Temporal and spatial variability of groundwater recharge on Jeju Island, Korea
Alan Mair, Benjamin Hagedorn, Suzanne Tillery, Aly I. El-Kadi, Stephen M. Westenbroek, Kyoochul Ha, Gi-Won Koh
2013, Journal of Hydrology (501) 213-226
Estimates of groundwater recharge spatial and temporal variability are essential inputs to groundwater flow models that are used to test groundwater availability under different management and climate conditions. In this study, a soil water balance analysis was conducted to estimate groundwater recharge on the island of Jeju, Korea, for baseline,...
Recent land-use/land-cover change in the Central California Valley
Christopher E. Soulard, Tamara S. Wilson
2013, Journal of Land Use Science
Open access to Landsat satellite data has enabled annual analyses of modern land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) for the Central California Valley ecoregion between 2005 and 2010. Our annual LULCC estimates capture landscape-level responses to water policy changes, climate, and economic instability. From 2005 to 2010, agriculture in the region...
Projecting demographic responses to climate change: adult and juvenile survival respond differently to direct and indirect effects of weather in a passerine population
Kristen E. Dybala, John M. Eadie, Thomas Gardali, Nathaniel E. Seavy, Mark P. Herzog
2013, Global Change Biology (19) 2688-2697
Few studies have quantitatively projected changes in demography in response to climate change, yet doing so can provide important insights into the processes that may lead to population declines and changes in species distributions. Using a long-term mark-recapture data set, we examined the influence of multiple direct and indirect effects...
Consequences of least tern (Sternula antillarum) microhabitat nest-site selection on natural and mechanically constructed sandbars in the Missouri River
Jennifer H. Stucker, Deborah A. Buhl, Mark H. Sherfy
2013, The Auk (130) 753-763
Nest-habitat selection in colonial species has rarely been assessed at multiple spatial scales to evaluate its fitness consequences. Management for the federally endangered U.S. Interior population of Least Terns (Sternula antillarum) has focused on maintenance of breeding habitats, including mechanical construction of sandbars from dredged material. Least Terns are attracted...
A spatial capture-recapture model to estimate fish survival and location from linear continuous monitoring arrays
Joshua K. Raabe, Beth Gardner, Joseph E. Hightower
2013, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (71) 120-130
We developed a spatial capture–recapture model to evaluate survival and activity centres (i.e., mean locations) of tagged individuals detected along a linear array. Our spatially explicit version of the Cormack–Jolly–Seber model, analyzed using a Bayesian framework, correlates movement between periods and can incorporate environmental or other covariates. We demonstrate the...
Near-field tsunami edge waves and complex earthquake rupture
Eric L. Geist
2013, Pure and Applied Geophysics (170) 1475-1491
The effect of distributed coseismic slip on progressive, near-field edge waves is examined for continental shelf tsunamis. Detailed observations of edge waves are difficult to separate from the other tsunami phases that are observed on tide gauge records. In this study, analytic methods are used to compute tsunami edge waves...
Mapping risk for nest predation on a barrier island
Amanda D. Hackney, Robert F. Baldwin, Patrick G.R. Jodice
2013, Journal of Coastal Conservation (17) 615-621
Barrier islands and coastal beach systems provide nesting habitat for marine and estuarine turtles. Densely settled coastal areas may subsidize nest predators. Our purpose was to inform conservation by providing a greater understanding of habitat-based risk factors for nest predation, for an estuarine turtle. We expected that habitat conditions at...
Female elk contacts are neither frequency nor density dependent
Paul C. Cross, Tyler G. Creech, Michael R. Ebinger, Kezia R. Manlove, Kathryn M. Irvine, John C. Henningsen, Jared D. Rogerson, Brandon M. Scurlock, Scott Creely
2013, Ecology (94) 2076-2086
Identifying drivers of contact rates among individuals is critical to understanding disease dynamics and implementing targeted control measures. We studied the interaction patterns of 149 female elk (Cervus canadensis) distributed across five different regions of western Wyoming over three years, defining a contact as an approach within one body length...
