2018 hurricane and wildfire supplemental funding: USGS recovery activities
Jo Ellen Hinck, Joseph Stachyra
2018, Fact Sheet 2018-3063
The Additional Supplemental Appropriations for Disaster Relief Requirements Act, 2018 (P.L. 115-123), was signed by the President on February 9, 2018. This funding provided $42.2 million to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) for equipment repair and replacement, high-resolution elevation data collection in both hurricane- and wildfire-impacted areas, and scientific studies...
Altitude of the potentiometric surface, 2000–15, and historical water-level changes in the Memphis aquifer in the Memphis area, Tennessee
James A. Kingsbury
2018, Scientific Investigations Map 3415
The Memphis and Fort Pillow aquifers are the principal sources of water for municipal, industrial, and commercial uses in the Memphis area. About 207 million gallons per day of groundwater were withdrawn in Shelby County, Tennessee, from both aquifers in 2010 for these uses, with most of the water coming...
Revised technical implementation plan for the ShakeAlert system—An earthquake early warning system for the West Coast of the United States
Douglas D. Given, Richard M. Allen, Annemarie S. Baltay Sundstrom, Paul Bodin, Elizabeth S. Cochran, Kenneth Creager, Robert M. de Groot, Lind S. Gee, Egill Hauksson, Thomas H. Heaton, Margaret Hellweg, Jessica R. Murray, Valerie I. Thomas, Douglas Toomey, Thomas S. Yelin
2018, Open-File Report 2018-1155
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), along with partner organizations, has developed an earthquake early warning (EEW) system called ShakeAlert for the highest risk areas of the United States: namely, California, Oregon, and Washington. The purpose of the system is to reduce the impact of earthquakes and save lives and property...
Detecting southern California’s white sharks with environmental DNA
Kevin D. Lafferty, Kasey C. Benesh, Andrew R. Mahon, Christopher L. Jerde, Christopher G. Lowe
2018, Frontiers in Marine Science (5) 1-6
To improve ability to detect white sharks without the need for tags, or visual census, we developed a species-specific environmental DNA (eDNA) assay that targets a 163 bp fragment of the white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) mitochondrial cytochrome B gene on a digital droplet PCR (ddPCR) platform. We used this marker...
Hydrologic characteristics and water quality of headwater streams and wetlands at the Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site, Summit area, Blair and Cambria Counties, Pennsylvania, 2014–16
Charles A. Cravotta III, Daniel G. Galeone, Kathy A. Penrod
2018, Open-File Report 2018-1125
The Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site (ALPO) in Blair and Cambria Counties, Pennsylvania, protects historic features of the first railroad portage over the Allegheny Front and the first railroad tunnel in the United States. This report, which was completed by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the National...
Observations of rotational motions from local earthquakes using two temporary portable sensors in Waynoka, Oklahoma
Adam T. Ringler, Robert E. Anthony, David C. Wilson, A.A. Holland, C.-J. Lin
2018, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (108) 3562-3575
Characterizing rotational motions from earthquakes at local distances has the potential to improve earthquake engineering and seismic gradiometry by better characterizing the complete seismic wavefield. Applied Technology Associates (ATA) has developed a proto‐seismic magnetohydrodynamic (SMHD) three‐component rotational rate sensor. We deploy two ATA rotational rate sensors at a temporary aftershock...
Heterogeneity of a landscape influences size of home range in a North American cervid
W. David Walter, Tyler S. Evans, David Stainbrook, Bret D. Wallingford, Christopher S. Rosenberry, Duane R. Diefenbach
2018, Scientific Reports (8)
In the northeastern United States, chronic wasting disease has recently been detected in white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) populations, and understanding the relationship between landscape configuration and home range may improve disease surveillance and containment efforts. The objectives of our study were to compare size of home range for deer occupying...
Is ungulate migration culturally transmitted? Evidence of social learning from translocated animals
Kevin L. Monteith, Hollie M. Miyasaki, Doug E McWhirter, Mark A. Hurley, Alyson Courtemanch, Jeffrey L. Beck, Ellen O. Aikens, Jacob R. Goheen, Jerod A. Merkle, Brett R. Jesmer, Matthew Kauffman
2018, Science (36) 1023-1025
Ungulate migrations are assumed to stem from learning and cultural transmission of information regarding seasonal distribution of forage, but this hypothesis has not been tested empirically. We compared the migratory propensities of bighorn sheep and moose translocated into novel habitats with those of historical populations that had persisted for hundreds...
