Channel-conveyance capacity, channel change, and sediment transport in the lower Puyallup, White, and Carbon Rivers, western Washington
Jonathan A. Czuba, Christiana R. Czuba, Chistopher S. Magirl, Frank D. Voss
2010, Scientific Investigations Report 2010-5240
Draining the volcanic, glaciated terrain of Mount Rainier, Washington, the Puyallup, White, and Carbon Rivers convey copious volumes of water and sediment down to Commencement Bay in Puget Sound. Recent flooding in the lowland river system has renewed interest in understanding sediment transport and its effects on flow conveyance throughout...
The effects of raking on sugar pine mortality following prescribed fire in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, California, USA
Jonathan C. B. Nesmith, Kevin L. O’Hara, Phillip J. van Mantgem, Perry de Valpine
2010, Fire Ecology (6) 97-116
Prescribed fire is an important tool for fuel reduction, the control of competing vegetation, and forest restoration. The accumulated fuels associated with historical fire exclusion can cause undesirably high tree mortality rates following prescribed fires and wildfires. This is especially true for sugar pine (Pinus lambertiana Douglas), which is already negatively...
Summer microhabitat use by adult and young-of-year snail darters (Percina tanasi) in two rivers
M. J. Ashton, James B. Layzer
2010, Ecology of Freshwater Fish (19) 609-617
We characterised microhabitat availability and use by adult and young‐of‐year (YOY) snail darters (Percina tanasi Etnier 1976) while snorkelling in the French Broad and Hiwassee rivers, TN, USA. Both age groups of snail darters disproportionately used most microhabitat variables compared to their availability. Snail...
A river system to watch: documenting the effects of saltcedar (Tamarix spp.) biocontrol in the Virgin River valley
Heather L. Bateman, Tom L. Dudley, Dan W. Bean, Steven M. Ostoja, Kevin R. Hultine, Michael J. Kuehn
2010, Ecological Restoration (28) 405-410
Throughout riparian areas of the southwestern United States, non-native saltcedar (also known as tamarisk; Tamarix spp.) can form dense, monotypic stands and is often reported to have detrimental effects on native plants and habitat quality (Everitt 1980; Shafroth et al. 2005). Natural resource managers of these riparian areas spend considerable...
Coordination of space data acquisition in support of geo forest carbon tracking
Frank M. Siefert, Hugo Costa, Ake Rosenqvist, Tom Holm
2010, Conference Paper, Proceedings of ESA living planet symposium
The Group on Earth Observation (GEO) required for their Forest Carbon Tracking (FCT) task the assistance of the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) space agencies to implement coordinated data acquisition strategies from Earth Observation (EO) over key areas of interest to demonstrate the value of linking coordinated acquisition of...
Progression of stream bank erosion dudring a large flood, Rio Puerco, New Mexico
Eleanor R. Griffin, J. Dungan Smith, Jonathan M. Friedman, Kirk R. Vincent
2010, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the 2nd Joint Federal Interagency Conference
In August 2006, a large flood following saltcedar control efforts through a 12-km long segment of the Rio Puerco arroyo resulted in extensive lateral erosion of the streambanks. Almost all woody vegetation on the floodplain and channel banks had been killed by aerial spraying with herbicide in September 2003. During...
A generalized watershed disturbance-invertebrate relation applicable in a range of environmental settings across the continental United States
Jeffrey J. Steuer
2010, Urban Ecosystems (13) 415-424
It is widely recognized that urbanization can affect ecological conditions in aquatic systems; numerous studies have identified impervious surface cover as an indicator of urban intensity and as an index of development at the watershed, regional, and national scale. Watershed percent imperviousness, a commonly understood urban metric was used as...
Quality of stormwater runoff discharged from Massachusetts highways, 2005-07
Kirk P. Smith, Gregory E. Granato
2010, Scientific Investigations Report 2009-5269
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration and the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, conducted a field study from September 2005 through September 2007 to characterize the quality of highway runoff for a wide range of constituents. The highways studied had annual average...