Representing the effects of alpine grassland vegetation cover on the simulation of soil thermal dynamics by ecosystem models applied to the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau
S. Yi, N. Li, B. Xiang, X. Wang, B. Ye, A. D. McGuire
2013, Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences (118) 1186-1199
Soil surface temperature is a critical boundary condition for the simulation of soil temperature by environmental models. It is influenced by atmospheric and soil conditions and by vegetation cover. In sophisticated land surface models, it is simulated iteratively by solving surface energy budget equations. In ecosystem, permafrost, and hydrology models,...
U–Pb, Rb–Sr, and U-series isotope geochemistry of rocks and fracture minerals from the Chalk River Laboratories site, Grenville Province, Ontario, Canada
Leonid A. Neymark, Zell E. Peterman, Richard J. Moscati, R. H. Thivierge
2013, Applied Geochemistry (36) 10-33
As part of the Geologic Waste Management Facility feasibility study, Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL) is evaluating the suitability of the Chalk River Laboratories (CRL) site in Ontario, situated in crystalline rock of the southwestern Grenville Province, for the possible development of an underground repository for low- and...
Discussion: Numerical study on the entrainment of bed material into rapid landslides
Richard M. Iverson
2013, Geotechnique (63) 887-888
A paper recently published in this journal (Pirulli & Pastor, 2012) uses numerical modelling to study the important problem of entrainment of bed material by landslides. Unfortunately, some of the basic equations employed in the study are flawed, because they violate the principle of linear momentum conservation. Similar errors exist...
Temporal and spatial variability of global water balance
Gregory J. McCabe, David M. Wolock
2013, Climatic Change (120) 375-387
An analysis of simulated global water-balance components (precipitation [P], actual evapotranspiration [AET], runoff [R], and potential evapotranspiration [PET]) for the past century indicates that P has been the primary driver of variability in R. Additionally, since about 2000, there have been increases in P, AET, R, and PET for most...
Implications of multi-scale sea level and climate variability for coastal resources
Christina Karamperidou, Victor Engel, Upmanu Lall, Erik Stabenau, Thomas J. Smith III
2013, Regional Environmental Change (13) 91-100
While secular changes in regional sea levels and their implications for coastal zone management have been studied extensively, less attention is being paid to natural fluctuations in sea levels, whose interaction with a higher mean level could have significant impacts on low-lying areas, such as wetlands. Here, the long record...
Role of a polymorphism in a Hox/Pax-responsive enhancer in the evolution of the vertebrate spine
Isabel Guerreiro, Andreia Nunes, Joost M. Woltering, Ana Casaca, Ana Novoa, Tania Vinagre, Margaret E. Hunter, Denis Duboule, Moises Mallo
2013, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (110) 10682-10686
Patterning of the vertebrate skeleton requires the coordinated activity of Hox genes. In particular, Hox10 proteins are essential to set the transition from thoracic to lumbar vertebrae because of their rib-repressing activity. In snakes, however, the thoracic region extends well into Hox10-expressing areas of the embryo, suggesting that these proteins...
Estimating abundance while accounting for rarity, correlated behavior, and other sources of variation in counts
Robert M. Dorazio, Juulien Martin, Holly H. Edwards
2013, Ecology (94) 1472-1478
The class of N-mixture models allows abundance to be estimated from repeated, point count surveys while adjusting for imperfect detection of individuals. We developed an extension of N-mixture models to account for two commonly observed phenomena in point count surveys: rarity and lack of independence induced by unmeasurable sources of...
Comparison of methods for predicting shear-wave velocities of unconsolidated shallow sediments in the Gulf of Mexico
Myung W. Lee
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5141
Accurate shear-wave velocities for shallow sediments are important for a variety of seismic applications such as inver-sion and amplitude versus offset analysis. During the U.S. Department of Energy-sponsored Gas Hydrate Joint Industry Project Leg II, shear-wave velocities were measured at six wells in the Gulf of Mexico using the logging-while-drilling...
The 3D Elevation Program: summary for Colorado
William J. Carswell Jr.
2013, Fact Sheet 2013-3050
Elevation data are essential to a broad range of applications, including forest resources management, wildlife and habitat management, national security, recreation, and many others. For the State of Colorado, elevation data are critical for natural resources conservation, agriculture and precision farming, infrastructure and construction management, flood risk management, geologic resource...
