Delineation of fractures, foliation, and groundwater-flow zones of the bedrock at the Harlem River Tunnel in northern New York County, New York
Frederick Stumm, Anthony Chu, Peter K. Joesten, Michael L. Noll, Michael D. Como
2013, Conference Paper, 20th Conference on the geology of Long Island and metropolitan New York
Advanced borehole-geophysical methods were used to investigate the hydrogeology of the crystalline bedrock in 36 boreholes on the northernmost part of New York County, New York, for the construction of a utilities tunnel beneath the Harlem River. The borehole-logging techniques were used to delineate bedrock fractures, foliation, and groundwater-flow zones...
Construction of a 3-arcsecond digital elevation model for the Gulf of Maine
Erin R. Twomey, Richard P. Signell
2013, Open-File Report 2011-1127
A system-wide description of the seafloor topography is a basic requirement for most coastal oceanographic studies. The necessary detail of the topography obviously varies with application, but for many uses, a nominal resolution of roughly 100 m is sufficient. Creating a digital bathymetric grid with this level of resolution can...
Forecasting the impact of storm waves and sea-level rise on Midway Atoll and Laysan Island within the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument—a comparison of passive versus dynamic inundation models
Curt D. Storlazzi, Paul Berkowitz, Michelle H. Reynolds, Joshua B. Logan
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1069
Two inundation events in 2011 underscored the potential for elevated water levels to damage infrastructure and affect terrestrial ecosystems on the low-lying Northwestern Hawaiian Islands in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. The goal of this study was to compare passive "bathtub" inundation models based on geographic information systems (GIS) to...
A test of critical thresholds and their indicators in a desertification-prone ecosystem: more resilience than we thought
Brandon T. Bestelmeyer, Michael C. Duniway, Darren K. James, Laura M. Burkett, Kris M. Havstad
2013, Ecology Letters (16) 339-345
Theoretical models predict that drylands can cross critical thresholds, but experimental manipulations to evaluate them are non-existent. We used a long-term (13-year) pulse-perturbation experiment featuring heavy grazing and shrub removal to determine if critical thresholds and their determinants can be demonstrated in Chihuahuan Desert grasslands. We asked if cover values...
Methods, quality assurance, and data for assessing atmospheric deposition of pesticides in the Central Valley of California
Celia Zamora, Michael S. Majewski, William T. Foreman
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5023
The U.S. Geological Survey monitored atmospheric deposition of pesticides in the Central Valley of California during two studies in 2001 and 2002–04. The 2001 study sampled wet deposition (rain) and storm-drain runoff in the Modesto, California, area during the orchard dormant-spray season to examine the contribution of pesticide concentrations to...
Ambient conditions and fate and transport simulations of dissolved solids, chloride, and sulfate in Beaver Lake, Arkansas, 2006--10
W. Reed Green
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5019
Beaver Lake is a large, deep-storage reservoir located in the upper White River Basin in northwestern Arkansas, and was completed in 1963 for the purposes of flood control, hydroelectric power, and water supply. Beaver Lake is affected by point and nonpoint sources of minerals, nutrients, and sediments. The City of...
A quantitative assessment of the conservation benefits of the Wetlands Reserve Program to amphibians
J. Hardin Waddle, Brad M. Glorioso, Stephen P. Faulkner
2013, Restoration Ecology (21) 200-206
The Mississippi Alluvial Valley (MAV) originally consisted of nearly contiguous bottomland hardwood (BLH) forest encompassing approximately 10 million hectares. Currently, only 20–25% of the historical BLH forests remain in small patches fragmented by agricultural lands. The Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) was established to restore and protect the functions and values...
Use of surrogate technologies to estimate suspended sediment in the Clearwater River, Idaho, and Snake River, Washington, 2008-10
Molly S. Wood, Gregg N. Teasdale
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5052
Elevated levels of fluvial sediment can reduce the biological productivity of aquatic systems, impair freshwater quality, decrease reservoir storage capacity, and decrease the capacity of hydraulic structures. The need to measure fluvial sediment has led to the development of sediment surrogate technologies, particularly in locations where streamflow alone is not...
