Spatial variability of the response to climate change in regional groundwater systems -- examples from simulations in the Deschutes Basin, Oregon
Michael S. Waibel, Marshall W. Gannett, Heejun Chang, Christina L. Hulbe
2013, Journal of Hydrology (486) 187-201
We examine the spatial variability of the response of aquifer systems to climate change in and adjacent to the Cascade Range volcanic arc in the Deschutes Basin, Oregon using downscaled global climate model projections to drive surface hydrologic process and groundwater flow models. Projected warming over the 21st century is...
Conditional spectrum computation incorporating multiple causal earthquakes and ground-motion prediction models
Ting Lin, Stephen C. Harmsen, Jack W. Baker, Nicolas Luco
2013, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (103) 1103-1116
The conditional spectrum (CS) is a target spectrum (with conditional mean and conditional standard deviation) that links seismic hazard information with ground-motion selection for nonlinear dynamic analysis. Probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) estimates the ground-motion hazard by incorporating the aleatory uncertainties in all earthquake scenarios and resulting ground motions, as...
Significance of exchanging SSURGO and STATSGO data when modeling hydrology in diverse physiographic terranes
Tanja N. Williamson, Charles J. Taylor, Jeremy K. Newson
2013, Soil Science Society of America Journal (77) 877-889
The Water Availability Tool for Environmental Resources (WATER) is a TOPMODEL-based hydrologic model that depends on spatially accurate soils data to function in diverse terranes. In Kentucky, this includes mountainous regions, karstic plateau, and alluvial plains. Soils data are critical because they quantify the space to store water, as well...
Aeolian controls of soil geochemistry and weathering fluxes in high-elevation ecosystems of the Rocky Mountains, Colorado
Corey R. Lawrence, Richard L. Reynolds, Michael E. Kettterer, Jason C. Neff
2013, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (107) 27-46
When dust inputs are large or have persisted for long periods of time, the signature of dust additions are often apparent in soils. The of dust will be greatest where the geochemical composition of dust is distinct from local sources of soil parent material. In this study the influence of...
Estimation of submarine mass failure probability from a sequence of deposits with age dates
Eric L. Geist, Jason D. Chaytor, Thomas E. Parsons, Uri S. ten Brink
2013, Geosphere (9) 287-298
The empirical probability of submarine mass failure is quantified from a sequence of dated mass-transport deposits. Several different techniques are described to estimate the parameters for a suite of candidate probability models. The techniques, previously developed for analyzing paleoseismic data, include maximum likelihood and Type II (Bayesian) maximum likelihood methods...
Influences of riparian vegetation on trout stream temperatures in central Wisconsin
Benjamin K. Cross, Michael A. Bozek, Matthew G. Mitro
2013, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (33) 682-692
Summer stream temperatures limit the distribution of Brook Trout Salvelinus fontinalis and are affected by riparian vegetation. We used riparian and instream habitat surveys along with stream temperature loggers placed throughout streams to determine the potential for riparian vegetation shading to increase the length of stream that is thermally suitable for Brook...
Advantages of geographically weighted regression for modeling benthic substrate in two Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem streams
Kenneth R. Sheehan, Michael P. Strager, Stuart A. Welsh
2013, Environmental Modeling & Assessment (18) 209-219
Stream habitat assessments are commonplace in fish management, and often involve nonspatial analysis methods for quantifying or predicting habitat, such as ordinary least squares regression (OLS). Spatial relationships, however, often exist among stream habitat variables. For example, water depth, water velocity, and benthic substrate sizes within streams are often spatially...
Development and application of a soil organic matter-based soil quality index in mineralized terrane of the Western US
S.W. Blecker, Lisa L. Stillings, M.C. Amacher, J.A. Ippolito, N.M. DeCrappeo
2013, Environmental Earth Sciences (68) 1887-1901
Soil quality indices provide a means of distilling large amounts of data into a single metric that evaluates the soil’s ability to carry out key ecosystem functions. Primarily developed in agroecosytems, then forested ecosystems, an index using the relation between soil organic matter and other key soil properties in more...
Potential for bias in using hybrids between common carp (Cyprinus carpio) and goldfish (Carassius auratus) in endocrine studies: a first report of hybrids in Lake Mead, Nevada, U.S.A
Steven L. Goodbred, Reynaldo Patino, Erik Orsak, Prakash Sharma, Shane Ruessler
2013, American Midland Naturalist (169) 426-431
During a 2008 study to assess endocrine and reproductive health of common carp (Cyprinus carpio) in Lake Mead, Nevada (U.S.A.) we identified two fish, one male and one female, as hybrids with goldfish (Carassius auratus) based on morphology, lateral line scale count, and lack of anterior barbels. Gross examination of...