In vitro prion protein conversion suggests risk of bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) to transmissible spongiform encephalopathies
Christopher J. Johnson, A.R. Morawski, C.M. Carlson, H. Chang
2013, BMC Veterinary Research (9)
Background: Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) affect both domestic sheep (scrapie) and captive and free-ranging cervids (chronic wasting disease; CWD). The geographical range of bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis; BHS) overlaps with states or provinces that have contained scrapie-positive sheep or goats and areas with present epizootics of CWD in cervids. No...
Analysis and inundation mapping of the April-May 2011 flood at selected locations in northern and eastern Arkansas and southern Missouri
Drew A. Westerman, Katherine R. Merriman, Jeanne L. De Lanois, Charles Berenbrock
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5148
Precipitation that fell from April 19 through May 3, 2011, resulted in widespread flooding across northern and eastern Arkansas and southern Missouri. The first storm produced a total of approximately 16 inches of precipitation over an 8-day period, and the following storms produced as much as 12 inches of precipitation...
Reconnaissance investigation of the alluvial gold deposits in the North Takhar Area of Interest, Takhar Province, Afghanistan
Peter G. Chirico, Katherine C. Malpeli, Thomas W. Moran
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1180
This study is a reconnaissance assessment of the alluvial gold deposits of the North Takhar Area of Interest (AOI) in Takhar Province, Afghanistan. Soviet and Afghan geologists collected data and calculated the gold deposit reserves in Takhar Province in the 1970s, prior to the development of satellite-based remote-sensing platforms and...
Reconnaissance investigation of the placer gold deposits in the Zarkashan Area of Interest, Ghazni Province, Afghanistan
Katherine C. Malpeli, Peter G. Chirico, Isabel H. McLoughlin
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1179
This study is a reconnaissance investigation of the placer gold deposits in the Zarkashan Area of Interest (AOI) in Ghazni Province, Afghanistan. Detailed investigations of the Zarkashan gold deposits were conducted by Soviet and Afghan geologists in the 1960s and 1970s, prior to the development of satellite-based remote-sensing platforms and...
Assessing hazards along our Nation's coasts
Hilary F. Stockdon, Cheryl J. Hapke, E. Robert Thieler, Nathaniel G. Plant
2013, Fact Sheet 2013-3077
Coastal areas are essential to the economic, cultural, and environmental health of the Nation, yet by nature coastal areas are constantly changing due to a variety of events and processes. Extreme storms can cause dramatic changes to our shorelines in a matter of hours, while sea-level rise can profoundly alter...
Effects of fire on the thermal stability of permafrost in lowland and upland black spruce forests of interior Alaska in a changing climate
Elchin E. Jafarov, Vladimir E. Romanovsky, Helene Genet, Anthony D. McGuire, Sergey S. Marchenko
2013, Environmental Research Letters (8)
Fire is an important factor controlling the composition and thickness of the organic layer in the black spruce forest ecosystems of interior Alaska. Fire that burns the organic layer can trigger dramatic changes in the underlying permafrost, leading to accelerated ground thawing within a relatively short time. In this study,...
Landscape-level estimation of nitrogen removal in coastal Louisiana wetlands: potential sinks under different restoration scenarios
Victor H. Rivera-Monroy, Benjamin Branoff, Ehab Meselhe, Alex McCorquodale, Mark Dortch, Gregory D. Steyer, Jenneke Visser, Hongqing Wang
2013, Journal of Coastal Research (Summer 2013) 75-87
Coastal eutrophication in the northern Gulf of Mexico (GOM) is the primary anthropogenic contributor to the largest zone of hypoxic bottom waters in North America. Although biologically mediated processes such as denitrification (Dn) are known to act as sinks for inorganic nitrogen, it is unknown what contribution denitrification makes to...
User’s guide and reference to Ash3d—A three-dimensional model for Eulerian atmospheric tephra transport and deposition
Larry G. Mastin, Michael J. Randall, Hans F. Schwaiger, Roger P. Denlinger
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1122
Ash3d is a three-dimensional Eulerian atmospheric model for tephra transport, dispersal, and deposition to study and forecast hazards of volcanic ash clouds and tephra fall. In this report, we explain how to set up simulations using a web interface, and how to view and interpret model output. We also summarize...