Climate Assessments and Scenario Planning (CLASP)
Alexander Bryan
2018, Report
The NE CASC boasts an interdisciplinary array of scientists, from ecologists to biologists, hydrologists to climatologists, each contributing new, original academic research to advance our understanding of the impacts of climate change on wildlife and other natural resources in the Northeast. Needed was an...
Current research in land, water, and agroecosystems: ASABE journals 2017 year in review
Kyle R. Douglas-Mankin
2018, Transactions of the ASABE (61) 1639-1651
This article highlights current research into land and water resources, agroecosystems, and agricultural production systems published by the Natural Resources and Environmental Systems (NRES) community of ASABE journals (Transactions of the ASABE and Applied Engineering in Agriculture) in 2017. This article reviews the context, scope, and key results of the...
Examining the relationship between portable luminescence reader measurements and depositional ages of paleowetland sediments, Las Vegas Valley, Nevada
Harrison J. Gray, Shannon A. Mahan, Kathleen B. Springer, Jeffrey S. Pigati
2018, Quaternary Geochronology (48) 80-90
Portable luminescence readers are exciting new tools that have the potential to rapidly determine the age structure of late Quaternary stratigraphic columns. This is important because high-resolution age profiling can reveal details about the temporal dynamics of climate cause and ecosystem effect, often while researchers are still in the field. In this paper, we compare new...
Conserving all the pollinators: Variation in probability of pollen transport among insect taxa
Diane L. Larson, Jennifer L. Larson, Deborah A. Buhl
2018, Natural Areas Journal (38) 393-401
As concern about declining pollinator populations mounts, it is important to understand the range of insect taxa that provide pollination services. We use pollen transport information acquired over three years in two habitats at Badlands National Park, South Dakota, USA, to compare probabilities of pollen transport among insect taxa and...
Identifying major avalanche years from a regional tree-ring based avalanche chronology for the U.S. Northern Rocky Mountains
Erich H. Peitzsch, Daniel B. Fagre, Gregory T. Pederson, Jordy Hendrikx, Karl W. Birkeland, Daniel Stahle
2018, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the International Snow Science Workshop
Avalanches not only pose a major hazard to people and infrastructure, but also act as an important ecological disturbance. In many mountainous regions in North America, including areas with existing transportation corridors, reliable and consistent avalanche records are sparse or non-existent. Thus, inferring long-term avalanche patterns and associated contributory climate...
Examination of differences between three SPT-based seismic soil liquefaction triggering relationships
K. Onder Cetin, Raymond B. Seed, Robert E. Kayen, Robb E. S. Moss, H. Tolga Bilge, Makbule Ilgac, Khaled Chowdhury
2018, Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering (113) 75-86
The preceding companion paper presented the updating of the seismic soil liquefactiontriggering relationship of Cetin et al. [1], and compared the resulting updated relationship with the earlier version. In this second paper, a detailed cross-comparison is made between three triggering relationships: (1) Seed et al....
Wetland stratigraphic evidence for variable megathrust earthquake rupture modes at the Cascadia subduction zone
Alan R. Nelson, Robert C. Witter, Simon Englehart, Andrea Hawkers, Benjamin P. Horton
2018, Conference Paper, IGCP Project 639: Sea-level change from minutes to millenia
Although widespread agreement that the Cascadia subduction zone produces great earthquakes of magnitude 8 to 9 was reached decades ago, debate continues about the rupture lengths, magnitudes, and frequency of megathrust earthquakes recorded by wetland stratigraphy fringing Cascadia’s estuaries. Correlation of such coastal earthquake evidence along the subduction zone has...
Development of a domestic earthquake alert protocol combining the USGS pager and FEMA Hazus systems
David J. Wald, H.A. Seligson, Jesse Rozelle, J. Burns, Kristin Marano, Kishor S. Jaiswal, Mike Hearne, D Bausch
2018, Conference Paper
The U.S. Geological Survey’s PAGER automated alert system provides rapid (10-20 min) loss estimates in terms of ranges of fatalities and economic impact for all significant earthquakes around the globe. In contrast, FEMA’s Hazus software, which is currently operated manually by FEMA personnel internally within several hours of any large...
Increasing earthquake insurance coverage in California via parametric hedges
Guillermo Franco, G Tirabassi, M Lopeman, David J. Wald, W.J. Siembieda
2018, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the Eleventh National Conference on Earthquake Engineering
California has the highest earthquake risk of any state in the United States. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) reported in 2017 that 73% of the nation’s annual losses to earthquakes were expected to be concentrated in California and the Pacific Northwest. California alone constitutes 61% ($3.7 billion out of...