Population ecology of polar bears in Davis Strait, Canada and Greenland
Elizabeth L. Peacock, Mitchell K. Taylor, Jeffrey L. Laake, Ian Stirling
2013, Journal of Wildlife Management (77) 463-476
Until recently, the sea ice habitat of polar bears was understood to be variable, but environmental variability was considered to be cyclic or random, rather than progressive. Harvested populations were believed to be at levels where density effects were considered not significant. However, because we now understand that polar bear...
Comment on “Apatite 4He/3He and (U-Th)/He Evidence for an Ancient Grand Canyon”
Karl E. Karlstrom, John P. Lee, Shari A. Kelley, Ryan S. Crow, Richard A. Young, Ivo Lucchitta, L. Sue Beard, Rebecca Dorsey, Jason Ricketts, William R. Dickinson, Laura Crossey
2013, Science (340) 143-143
Flowers and Farley (Reports, 21 December 2012, p. 1616; published online 29 November 2012) propose that the Grand Canyon is 70 million years old. Starkly contrasting models for the age of the Grand Canyon—70 versus 6 million years—can be reconciled by a shallow paleocanyon that was carved in the eastern...
Contrasting patterns of vesiculation in low, intermediate, and high Hawaiian fountains: A case study of the 1969 Mauna Ulu eruption
Carolyn E. Parcheta, Bruce F. Houghton, Donald A. Swanson
2013, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research (255) 79-89
Hawaiian-style eruptions, or Hawaiian fountains, typically occur at basaltic volcanoes and are sustained, weakly explosive jets of gas and dominantly coarse, juvenile ejecta (dense spatter to delicate reticulite). Almost the entire range of styles and mass eruption rates within Hawaiian fountaining occurred during twelve fountaining episodes recorded at Mauna Ulu,...
Pre-eruption deformation caused by dike intrusion beneath Kizimen volcano, Kamchatka, Russia, observed by InSAR
Lingyun Ji, Zhong Lu, Daniel Dzurisin, Sergey Senyukov
2013, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research (256) 87-95
Interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) images reveal a pre-eruption deformation signal at Kizimen volcano, Kamchatka, Russia, where an ongoing eruption began in mid-November, 2010. The previous eruption of this basaltic andesite-to-dacite stratovolcano occurred in 1927–1928. InSAR images from both ascending and descending orbital passes of Envisat and ALOS PALSAR satellites...
The feasibility of producing adequate feedstock for year–round cellulosic ethanol production in an intensive agricultural fuelshed
Daniel R. Uden, Rob B. Mitchell, Craig R. Allen, Qingfeng Guan, Tim D. McCoy
2013, BioEnergy Research (6) 930-938
To date, cellulosic ethanol production has not been commercialized in the United States. However, government mandates aimed at increasing second-generation biofuel production could spur exploratory development in the cellulosic ethanol industry. We conducted an in-depth analysis of the fuelshed surrounding a starch-based ethanol plant near York, Nebraska that has the...
Variability of displacement at a point: Implications for earthquake‐size distribution and rupture hazard on faults
Suzanne Hecker, N. A. Abrahamson, Kathryn Wooddell
2013, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (103) 651-674
To investigate the nature of earthquake‐magnitude distributions on faults, we compare the interevent variability of surface displacement at a point on a fault from a composite global data set of paleoseismic observations with the variability expected from two prevailing magnitude–frequency distributions: the truncated‐exponential model and the characteristic‐earthquake model. We use...
The effects of increased stream temperatures on juvenile steelhead growth in the Yakima River Basin based on projected climate change scenarios
Jill M. Hardiman, Matthew G. Mesa
2013, Climate Change (124) 413-426
Stakeholders within the Yakima River Basin expressed concern over impacts of climate change on mid-Columbia River steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss), listed under the Endangered Species Act. We used a bioenergetics model to assess the impacts of changing stream temperatures—resulting from different climate change scenarios—on growth of juvenile steelhead...
Effects of equipment performance on data quality from the National Atmospheric Deposition Program/National Trends Network and the Mercury Deposition Network
Gregory A. Wetherbee, Mark F. Rhodes
2013, Open-File Report 2013-1031
The U.S. Geological Survey Branch of Quality Systems operates the Precipitation Chemistry Quality Assurance project (PCQA) to provide independent, external quality-assurance for the National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP). NADP is composed of five monitoring networks that measure the chemical composition of precipitation and ambient air. PCQA and the NADP Program...
