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Since 2011, production of sweet high gravity oil from the Upper Devonian Berea Sandstone in northeastern Kentucky has caused the region to become the leading oil producer in the state. Remarkably, Berea oil is being produced at depths of 2,200 ft or less and in an area in which the prospective source rocks—the...

Recent estimates of the world’s swan Cygnus sp. populations indicate that there are currently between 1.5–1.6 million birds in 8 species, including the Coscoroba Swan Coscoroba coscoroba as an honorary swan. Monitoring programmes in Europe and North America indicate that most populations increased following the introduction of national and international legislation to protect the...

Mono Lake occupies an internally drained basin on the eastern flank of the Sierra Nevada, and it is sensitive to climatic changes affecting precipitation in the mountains (largely delivered in the form of snowpack). Efforts to...

Soil chronosequences on alpine moraine complexes have been used to help unravel the glacial histories of the eastern Sierra Nevada. The moraine sequence along Bishop Creek includes well-preserved moraines that have been previously dated using cosmogenic 36Cl surface exposure ages. The goal of this study was to interpret pedogenesis within a...

The Mojave Desert Tortoise, Gopherus agassizii (Family Testudinidae), is a large terrestrial species that can reach >370 mm in straight midline carapace length (CL) but most individuals are smaller. Both sexes reach adulthood at 12 to 21 years and ca. 180 mm CL. The species is sexually dimorphic, with males typically larger...

Extensive information is available about infaunal soft-sediment communities in the Gulf of Mexico (Gulf) (Pequegnat et al. 1990, Rowe and Kennicutt II 2009, Wei et al. 2010), particularly from the large-scale sampling effort of the Deep Gulf of Mexico Benthos (DGOMB) project in the early 2000s (Rowe and Kennicutt II...

Throughout the western United States, efforts are underway to better understand and preserve migration and movement corridors for mule deer and other big game and to minimize the impacts of development and other land-use change on populations. San Diego County is home to a unique non-migratory subspecies of mule deer,...

Reliable estimates of life history parameters and their functional role in animal population trajectories are critical, yet often missing, components in conservation and management. We developed seasonal matrix population models of the Red-tailed Hawk Buteo jamaicensis jamaicensis in the upper and lower forests of the Luquillo Mountains, Puerto...

Groundwater withdrawals since the 1940s have lowered water levels, altered groundwater-flow directions, and caused saltwater to intrude within some freshwater-containing sands of the fluvial-deltaic Southern Hills regional aquifer system beneath Baton Rouge, Louisiana. New interpretations of stratigraphic correlations amongst geophysical well logs were utilized to revise a hydrogeologic framework that...

The U.S. Geological Survey is studying regional-scale assessments of resources and reserves of primary coal beds in the major coal bed basins in the United States to help formulate policy for Federal, State, and local energy and land use. This report summarizes the geology and coal resources and reserves in...

The assessment of the Little Snake River coal field and Red Desert area covers approximately 2,300 square miles in the eastern portion of the Greater Green River Basin in south-central Wyoming. Coal-bearing formations are present throughout the Eocene, Paleocene, and Cretaceous strata in the assessment area. Paleogene-age coal beds are...

We describe a gravity survey acquired to determine the thickness of basin-fill deposits (depth to bedrock) and to delineate geologic structures that might influence groundwater flow beneath the eastern part of Edwards Air Force Base, California. Inversion of these gravity data combined with geologic map and well information provides an...

Executive SummaryWhite-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are among the most impactful herbivores in the eastern United States. Legacy forest effects, those accrued from intense herbivory over time, manifest as low seedling regeneration, high cover of plant species that are infrequently browsed by deer, presence or expansion of nonnative or invasive plant...

On October 29, 2012, storm surge and large waves produced by Hurricane 13 Sandy resulted in the formation of a breach in eastern Fire Island, NY. The goals of this study 14 are to gain a better understanding of the physical processes that govern breach behavior and 15 to assess...

Despite the important role of alkalinity in estuarine carbon cycling, the seasonal and decadal variability of alkalinity, particularly within multiple tidal tributaries of the same estuary, is poorly understood. Here we analyze more than 26,000 alkalinity measurements, mostly from the 1980s and 1990s, in the major tidal tributaries of the...

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...

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...

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....

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...

Use of dogs has increased for multiple wildlife research purposes ranging from carnivore scat detection to estimation of reptile abundance. Use of dogs is not particularly novel for upland gamebird biologists, and pointing dogs have been long considered an important research tool. However, recent advances in Global Positioning System (GPS)...

The geologic map of the Blythe 7.5' quadrangle spans about 60 percent of the width of the Holocene floodplain and valley floor of the lower Colorado River and the adjacent lower piedmont on the east side of the Colorado River Valley. This map depicts a composite geologic record of the...

The iron oxide-apatite (IOA) deposits of the eastern Adirondack Highlands, New York, are historical high-grade magnetite mines that contain variable concentrations of rare earth element (REE)-bearing apatite crystals. The majority of the deposits are hosted within sodically altered Lyon Mountain granite gneiss, although some deposits occur within paragneiss,...

In this chapter sulfur contamination of the Everglades and its role as a major control on methylmercury (MeHg) production is examined. Sulfate concentrations over large portions of the Everglades (60% of the ecosystem) are elevated or greatly elevated compared to background conditions of <1 mg/L. Land and water management...

How is drought expressed in Hawai‘i & USAPI? Drought is a significant climate feature in Hawai‘i and the U.S.-Affiliated Pacific Islands (USAPI), at times causing severe impacts across multiple sectors. Below average precipitation anomalies are often accompanied by higher than average temperatures and reduced cloud cover. The resulting higher insolation...

Interpretation of gravity, magnetotelluric, and aeromagnetic data in conjunction with geologic constraints reveals details of basin geometry, thickness, and spatiotemporal evolution of the southern San Luis Basin, one of the major basins of the northern Rio Grande rift. Spatial variations of low-density basin-fill thickness are estimated primarily using a 3D...