model of Carson Valley, Douglas County, Nevada, and Alpine County, California
Richard M. Yager, Douglas K. Maurer, C.J. Mayers
2012, Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5262
Rapid growth and development within Carson Valley in Douglas County, Nevada, and Alpine County, California, has caused concern over the continued availability of groundwater, and whether the increased municipal demand could either impact the availability of water or result in decreased flow in the Carson River. Annual pumpage of groundwater...
