Glacier retreat in Glacier National Park, Montana
Caitlyn Florentine
2019, Fact Sheet 2019-3068
Currently, the volume of land ice on Earth is decreasing, driving consequential changes to global sea level and local stream habitat. Glacier retreat in Glacier National Park, Montana, U.S.A., is one example of land ice loss and glacier change. The U.S. Geological Survey Benchmark Glacier Project conducts glaciological research and...
The tangled tale of Kīlauea’s 2018 eruption as told by geochemical monitoring
Cheryl Gansecki, R. Lopaka Lee, Tom Shea, Steven P. Lundblad, Ken Hon, Carolyn E. Parcheta
2019, Science (366)
Changes in magma chemistry that affect eruptive behavior occur during many volcanic eruptions, but typical analytical techniques are too slow to contribute to hazard monitoring. We used rapid energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence analysis to measure diagnostic elements in lava samples within a few hours of collection during the 2018 Kīlauea eruption....
Cyclic lava effusion during the 2018 eruption of Kīlauea Volcano
Matthew R. Patrick, Hannah R. Dietterich, John J. Lyons, Angela K. Diefenbach, Carolyn Parcheta, Kyle R. Anderson, Atsuko Namiki, Ikuro Sumita, Brian Shiro, James P. Kauahikaua
2019, Science (366)
Lava flows present a recurring threat to communities on active volcanoes, and volumetric eruption rate is one of the primary factors controlling flow behavior and hazard. The timescales and driving forces of eruption rate variability, however, remain poorly understood. In 2018, a highly destructive eruption occurred on the lower flank...
Geology and assessment of undiscovered oil and gas resources of the Arctic Alaska Province, 2008
David W. Houseknecht, Kenneth J. Bird, Christopher Garrity
Thomas E. Moore, Donald L. Gautier, editor(s)
2019, Professional Paper 1824-E
The Arctic Alaska Province encompasses all lands and adjacent continental shelf areas north of the Brooks Range-Herald Arch tectonic belts and south of the northern (outboard) margin of the Alaska rift shoulder. Even though only a small part is thoroughly explored, it is one of the most prolific petroleum provinces...
Pesticide mixtures in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta, 2016–17: Results from year 2 of the Delta Regional Monitoring Program
Matthew D. De Parsia, Emily E. Woodward, James L. Orlando, Michelle L. Hladik
2019, Data Series 1120
The Delta Regional Monitoring Program was developed by the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board in response to the decline of pelagic fish species in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta that was observed in the early 2000s. The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Delta Regional Monitoring Program, has...
Magma reservoir failure and the onset of caldera collapse at Kīlauea volcano in 2018
Kyle R. Anderson, Ingrid A. Johanson, Matthew R. Patrick, Mengyang Gu, Paul Segall, Michael P. Poland, Emily Montgomery-Brown, Asta Miklius
2019, Science (366)
Caldera-forming eruptions are among Earths most hazardous natural phenomena, yet the architecture of subcaldera magma reservoirs and the conditions that trigger collapse are poorly understood. Observations from the formation of a 0.8cubic kilometer basaltic caldera at Klauea Volcano in 2018 included the draining of an active lava lake, which...
On the use of indices to study extreme precipitation on sub-daily and daily timescales
Lisa Alexander, Hayley Fowler, Margot Bador, Ali Behrangi, Markus G. Donat, Robert Dunn, Chris Funk, James Goldie, Elizabeth Lewis, Marine Roge, Sonia I Seneviratne, V Vengupal
2019, Environmental Research Letters (14)
While there are obstacles to the exchange of long-term high temporal resolution precipitation data, there have been few barriers to the exchange of so-called ‘indices’ which are derived from daily and sub-daily data and measure aspects of precipitation frequency, duration and intensity that could be used for the study of...
The August 2018 Kaktovik earthquakes: Active tectonics in northeastern Alaska revealed With InSAR and seismology
E. Gaudreau, E.K. Nissen, Eric A. Bergman, Harley M. Benz, F. Tan, E. Karasözen
2019, Geophysical Research Letters (46) 14412-14420
The largest earthquakes recorded in northern Alaska (Mw 6.4 and Mw 6.0) occurred ~6 hours apart on August 12, 2018 in the northeastern Brooks Range. The earthquakes were captured by Sentinel-1 InSAR satellites and Earthscope Transportable Array seismic data, giving insight into the little-known active tectonic processes of Arctic Alaska,...
