Micrometer-scale characterization of solid mine waste aids in closure due diligence
Bryn E. Kimball, Heather E. Jamieson, Robert R. Seal, II, Agatha Dobosz, Nadine M. Piatak
2020, Conference Paper, Proceedings of tailings and mine waste 2019
Precious- and base-metal mining often occurs in deposits with high acid-generating potential, resulting in mine waste that contains metals in forms of varying bioavailability, and therefore toxicity. The solids that host these metals are often noncrystalline, nanometer to micrometer in size, or undetectable by readily available analytical techniques (e.g., X-ray...
Spatial sampling bias and model complexity in stream-based species distribution models: A case study of Paddlefish (Polyodon spathula) in the Arkansas River basin, USA
A. T. Taylor, T. Hafen, Colt Taylor Holley, A. Gonzalez, James M. Long
2020, Ecology & Evolution (10) 705-717
Leveraging existing presence records and geospatial datasets, species distribution modeling has been widely applied to informing species conservation and restoration efforts. Maxent is one of the most popular modeling algorithms, yet recent research has demonstrated Maxent models are vulnerable to prediction errors related to spatial sampling bias and model complexity....
Post-12 Ma deformation of the lower Colorado River corridor, southwestern USA: Implications for diffuse transtension and the Bouse Formation
Jacob Thacker, Karl Karlstrom, Laura Crossey, Ryan S. Crow, Colleen Cassidy, L. Sue Beard, John Singleton, Evan Strickland, Nikki Seymour, Michael Wyatt
2020, Geosphere (16) 111-135
Structural evidence presented here documents that deformation was ongoing within the lower Colorado River corridor (southwestern USA) during and after the latest Miocene Epoch, postdating large-magnitude extension and metamorphic core complex formation. Geometric and kinematic data collected on faults in key geologic units constrain the timing of deformation in relation...
Geophysical characterization of a Proterozoic REE terrane at Mountain Pass, eastern Mojave Desert, California
Kevin Denton, David A. Ponce, Jared R. Peacock, David M. Miller
2020, Geosphere (16) 456-471
Mountain Pass, California (USA), located in the eastern Mojave Desert, hosts one of the world’s richest rare earth element (REE) deposits. The REE-rich terrane occurs in a 2.5-km-wide, northwest-trending belt of Mesoproterozoic (1.4 Ga) stocks and dikes, which intrude a larger Paleoproterozoic (1.7 Ga) metamorphic block that extends ∼10 km...
Postmortem evaluation of reintroduced migratory whooping cranes (Grus americana) in eastern North America
Taylor J. Yaw, Kimberli J.G. Miller, Julia S. Lankton, Barry K. Hartup
2020, Wildlife Disease (56) 673-678
We reviewed necropsy records of 124 Whooping Cranes (Grus americana) recovered following reintroduction of 268 individuals from 2001 to 2016 in the eastern US. Causes of death were determined in 62% (77/124) of cases facilitated by active monitoring that limited decomposition and scavenging artifact. The greatest proportions of mortality were...
Future losses of playa wetlands decrease network structure and connectivity of the Rainwater Basin, Nebraska
Bram H.F. Verheijen, Dana M. Varner, David A. Haukos
2020, Landscape Ecology (35) 453-467
ContextThe Rainwater Basin in south-central Nebraska once supported a complex network of ~ 12,000 spatially-isolated playa wetlands, but ~ 90% have been lost since European settlement. Future losses are likely and expected reductions in connectivity could further isolate populations, increasing local extinction rates of many wetland species. However, to what extent future...