A method for assessing carbon stocks, carbon sequestration, and greenhouse-gas fluxes in ecosystems of the United States under present conditions and future scenarios
Brian A. Bergamaschi, Richard Bernknopf, David Clow, Dennis Dye, Stephen Faulkner, William Forney, Robert Gleason, Todd Hawbaker, Jinxun Liu, Shu-Guang Liu, Stephen Prisley, Bradley Reed, Matthew Reeves, Matthew Rollins, Benjamin Sleeter, Terry Sohl, Sarah Stackpoole, Stephen Stehman, Robert G. Striegl, Anne Wein, Zhi-Liang Zhu
Zhi-Liang Zhu, editor(s)
2010, Scientific Investigations Report 2010-5233
he Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA), Section 712, mandates the U.S. Department of the Interior to develop a methodology and conduct an assessment of the Nation’s ecosystems, focusing on carbon stocks, carbon sequestration, and emissions of three greenhouse gases (GHGs): carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. The...
Simulation of streamflow in the McTier Creek watershed, South Carolina
Toby D. Feaster, Heather E. Golden, Kenneth R. Odom, Mark A. Lowery, Paul Conrads, Paul M. Bradley
2010, Scientific Investigations Report 2010-5202
The McTier Creek watershed is located in the Sand Hills ecoregion of South Carolina and is a small catchment within the Edisto River Basin. Two watershed hydrology models were applied to the McTier Creek watershed as part of a larger scientific investigation to expand the understanding of relations among hydrologic,...
Groundwater availability in the Atlantic Coastal Plain of North and South Carolina
Bruce G. Campbell, Alissa L. Coes
2010, Professional Paper 1773
The Atlantic Coastal Plain aquifers and confining units of North and South Carolina are composed of crystalline carbonate rocks, sand, clay, silt, and gravel and contain large volumes of high-quality groundwater. The aquifers have a long history of use dating back to the earliest days of European settlement in the...
Spatial and stage-structured population model of the American crocodile for comparison of comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) alternatives
Timothy W. Green, Daniel H. Slone, Eric D. Swain, Michael S. Cherkiss, Melinda Lohmann, Frank J. Mazzotti, Kenneth G. Rice
2010, Open-File Report 2010-1284
As part of the U.S. Geological Survey Priority Ecosystems Science (PES) initiative to provide the ecological science required during Everglades restoration, we have integrated current regional hydrologic models with American crocodile (Crocodylus acutus) research and monitoring data to create a model that assesses the potential impact of Comprehensive Everglades Restoration...
Western Mineral and Environmental Resources Science Center--providing comprehensive earth science for complex societal issues
David G. Frank, Alan R. Wallace, Jill L. Schneider
2010, Circular 1363
Minerals in the environment and products manufactured from mineral materials are all around us and we use and come into contact with them every day. They impact our way of life and the health of all that lives. Minerals are critical to the Nation's economy and knowing where future mineral...
Estimating Monthly Water Withdrawals, Return Flow, and Consumptive Use in the Great Lakes Basin
Kimberly H. Shaffer, Rosemary S. Stenback
2010, Open-File Report 2010-1211
Water-resource managers and planners require water-withdrawal, return-flow, and consumptive-use data to understand how anthropogenic (human) water use affects the hydrologic system. Water models like MODFLOW and GSFLOW use calculations and input values (including water-withdrawal and return flow data) to simulate and predict the effects of water use on aquifer and...
Approaches to highly parameterized inversion-A guide to using PEST for groundwater-model calibration
John E. Doherty, Randall J. Hunt
2010, Scientific Investigations Report 2010-5169
Highly parameterized groundwater models can create calibration difficulties. Regularized inversion-the combined use of large numbers of parameters with mathematical approaches for stable parameter estimation-is becoming a common approach to address these difficulties and enhance the transfer of information contained in field measurements to parameters used to model that system. Though...
The role of water in generating the calc-alkaline trend: New volatile data for aleutian magmas and a new tholeiitic index
Mindy M. Zimmer, Terry Plank, Erik H. Hauri, Gene Yogodzinski, Peter L. Stelling, Jessica Larsen, Brad Singer, Brian R. Jicha, Charlie Mandeville, Christopher J. Nye
2010, Journal of Petrology (51) 2411-2444
The origin of tholeiitic (TH) versus calc-alkaline (CA) magmatic trends has long been debated. Part of the problem stems from the lack of a quantitative measure for the way in which a magma evolves. Recognizing that the salient feature in many TH–CA discrimination diagrams is enrichment in Fe during magma...
The principal rare earth elements deposits of the United States: A summary of domestic deposits and a global perspective
Keith R. Long, Bradley S. Van Gosen, Nora K. Foley, Daniel Cordier
2010, Scientific Investigations Report 2010-5220
The rare earth elements (REE) are fifteen elements with atomic numbers 57 through 71, from lanthanum to lutetium ('lanthanides'), plus yttrium (39), which is chemically similar to the lanthanide elements and thus typically included with the rare earth elements. Although industrial demand for these elements is relatively small in tonnage...