Flood-frequency comparison from 1995 to 2016 and trends in peak streamflow in Arkansas, water years 1930–2016
Paul A. Ensminger, Brian K. Breaker
2019, Scientific Investigations Report 2019-5131
In 2016, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, began a study in Arkansas to investigate possible increasing trends in annual peak streamflow data and the possible resulting increase in the annual exceedance probability flood (AEPF) predictions. Temporal...
Hydrogeologic framework of the Virginia Eastern Shore
E. Randolph McFarland, Todd A. Beach
2019, Scientific Investigations Report 2019-5093
The Yorktown-Eastover aquifer system of the Virginia Eastern Shore consists of upper, middle, and lower confined aquifers overlain by correspondingly named confining units and underlain by the Saint Marys confining unit. Miocene- to Pliocene-age marine-shelf sediments observed in 205 boreholes include medium- to coarse-grained sand and shells that compose the...
Identifying and characterizing extrapolation in multivariate response data
Meridith L. Bartley, Ephraim M. Hanks, Erin M. Schliep, Patricia A. Soranno, Tyler Wagner
2019, PLoS ONE (14)
Faced with limitations in data availability, funding, and time constraints, ecologists are often tasked with making predictions beyond the range of their data. In ecological studies, it is not always obvious when and where extrapolation occurs because of the multivariate nature of the data. Previous work on identifying extrapolation has...
Evaluation of stormwater treatment vault with Coanda-effect screen for removal of solids and phosphorus in urban runoff
Nicolas Buer, William R. Selbig
2019, Journal of Sustainable Water in the Built Environment (6)
Catch basins commonly are used by cities as part of a stormwater management plan to remove sediment and associated contaminants from stormwater, keeping them in compliance with regulations. Recently, the city of Madison, Wisconsin modified traditional catch basins by incorporating a fine-mesh (1-mm) Coanda-effect screen into the design with the...
BbsAssistant: An R package for downloading and handling data and information from the North American Breeding Bird Survey
Jessica Leigh Burnett, Lyndsie S. Wszola, Gabriela Palomo-Munoz
2019, Journal of Open Source Software (4) 1768
This R package contains functions for downloading and munging data from the U.S. Geological Surveys North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) via file transfer protocol (FTP) (Pardieck, Ziolkowski Jr, Lutmerding, & Hudson, 2018; J. R. Sauer et al., 2017). This package was created to allow the user to bulk-download the BBS...
Improving predictions of fine particle immobilization in streams
Jennifer D. Drummond, Noah Schmadel, Christa Kelleher, Aaron I. Packman, Adam S Ward
2019, Geophysical Research Letters (46) 13,853-13,861
Fine particles are critical to stream ecosystem functioning, influencing in-stream processes from pathogen transmission to carbon cycling, all of which depend on particle immobilization. However, our ability to predict particle immobilization is limited by: (1) availability of combined solute and particle tracer data and (2) identifying parameters that appropriately...
Offset channels may not accurately record strike-slip fault displacement: Evidence from landscape evolution models
Nadine G. Reitman, Karl J. Mueller, Gregory E. Tucker, Ryan D. Gold, Richard W. Briggs, Katherine R. Barnhart
2019, Journal of Geophysical Research Solid Earth (124) 13427-13451
Slip distribution, slip rate, and slip per event for strike‐slip faults are commonly determined by correlating offset stream channels—under the assumption that they record seismic slip—but offset channels are formed by the interplay of tectonic and geomorphic processes. To constrain offset channel development under known tectonic and geomorphic conditions, we...
Measurement of cyanobacteria bloom magnitude using satellite remote sensing
Sachidananda Mishra, Richard P. Stumpf, Blake Schaeffer, P. Jeremy Werdell, Keith A. Loftin, Andrew Meredith
2019, Scientific Reports
Cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (cyanoHABs) are a serious environmental, water quality and public health issue worldwide because of their ability to form dense biomass and produce toxins. Models and algorithms have been developed to detect and quantify cyanoHABs biomass using remotely sensed data but not for quantifying bloom magnitude, information...
Environmental and biological factors influence migratory Sea Lamprey catchability: Implications for tracking abundance in the Laurentian Great Lakes
Sean A. Lewandoski, Gale A Bravener, Peter J. Hrodey, Scott M. Miehls
2019, Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management (11) 68-79
Sea Lamprey Petromyzon marinus population trends in the Great Lakes are tracked by trapping migratory adults in tributaries and using mark and recapture techniques to estimate abundance. Understanding what environmental and biological factors influence Sea Lamprey capture in tributaries is crucial to developing efficient trapping methods and reliable abundance...