Impacts of temporal revisit designs on the power to detect trend with a linear mixed model: An application to long-term monitoring of Sierra Nevada lakes
Leigh Ann H. Starcevich, Kathryn M. Irvine, Andrea M. Heard
2018, Ecological Indicators (93) 847-855
Long-term ecological monitoring programs often use linear mixed models to estimate trend in an ecological indicator sampled across large landscapes. A linear mixed model is versatile for estimating a linear trend in time as well as components of spatial and temporal variationin the case of unbalanced data structures, which are common in complex monitoring designs where...
State transportation agencies partner to deploy and enhance ShakeCast
L. Turner, David J. Wald, Kuo-wan Lin, Brian Chiou, Daniel Slosky
2018, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the Eleventh National Conference on Earthquake Engineering
The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) is organizing and leading a three-year Transportation Pooled Fund (TPF) project, Connecting the Dots: Implementing ShakeCast Across Multiple State Departments of Transportation for Rapid Post-Earthquake Response. Ten state Departments of Transportation (DOT)—CA, ID, MO, MS, OK, OR, SC, TX, UT, AND WA—have partnered and...
Multidirectional abundance shifts among North American birds and the relative influence of multifaceted climate factors
Qiongyu Huang, John R. Sauer, Ralph O. Dubayah
2018, Global Change Biology (23) 3610-3622
Shifts in species distributions are major fingerprint of climate change. Examining changes in species abundance structures at a continental scale enables robust evaluation of climate change influences, but few studies have conducted these evaluations due to limited data and methodological constraints. In this study, we estimate temporal changes in abundance...
USGS quarterly wildlife mortality report October 2018
Bryan J. Richards, Robert J. Dusek, Anne Ballmann, Natalie T. Nguyen
2018, Wildlife Disease Association Newsletter 17-19
No abstract available....
Informing research priorities for immature sea turtles through expert elicitation
Natalie E. Wildermann, Christian Gredzens, Larisa Avens, Hector A. Barrios-Garrido, Ian Bell, Janice Blumenthal, Alan B. Bolten, Joanne Braun McNeill, Paolo Casale, Maikon Di Domenico, Camila A. Domit, Sheryan P. Epperly, Matthew H. Godfrey, Brendan J. Godley, Victoria Gonzalez-Carman, Mark Hamann, Kristen M. Hart, Takashi Ishihara, Kate Mansfield, Tasha L. Metz, Jeffrey D. Miller, Nicolas J. Pilcher, Mark A. Read, Christopher Sasso, Jeffrey A. Seminoff, Erin E. Seney, Amanda Southwood Williard, Jesus Tomas, Gabriela M. Velez-Rubio, Matthew Ware, Jessica L. Williams, Jeanette Wyneken, Mariana M. P. B. Fuentes
2018, Endangered Species Research (37) 55-76
Although sea turtles have received substantial focus worldwide, research on the immature life stages is still relatively limited. The latter is of particular importance, given that a large proportion of sea turtle populations comprises immature individuals. We set out to identify knowledge gaps and identify the main barriers hindering...
Performance assessments of a novel well design for reducing exposure to bedrock‐derived arsenic
Richard B. Winston, Joseph D. Ayotte
2018, Groundwater (56) 762-769
Arsenic in groundwater is a serious problem in New England, particularly for domestic well owners drawing water from bedrock aquifers. The overlying glacial aquifer generally has waters with low arsenic concentrations but is less used because of frequent loss of well water during dry periods and the vulnerability to surface‐sourced...
Tidal response of groundwater in a leaky aquifer—Application to Oklahoma
Chi-Yuen Wang, Mai-Linh Doan, Lian Xu, Andrew J. Barbour
2018, Water Resources Research (54) 8019-8033
Quantitative interpretation of the tidal response of water levels measured in wells has long been made either with a model for perfectly confined aquifers or with a model for purely unconfined aquifers. However, many aquifers may be neither totally confined nor purely unconfined at the frequencies of tidal loading but...
Hydrodynamics and sediment mobility processes over a degraded senile coral reef
Legna M. Torres-Garcia, P. Soupy Dalyander, Joseph W. Long, David G. Zawada, Kimberly K. Yates, Christopher Moore, Maitane Olabarrieta
2018, Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans (123) 7053-7066
Coral reefs can influence hydrodynamics and morphodynamics by dissipating and refracting incident wave energy, modifying circulation patterns, and altering sediment transport pathways. In this study, the sediment and hydrodynamic response of a senile (dead) barrier reef (Crocker Reef, located in the upper portion of the Florida Reef Tract) to storms...
