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As part of a U.S. Geological Survey study in cooperation with the Bureau of Reclamation and the Pueblo of Acoma, New Mexico, and the Pueblo of Laguna, New Mexico, a digital three-dimensional geologic framework model was constructed for the Rio San Jose and its surface-water drainage basin in west-central New...

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP), began a study in 2018 to develop a water-quality monitoring strategy (WQMS) for Mount Hope Bay and the Taunton River Estuary in southeastern Massachusetts. MassDEP is interested in water-quality data in Mount Hope Bay and the...

Surface thermal inertia derived from satellite imagery offers a valuable tool for remotely mapping the physical structure and water content of planetary regolith. Efforts to quantify thermal inertia using surface temperatures on Earth, however, have consistently yielded large uncertainties and suffered from a lack of reproducibility. Unlike dry or airless...

The tectonic evolution of and relation between the Yukon-Tanana terrane and the Lake George assemblage, as well as other associated tectonic assemblages in western Yukon and eastern Alaska, have been debated for decades. The Yukon-Tanana terrane is widely considered to be an allochthonous rifted fragment derived from the Laurentian continental...

Dams commonly restrict fish movements in large rivers but can also help curtail the spread of invasive species, such as invasive bigheaded carps (Hypophthalmichthys spp). To determine how dams in the upper Mississippi River (UMR) affect large-scale invasive and native fish migrations, we tracked American paddlefish (Polyodon spathula) and bigheaded carp...

Many conservation actions must be implemented with limited data. This is especially true when planning recovery efforts for extirpated populations, such as grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) within the Bitterroot Ecosystem (BE), where strategies for reestablishing a resident population are being evaluated. Here, we applied individual-based movement...

The effort to map terrestrial biodiversity, in recent years limited mostly to the use of broadband multispectral remote sensing at decameter scales, can be greatly enhanced by harnessing hyperspectral imagery. Interpretation of hyperspectral imagery may be aided by the Mixture Residual (MR) spectral preprocessing transformation. MR integrates the benefits of...

Acoustic telemetry is a common tool used in fisheries management to estimate fish space use (i.e., occupancy) from a local habitat scale to entire systems. Numerous analytical models have been developed to estimate different aspects of fish movement from telemetry datasets, yet evaluations of model performance and comparisons among models...

Earth is facing simultaneous biodiversity and climate crises. Climate-change refugia – areas that are relatively buffered from climate change – can help address both of these problems by maintaining biodiversity components when the surrounding landscape no longer can. However, this capacity to support biodiversity is often vulnerable to severe climate...

Marsh and mangrove forest habitats are productive at capturing and storing carbon, thus actions to protect and create coastal blue carbon sinks could help mitigate global warming. Dredged material is often used to create coastal habitats and evaluating the carbon impact of placement alternatives...

At least 10 global digital elevation models (DEMs) at one-arc-second resolution now cover Earth. Comparing derived grids, like slope or curvature, preserves surface spatial relationships, and can be more important than just elevation values. Such comparisons provide more nuanced DEM rankings than just elevation root mean square error (RMSE)...

A detailed analysis is made of horizontal-component geomagnetic-disturbance data acquired at the Colaba observatory in India recording the Carrington magnetic storm of September 1859. Prior to attaining its maximum absolute value, disturbance at Colaba increased with an e-folding timescale of 0.46 hr (28 min). Following its maximum, absolute disturbance at...

As climate change effects intensify, key life history events may become decoupled from necessary biotic and abiotic resources. For species of management concern on Department of Defense (DoD) lands, these shifts in phenology may prove difficult to address without a mechanistic understanding of the drivers of such changes. We sought...

Rockfall fragmentation can play an important role in hazard studies and the design of protective measures. However, the current lack of modeling tools that incorporate rock fragmentation mechanics is a limitation to enhancing studies and design. This research investigates the fragmentation patterns of rockfalls and analyzes the resulting distribution of...

Western San Diego County is dominated by shrublands supporting biologically diverse native plant and animal communities. Widespread urbanization has led to regional habitat loss and fragmentation, and many species in these shrubland communities are rare, threatened, or endangered. Large-scale, multiple-species conservation planning has resulted in a regional preserve system that...

Mountain environments with snow avalanche hazard cover about 6% of Earth’s land area and occur on all continents. Whereas human risks associated with avalanche hazard have been widely studied, little is known about how avalanche activity affects population dynamics in mountain wildlife. Globally, 32 species of mountain ungulates across 70...

Accounting for uncertainties in seismic site response is crucial to improving the performance of one-dimensional (1D) ground response analyses (GRAs) at downhole array recording sites. In addition to site effects, uncertainties in 1D-GRAs can also be contributed from the seismic source and/or path. Though often representing not more than one...

The National Park Service (NPS) is charged with maintaining natural riverine resources and processes in its parks along the Yampa River and downstream along the Green River. This mission requires information on how proposed water withdrawals would affect resources. We present a methodology that quantifies the impact on natural riverine...

Objective Movement enables animals to complete their life history by responding to changing environmental conditions. Linking movement behaviors to life history characteristics can allow more targeted management applications for declining native fish populations. We identified seasonal movement patterns of Roundtail Chub Gila robusta and Flannelmouth Sucker Catostomus latipinnis, two understudied...

Two contrasting age models for initial mountain building in the northeastern (NE) Tibetan Plateau (Paleocene-early Eocene versus late Oligocene-early Miocene) have led to the debate on how the deformed continental lithosphere absorbs plate convergence in general. The initial compressional deformation in the West Qinling (WQL) of the NE Tibetan Plateau...

Regional-scale characterization of shallow landslide hazards is important for reducing their destructive impact on society. These hazards are commonly characterized by (a) their location and likelihood using susceptibility maps, (b) landslide size and frequency using geomorphic scaling laws, and (c) the magnitude of disturbance required to cause...

Climate change is exacerbating shoreline erosion and flooding, posing significant risks to coastal communities. Although traditional coastal defenses such as seawalls, dykes, and breakwaters offer protection from these hazards, their high environmental and economic costs are driving interest in cost-competitive nature-based solutions. Coral reef restoration is a nature-based solution that...

The 2018 Carr Fire burned more than 90 percent of Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, with much of the park burning at high severity. California yellow pine and mixed conifer forests are not well adapted to large, high-severity fires, and forest recovery after these events may be problematic. Large, high-severity fire...

The Shinnecock Indian Nation on Long Island, New York, faces challenges of shoreline retreat, saltwater intrusion, and flooding of the Tribal lands under changing climate and rising sea level. However, understanding of the dynamics of tidal circulation and waves and their impacts on the Shinnecock Indian Nation’s shoreline remains limited....

Excess nutrient loading and other factors are driving eutrophication and other negative effects on water-quality conditions in Lake Champlain and other receiving waters in Vermont. Two common best management practices were evaluated to determine how these practices can be optimized by targeting maintenance and operation to align better with seasonally...