Avian influenza in shorebirds: experimental infection of ruddy turnstones (Arenaria interpres) with avian influenza virus
Jeffrey S. Hall, Scott Krauss, J. Christian Franson, Joshua L. TeSlaa, Sean W. Nashold, David E. Stallknecht, Richard J. Webby, Robert G. Webster
2013, Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses (7) 85-92
Background: Low pathogenic avian influenza viruses (LPAIV) have been reported in shorebirds, especially at Delaware Bay, USA, during spring migration. However, data on patterns of virus excretion, minimal infectious doses, and clinical outcome are lacking. The ruddy turnstone (Arenaria interpres) is the shorebird species with the highest prevalence of influenza...
Characterizing the thermal suitability of instream habitat for salmonids: A cautionary example from the Rocky Mountains
Robert K. Al-Chokhachy, Seth J. Wegner, Daniel J. Isaak, Jeffrey L. Kershner
2013, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (142) 793-801
Understanding a species’ thermal niche is becoming increasingly important for management and conservation within the context of global climate change, yet there have been surprisingly few efforts to compare assessments of a species’ thermal niche across methods. To address this uncertainty, we evaluated the differences in model performance and interpretations...
Human effects on the hydrologic system of the Verde Valley, central Arizona, 1910–2005 and 2005–2110, using a regional groundwater flow model
Bradley D. Garner, D. R. Pool, Fred D. Tillman, Brandon T. Forbes
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5029
Water budgets were developed for the Verde Valley of central Arizona in order to evaluate the degree to which human stresses have affected the hydrologic system and might affect it in the future. The Verde Valley is a portion of central Arizona wherein concerns have been raised about water availability,...
Effects of past and future groundwater development on the hydrologic system of Verde Valley, Arizona
Bradley D. Garner, D. R. Pool
2013, Fact Sheet 2013-3016
Communities in central Arizona’s Verde Valley must manage limited water supplies in the face of rapidly growing populations. Developing groundwater resources to meet human needs has raised questions about the effects of groundwater withdrawals by pumping on the area’s rivers and streams, particularly the Verde River. U.S. Geological Survey hydrologists...
Simplified stratigraphic cross sections of the Eocene Green River Formation in the Piceance Basin, northwestern Colorado
John D. Dietrich, Ronald C. Johnson
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1012
Thirteen stratigraphic cross sections of the Eocene Green River Formation in the Piceance Basin of northwestern Colorado are presented in this report. Originally published in a much larger and more detailed form by Self and others (2010), they are shown here in simplified, page-size versions that are easily accessed and...
Assessment of spectral band impact on intercalibration over desert sites using simulation based on EO-1 Hyperion data
P. Henry, G. Chander, B. Fougnie, C. Thomas, Xiaoxiong Xiong
2013, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing (51) 1297-1308
Since the beginning of the 1990s, stable desert sites have been used for the calibration monitoring of many different sensors. Many attempts at sensor intercalibration have been also conducted using these stable desert sites. As a result, site characterization techniques and the quality of intercalibration techniques have gradually improved over...
Absolute radiometric calibration of Landsat using a pseudo invariant calibration site
D. Helder, K. J. Thome, N. Mishra, G. Chander, Xiaoxiong Xiong, A. Angal, Tae-young Choi
2013, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing (51) 1360-1369
Pseudo invariant calibration sites (PICS) have been used for on-orbit radiometric trending of optical satellite systems for more than 15 years. This approach to vicarious calibration has demonstrated a high degree of reliability and repeatability at the level of 1-3% depending on the site, spectral channel, and imaging geometries. A...
The development and application of a decision support system for land management in the Lake Tahoe Basin—The Land Use Simulation Model
William M. Forney, I. Benson Oldham, Neil Crescenti
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5229
This report describes and applies the Land Use Simulation Model (LUSM), the final modeling product for the long-term decision support project funded by the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act and developed by the U.S. Geological Survey’s Western Geographic Science Center for the Lake Tahoe Basin. Within the context of...
Soil data from fire and permafrost-thaw chronosequences in upland Picea mariana stands near Hess Creek and Tok, interior Alaska
Jonathan A. O’Donnell, Jennifer W. Harden, Kristen L. Manies, M. Torre Jorgenson, Mikhail Kanevskiy, Xiaomei Xu
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1045
Soils of the Northern Circumpolar Permafrost region harbor 1,672 petagrams (Pg) (1 Pg = 1,000,000,000 kilograms) of organic carbon (OC), nearly 50 percent of the global belowground OC pool (Tarnocai and others, 2009). Of that soil OC, nearly 88 percent is presently stored in perennially frozen ground. Recent climate warming...