Testing reproducibility of vitrinite and solid bitumen reflectance measurements in North American unconventional source-rock reservoir petroleum systems
Paul C. Hackley, Carla V. Araujo, Angeles G. Borrego, Antonis Bouzinos, Brian J. Cardott, H. Carvajal-Ortiz, Martha Rocio Lopez Cely, Vongani Chabalala, Peter J. Crosdale, Thomas D. Demchuk, Cortland F. Eble, Deolinda Flores, Agnieszka Furmann, Thomas Gentzis, Paula Goncalves, Carsten Guvad, M. Hamor-Vido, Iwona Jelonek, M. Johnston, Tatiana Juliao-Lemus, Stavros Kalaitzidis, Wayne Knowles, Jolanta Kus, Zhongsheng Li, Gordon Macleod, Maria Mastalerz, Taissa Rego Menezes, Seare Ocubalidet, Richard Orban, Walter Pickel, Paddy Ranasinghe, Joana Ribeiro, Olga Patricia Gomez Rojas, Ricardo Ruiz-Monroy, Jaques Schmidt, Abbas Seyedolali, Georgios Siavalas, Isabel Suarez-Ruiz, Carlos Vargas Vargas, Brett J. Valentine, Nicola Wagner, Bree Wrolson, Julian Esteban Jaramillo Zapata
2020, Marine and Petroleum Geology (114)
An interlaboratory study (ILS) was conducted to test reproducibility of vitrinite and solid bitumen reflectance measurements in six mudrock samples from United States unconventional source-rock reservoir petroleum systems. Samples selected from the Marcellus, Haynesville, Eagle Ford, Barnett, Bakken and Woodford are...
Chronic and episodic acidification of streams along the Appalachian Trail corridor, eastern United States
Douglas A. Burns, Todd McDonnell, Karen C. Rice, Gregory B. Lawrence, Timothy Sullivan
2020, Hydrological Processes (34) 1498-1513
Acidic atmospheric deposition has adversely affected aquatic ecosystems globally. As emissions and deposition of sulfur (S) and nitrogen (N) have declined in recent decades across North America and Europe, ecosystem recovery is evident in many surface waters. However, persistent chronic and episodic acidification remain important concerns in vulnerable regions. We...
Geochronology of the Oliverian Plutonic Suite and the Ammonoosuc Volcanics in the Bronson Hill arc: Western New Hampshire, USA
Peter M. Valley, Gregory J. Walsh, Arthur J. Merschat, Ryan J. McAleer
2020, Geosphere (16) 229-257
U-Pb zircon geochronology by sensitive high-resolution ion microprobe–reverse geometry (SHRIMP-RG) on 11 plutonic rocks and two volcanic rocks from the Bronson Hill arc in western New Hampshire yielded Early to Late Ordovician ages ranging from 475 to 445 Ma. Ages from Oliverian Plutonic Suite rocks that intrude a largely mafic...
Anatomy of a caldera collapse: Kīlauea 2018 summit seismicity sequence in high resolution
David R. Shelly, Weston Thelen
2020, Geophysical Research Letters (46) 14395-14403
The 2018 Kīlauea eruption and caldera collapse generated intense cycles of seismicity tied to repeated large seismic (Mw ~5) collapse events associated with magma withdrawal from beneath the summit. To gain insight into the underlying dynamics and aid eruption response, we applied waveform-based earthquake detection and double-difference location as...
Brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) movement and survival after removal of two dams on the West Branch of the Wolf River, Wisconsin
Emma G. Easterly, Daniel A. Isermann, Joshua K. Raabe, Joshua W. Pyatskowit
2020, Ecology of Freshwater Fish (29) 311-324
Dam removals allow fish to access habitats that may provide ecological benefits and risks, but the extent of fish movements through former dam sites has not been thoroughly evaluated for many species. We installed stationary PIT antennas in 2016 and 2017 to evaluate movements and survival of brook trout Salvelinus fontinalis in...
Deposition potential and flow-response dynamics of emergent sandbars in a braided river
Jason S. Alexander, Brandon McElroy, Snehalata Huzurbazar, Caroline M. Elliott, Marissa L. Murr
2020, Water Resources Research (56)
Sandbars are ubiquitous in sandy‐braided rivers throughout the world. In the Great Plains of the United States, recovery and expansion of emergent sandbar habitat (ESH) has been a priority in lowland rivers where the natural extent of sandbars has been degraded. Recovery efforts are aimed at protection of populations of...