Assessment of continuous oil and gas resources in the Mississippian Delle Phosphatic Member of the Woodman Formation in the Eastern Great Basin Province of Nevada, Utah, and Idaho, 2019
Christopher J. Schenk, Tracey J. Mercier, Thomas M. Finn, Kristen R. Marra, Phuong A. Le, Michael E. Brownfield, Heidi M. Leathers-Miller
2019, Fact Sheet 2019-3062
Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean resources of 144 million barrels of shale oil and 559 billion cubic feet of shale gas in the Mississippian Delle Phosphatic Member of the Woodman Formation in the Eastern Great Basin Province of Nevada, Utah, and Idaho....
Assessment of the American woodcock singing-ground survey zone timing and coverage
J. D. Moore, Thomas R. Cooper, Rebecca D. Rau, David E. Andersen, J. P Duguay, C. Alan Stewart, David G. Krementz
2019, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the eleventh American woodcock symposium
The American woodcock (Scolopax minor; hereafter, woodcock) Singing-Ground Survey (SGS) was developed to inform management decisions by monitoring changes in the relative abundance of woodcock. The timing of the designated survey windows was designed to count resident woodcock while minimizing counting of migrating woodcock. Since the implementation of the SGS...
Estimating density and effective area surveyed for American woodcock
Stefanie M. Bergh, David E. Andersen
2019, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the eleventh American woodcock symposium
The American Woodcock (Scolopax minor; hereafter, woodcock) Singing-ground Survey (SGS) is conducted annually during the woodcock breeding season, and survey points along survey routes are set 0.4 mile (0.65 km) apart to avoid counting individual birds from >1 listening location. The effective area surveyed (EAS) at a listening point is...
Detection probability and occupancy of American woodcock during Singing-ground surveys
Stefanie M. Bergh, David E. Andersen
2019, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the eleventh American woodcock symposium
The Singing-ground Survey (SGS) was designed to exploit the conspicuous breeding-season display of male American woodcock (Scolopax minor; hereafter, woodcock) to monitor these otherwise inconspicuous birds. The SGS was standardized in 1968 and has since been conducted annually to derive an index of abundance and population trend. Counts of singing...
Comparing live-capture methods for nutria: single- versus multiple-capture cage traps
Trevor R. Sheffels, Jacoby Carter, Mark S. Sytsma, Jimmy D. Taylor
2019, Human-Wildlife Interactions (13) 394-399
Herbivory and burrowing by nutria (Myocastor coypus) cause substantial ecological and economic damage. Trapping is a common, effective practice for reducing nutria damage; however, trapping approaches must continually be adapted to keep pace with evolving animal welfare and ethical issues and to more effectively target pest species of interest. Our objective was to evaluate...
Observations of the spawning ecology of the imperiled Clear Lake Hitch Lavinia exilicauda chi
Frederick V. Feyrer
2019, California Fish and Game (105) 225-232
Migrations for the purposes of reproduction are widely documented across the animal kingdom and are particularly common in fishes and other aquatic organisms (Dingle 2014). One important migration strategy in fishes is potamodromy, which is the movement from one location to another entirely within freshwater (Morais and Daverat 2016)....
Reach-scale monitoring and modeling of rivers--Expanding hydraulic data collection beyond the cross section
Brandon T. Forbes, Claire E. Bunch, Geoffrey DeBenedetto, Corey J. Shaw, Bruce Gungle
2019, Fact Sheet 2019-3073
For over 125 years, the U.S. Geological Survey streamgage network has provided important hydrologic information about rivers and streams throughout the Nation. Traditional streamgage methods provide reliable stage and streamflow data but typically only monitor stage at a single location in a river and require frequent calibration streamflow measurements. Direct measurements are...
A leg-hold noose capture method for Brent Geese Branta bernicla at staging or wintering sites
Yusuke Sawa, Chieko Tamura, Toshio Ikeuchi, Kaoru Fujii, Aisa Ishioroshi, T. Shimada, David H. Ward
2019, Wildfowl (69) 230-241
Effective and efficient capture methods are needed for marking and monitoring individuals in studies of demography, migration and habitat use. We describe a novel use of leg-hold nooses aligned on lines and mats to capture non-breeding Brent Geese Branta bernicla in water at a staging and wintering site in Japan....