Development of a channel classification to evaluate potential for cottonwood restoration, lower segments of the Middle Missouri River, South Dakota and Nebraska
Robert B. Jacobson, Caroline M. Elliott, Brittany L. Huhmann
2010, Scientific Investigations Report 2010-5208
This report documents development of a spatially explicit river and flood-plain classification to evaluate potential for cottonwood restoration along the Sharpe and Fort Randall segments of the Middle Missouri River. This project involved evaluating existing topographic, water-surface elevation, and soils data to determine if they were sufficient to create a...
Characterization of geologic deposits in the vicinity of US Ecology, Amargosa Basin, southern Nevada
Emily M. Taylor
2010, Scientific Investigations Report 2010-5134
Multiple approaches have been applied to better understand the characteristics of geologic units exposed at the surface and buried at depth in the vicinity of US Ecology (USE), a low-level commercial waste site in the northern Amargosa Desert, Nevada. Techniques include surficial geologic mapping and interpretation of the subsurface using...
Surface-water quantity and quality, aquatic biology, stream geomorphology, and groundwater-flow simulation for National Guard Training Center at Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania, 2002-05
Michael J. Langland, Peter J. Cinotto, Douglas C. Chichester, Michael D. Bilger, Robin A. Brightbill
2010, Scientific Investigations Report 2010-5155
Base-line and long-term monitoring of water resources of the National Guard Training Center at Fort Indiantown Gap in south-central Pennsylvania began in 2002. Results of continuous monitoring of streamflow and turbidity and monthly and stormflow water-quality samples from two continuous-record long-term stream sites, periodic collection of water-quality samples from five...
Trends in live-bed pier scour at selected bridges in South Carolina
Andral W. Caldwell, Stephen T. Benedict
Susan E. Burns, Shobha K. Bhatia, Catherine Avila, Beatrice E. Hunt, editor(s)
2010, Conference Paper, Scour and Erosion
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the South Carolina Department of Transportation, used ground-penetrating radar to collect measurements of live-bed pier scour at 78 bridges in the Piedmont and Coastal Plain physiographic provinces of South Carolina. The 141 measurements of live-bed pier-scour depth ranged from 0.5 to 5.1 meters....
The U.S.Geological Survey Energy Resources Program
Water Resources Division, U.S. Geological Survey
2010, Fact Sheet 2010-3100
Energy resources are an essential component of modern society. Adequate, reliable, and affordable energy supplies obtained using environmentally sustainable practices underpin economic prosperity, environmental quality and human health, and political stability. National and global demands for all forms of energy are forecast to increase significantly over the next several decades....
Cyclic ground tilt associated with the 2004–2008 eruption of Mount St. Helens
K. Anderson, Michael Lisowski, P. Segall
2010, Journal of Geophysical Research B: Solid Earth (115)
The long‐term behavior of the 2004–2008 effusive eruption of Mount St. Helens was characterized by a gradual decline in the rates of seismicity, dome growth, and broad‐scale ground deformation, but shallow near‐periodic “drumbeat” earthquakes over timescales of minutes indicated episodic short‐term behavior. In part to better characterize this behavior and...
Bathymetric surveys at highway bridges crossing the Missouri River in Kansas City, Missouri, using a multibeam echo sounder, 2010
Richard J. Huizinga
2010, Scientific Investigations Report 2010-5207
Bathymetric surveys were conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Missouri Department of Transportation, on the Missouri River in the vicinity of nine bridges at seven highway crossings in Kansas City, Missouri, in March 2010. A multibeam echo sounder mapping system was used to obtain channel-bed elevations...
Preliminary assessment of trends in static water levels in bedrock wells in New Hampshire, 1984 to 2007
Joseph D. Ayotte, Brandon M. Kernen, David R. Wunsch, Denise M. Argue, Derek S. Bennett, Thomas J. Mack
2010, Open-File Report 2010-1189
Analysis of nearly 60,000 reported values of static water level (SWL, as depth below land surface) in bedrock wells in New Hampshire, aggregated on a yearly basis, showed an apparent deepening of SWL of about 13 ft (4 m) over the period 1984–2007. Water-level data were one-time measurements at each...