White-nose syndrome is likely to extirpate the endangered Indiana bat over large parts of its range
Wayne E. Thogmartin, Carol A. Sanders-Reed, Jennifer A. Szymanski, Patrick C. McKann, Lori Pruitt, R. Andrew King, Michael C. Runge, Robin E. Russell
2013, Biological Conservation (160) 162-172
White-nose syndrome, a novel fungal pathogen spreading quickly through cave-hibernating bat species in east and central North America, is responsible for killing millions of bats. We developed a stochastic, stage-based population model to forecast the population dynamics of the endangered Indiana bat (Myotis sodalis) subject to white-nose syndrome. Our population...
A refined index of model performance: a rejoinder
David R. Legates, Gregory J. McCabe
2013, International Journal of Climatology (33) 1053-1056
Willmott et al. [Willmott CJ, Robeson SM, Matsuura K. 2012. A refined index of model performance. International Journal of Climatology, forthcoming. DOI:10.1002/joc.2419.] recently suggest a refined index of model performance (dr) that they purport to be superior to other methods. Their refined index ranges from − 1.0 to 1.0 to resemble a correlation...
Stochastic empirical loading and dilution model (SELDM) version 1.0.0
Gregory E. Granato
2013, Techniques and Methods 4-C3
The Stochastic Empirical Loading and Dilution Model (SELDM) is designed to transform complex scientific data into meaningful information about the risk of adverse effects of runoff on receiving waters, the potential need for mitigation measures, and the potential effectiveness of such management measures for reducing these risks. The U.S. Geological...
Shallow groundwater in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, Alaska—Conceptualization and simulation of flow
Colin P. Kikuchi
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5049
The Matanuska-Susitna Valley is in the Upper Cook Inlet Basin and is currently undergoing rapid population growth outside of municipal water and sewer service areas. In response to concerns about the effects of increasing water use on future groundwater availability, a study was initiated between the Alaska Department of Natural...
Simulation of salinity intrusion along the Georgia and South Carolina coasts using climate-change scenarios
Paul Conrads, Edwin A. Roehl Jr., Ruby C. Daamen, John B. Cook
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2013-5036
Potential changes in climate could alter interactions between environmental and societal systems and adversely affect the availability of water resources in many coastal communities. Changes in streamflow patterns in conjunction with sea-level rise may change the salinity-intrusion dynamics of coastal rivers. Several municipal water-supply intakes are located along the Georgia...
Status and understanding of groundwater quality in the San Francisco Bay groundwater basins, 2007—California GAMA Priority Basin Project
Mary C. Parsons, Justin T. Kulongoski, Kenneth Belitz
2013, Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5248
Groundwater quality in the approximately 620-square-mile (1,600-square-kilometer) San Francisco Bay study unit was investigated as part of the Priority Basin Project of the Groundwater Ambient Monitoring and Assessment (GAMA) Program. The study unit is located in the Southern Coast Ranges of California, in San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda,...
A new map of standardized terrestrial ecosystems of Africa
Roger G. Sayre, Patrick Comer, Jon Hak, Carmen Josse, Jacquie Bow, Harumi Warner, Mahamane Larwanou, Ensermu Kelbessa, Tamrat Bekele, Harald Kehl, Ruba Amena, Rado Andriamasimanana, Taibou Ba, Laurence Benson, Timothy Boucher, Matthew Brown, Jill J. Cress, Oueddo Dassering, Beverly A. Friesen, Francis Gachathi, Sebei Houcine, Mahamadou Keita, Erick Khamala, Dan Marangu, Fredrick Mokua, Boube Morou, Ladislav Mucina, Samuel Mugisha, Edward Mwavu, Michael Rutherford, Patrice Sanou, Stephen Syampungani, Bojoi Tomor, Abdallahi Ould Mohamed Vall, Jean Pierre Vande Weghe, Eunice Wangui, Lucy Waruingi
2013, African Geographical Review
Terrestrial ecosystems and vegetation of Africa were classified and mapped as part of a larger effort and global protocol (GEOSS – the Global Earth Observation System of Systems), which includes an activity to map terrestrial ecosystems of the earth in a standardized, robust, and practical manner, and at the finest...
Per capita invasion probabilities: an empirical model to predict rates of invasion via ballast water
Deborah A. Reusser, Henry Lee II, Melanie Frazier, Gregory M. Ruiz, Paul W. Fofonoff, Mark S. Minton, A. Whitman Miller
2013, Ecological Applications (23) 321-330
Ballast water discharges are a major source of species introductions into marine and estuarine ecosystems. To mitigate the introduction of new invaders into these ecosystems, many agencies are proposing standards that establish upper concentration limits for organisms in ballast discharge. Ideally, ballast discharge standards will be biologically defensible and adequately...