Impacts of Hurricane Irma on Florida Bay Islands, Everglades National Park, U.S.A.
G. Lynn Wingard, Sarah E. Bergstresser, Bethany Stackhouse, Miriam Jones, Marci E. Marot, Kristen Hoefke, Andre Daniels, Katherine Keller
2020, Estuaries and Coasts (43) 1070-1089
Hurricane Irma made landfall in south Florida, USA, on September 10, 2017 as a category 4 storm. In January 2018, fieldwork was conducted on four previously (2014) sampled islands in Florida Bay, Everglades National Park to examine changes between 2014 and 2018. The objectives were to determine if the net...
Nitrogen budgets of the Long Island Sound estuary
Penny Vlahos, Michael Whitney, Christina Menniti, John R. Mullaney, Jonathan Morrison, Yan Jia
2020, Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science (232)
Nitrogen (N) inputs to coastal ecosystems have significant impacts on coastal community structure. In N limited systems, increases in N inputs may lead to excess productivity and hypoxia. Like many temperate estuaries, Long Island Sound (LIS), a major eastern U.S. estuary, is a N limited system which has experienced seasonal...
Pleistocene lakes and paleohydrologic environments of the Tecopa basin, California: Constraints on the drainage integration of the Amargosa River
Marith C. Reheis, John Caskey, Jordon Bright, James B. Paces, Shannon A. Mahan, Elmira Wan
2020, GSA Bulletin (132) 1537-1565
The Tecopa basin in eastern California was a terminal basin that episodically held lakes during most of the Quaternary until the basin and its modern stream, the Amargosa River, became tributary to Death Valley. Although long studied for its sedimentology, diagenesis, and paleomagnetism, the basin’s lacustrine and paleoclimate history has...
Ground-motion amplification in Cook Inlet region, Alaska from intermediate-depth earthquakes, including the 2018 MW=7.1 Anchorage earthquake
Morgan P. Moschetti, Eric M. Thompson, John Rekoske, Mike Hearne, Peter M. Powers, Daniel E. McNamara, Carl Tape
2020, Seismological Research Letters (91) 142-152
We measure pseudospectral and peak ground motions from 44 intermediate‐depth Mw≥4.9">Mw≥4.9 earthquakes in the Cook Inlet region of southern Alaska, including those from the 2018 <span id="MathJax-Element-4-Frame"...
RAD-seq refines previous estimates of genetic structure in Lake Erie walleye
Kuan-Yu Chen, Peter T. Euclide, Stuart A. Ludsin, Wesley Larson, Michael G. Sovic, H. Lisle Gibbs, Elizabeth A. Marschall
2020, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (149) 159-173
Delineating population structure helps fishery managers to maintain a diverse “portfolio” of local spawning populations (stocks), as well as facilitate stock-specific management. In Lake Erie, commercial and recreational fisheries for Walleye Sander vitreus exploit numerous local spawning populations, which cannot be easily differentiated using traditional genetic data (e.g., microsatellites). Here, we used...
Holocene rupture history of the central Teton fault at Leigh Lake; Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
Mark Zellman, Christopher DuRoss, Glenn R. Thackray, Stephen Personius, Nadine G. Reitman, Shannon A. Mahan, Cooper Brossy
2020, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (110) 67-82
Prominent scarps on Pinedale glacial surfaces along the eastern base of the Teton Range confirm latest Pleistocene to Holocene surface‐faulting earthquakes on the Teton fault, but the timing of these events is only broadly constrained by a single previous paleoseismic study. We excavated two trenches at the Leigh Lake site...
Gaps and hotspots in the state of knowledge of pinyon-juniper communities
Jessica A. Hartsell, Stella M. Copeland, Seth M. Munson, Bradley J. Butterfield, John B. Bradford
2020, Forest Ecology and Management (455)
Pinyon-juniper (PJ) plant communities cover a large area across North America and provide critical habitat for wildlife, biodiversity and ecosystem functions, and rich cultural resources. These communities occur across a variety of environmental gradients, disturbance regimes, structural conditions and species compositions, including three species of juniper and two species of...