Grazing effects on aboveground primary production and root biomass of early-seral, mid-seral, and undisturbed semiarid grassland
D.G. Milchunas, M.W. Vandever
2013, Journal of Arid Environments (92) 81-88
Annual/perennial and tall/short plant species differentially dominate early to late successional shortgrass steppe communities. Plant species can have different ratios of above-/below-ground biomass distributions and this can be modified by precipitation and grazing. We compared grazing effects on aboveground production and root biomass in early- and mid-seral fields and undisturbed...
Grazing effects on plant community succession of early- and mid-seral seeded grassland compared to shortgrass steppe
Daniel G. Milchunas, Mark W. Vandever
2013, Journal of Vegetation Science (25) 22-35
Questions: Grazing may speed or slow secondary succession, and the direction may depend on seral stage and relative tolerance of native perennial grasses compared with annual invasive species. How does grazing affect succession where undisturbed communities have a long evolutionary history of grazing by native herbivores and are tolerant to...
The effects of juvenile American shad planktivory on zooplankton production in Columbia River food webs
Craig A. Haskell, Kenneth F. Tiffan, Dennis W. Rondorf
2013, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (142) 606-620
Columbia River reservoirs support a large population of nonnative American Shad Alosa sapidissima that consume the zooplankton that native fishes also rely on. We hypothesized that the unprecedented biomass of juvenile American Shad in John Day Reservoir is capable of altering the zooplankton community if these fish consume a large...
Using the KINEROS2 modeling framework to evaluate the increase in storm runoff from residential development in a semi-arid environment
Jeffrey R. Kennedy, David C. Goodrich, Carl L. Unkrich
2013, Journal of Hydrologic Engineering (18) 698-706
The increase in runoff from urbanization is well known; one extreme example comes from a 13 hectare residential neighborhood in southeast Arizona where runoff was 27 times greater than an adjacent grassland watershed over a forty‐month period from 2005 to 2008. Rainfall‐runoff modeling using the newly‐described KINEROS2 urban element and...
The impact of medium architecture of alluvial settings on non-Fickian transport
Yong Zhang, Christopher T. Green, Graham E. Fogg
2013, Advances in Water Resources (54) 78-99
The influence of heterogeneous architecture of alluvial aquifers on non-Fickian transport is explored using the Monte Carlo approach. More than two thousand high-resolution hydrofacies models representing seven groups of alluvial settings are built to test the effects of varying facies proportions, mean length and its anisotropy ratio, juxtapositional tendencies, and...
Influence of drought on salamander occupancy of isolated wetlands on the southeastern Coastal Plain of the United States
Susan C. Walls, William J. Barichivich, Mary E. Brown, David E. Scott, Blake R. Hossack
2013, Wetlands (33) 345-354
In the southeastern U.S., changes in temperature and precipitation over the last three decades have been the most dramatic in winter and spring seasons. Continuation of these trends could negatively impact pond-breeding amphibians, especially those that rely on winter and spring rains to fill seasonal wetlands, trigger breeding, and ensure...
Selection of hyperspectral narrowbands (HNBs) and composition of hyperspectral twoband vegetation indices (HVIs) for biophysical characterization and discrimination of crop types using field reflectance and Hyperion/EO-1 data
P.S. Thenkabail, I. Mariotto, M.K. Gumma, E.M. Middleton, D.R. Landis, K.F. Huemmrich
2013, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing (6) 427-439
The overarching goal of this study was to establish optimal hyperspectral vegetation indices (HVIs) and hyperspectral narrowbands (HNBs) that best characterize, classify, model, and map the world's main agricultural crops. The primary objectives were: (1) crop biophysical modeling through HNBs and HVIs, (2) accuracy assessment of crop type discrimination using...
Vegetation greenness trend (2000 to 2009) and the climate controls in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau
Li Zhang, Huadong Guo, Lei Ji, Liping Lei, Cuizhen Wang, Dongmei Yan, Bin Li, Jing Li
2013, Journal of Applied Remote Sensing (7)
The Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau has been experiencing a distinct warming trend, and climate warming has a direct and quick impact on the alpine grassland ecosystem. We detected the greenness trend of the grasslands in the plateau using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer data from 2000 to 2009. Weather station data were used...