Petroleum hydrocarbons in semipermeable membrane devices deployed in the Northern Gulf of Mexico and Florida keys following the Deepwater Horizon incident
Timothy Bargar, David A. Alvarez, Scott A. Stout
2020, Marine Pollution Bulletin (150)
The Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill from April to July of 2010 contaminated Gulf of Mexico waters through release of an estimated 4.1 × 106 barrels of oil. Beginning in June of 2010, semipermeable membrane devices (SPMDs) were deployed near areas with sensitive marine habitats (Alabama Alps and Western Shelf) potentially exposed to that oil....
Pleistocene glacial cycles drove lineage diversification and fusion in the Yosemite toad (Anaxyrus canorus)
Paul A. Maier, Amy G. Vandergast, Steven M Ostoja, Andres Aguilar, Andrew J. Bohonak
2020, Evolution 2476-2496
Species endemic to alpine environments can evolve via steep ecological selection gradients between lowland and upland environments. Additionally, many alpine environments have faced repeated glacial episodes over the past two million years, fracturing these endemics into isolated populations. In this “glacial pulse” model of alpine diversification, cycles of allopatry and...
Plate boundary localization, slip-rates and rupture segmentation of the Queen Charlotte Fault based on submarine tectonic geomorphology
Daniel S. Brothers, Nathaniel C. Miller, Vaughn Barrie, Peter J. Haeussler, H. Gary Greene, Brian D. Andrews, Olaf Zielke, Peter Dartnell
2020, Earth and Planetary Science Letters
Linking fault behavior over many earthquake cycles to individual earthquake behavior is a primary goal in tectonic geomorphology, particularly across an entire plate boundary. Here, we examine the 1150-km-long, right-lateral Queen Charlotte-Fairweather fault system using comprehensive multibeam bathymetry data acquired along the Queen Charlotte Fault (QCF) offshore southeastern Alaska and...
Low streamflow trends at human-impacted and reference basins in the United States
Robert W. Dudley, Robert M. Hirsch, Stacey A. Archfield, Annalise G. Blum, Benjamin Renard
2020, Journal of Hydrology (580)
We present a continent-scale exploration of trends in annual 7-day low streamflows at 2482 U.S. Geological Survey streamgages across the conterminous United States over the past 100, 75, and 50 years (1916–2015, 1941–2015 and 1966–2015). We used basin characteristics to identify subsets of study basins representative of reference basins with streamflow...
The contributions and influence of two Americans, Henry S. Washington and Frank A. Perret, to the study of Italian volcanism with emphasis on volcanoes in the Naples area
Harvey E. Belkin, Tom Gidwitz
2020, Book chapter, Vesuvius, Campi Flegrei, and Campanian Volcanism
A century ago, two Americans, Henry Stephens Washington and Frank Alvord Perret, made significant contributions to the geology, petrology, and volcanology of Italy, in particular to those volcanoes in the Naples area, Vesuvius, Campi Flegrei (Phlegraean Fields), and the Island of Ischia. Both were from the eastern United States,...
Organic petrography of Leonardian (Wolfcamp A) mudrocks and carbonates, Midland Basin, Texas: The fate of oil-prone sedimentary organic matter in the oil window
Paul C. Hackley, Tongwei Zhang, Aaron M. Jubb, Brett J. Valentine, Frank T. Dulong, Javin J. Hatcherian
2020, Marine and Petroleum Geology (112)
To better understand evolution of oil-prone sedimentary organic matter to petroleum and expulsion from source rock, we evaluated organic petrographic features of Leonardian Wolfcamp A repetitive siliceous and calcareous mudrock and fine-grained carbonate lithofacies cycles occurring in the R. Ricker #1...
