Constraining the earthquake recording threshold of intraslab earthquakes with turbidites in southcentral Alaska’s lakes and fjords
Drake Moore Singleton, Daniel S. Brothers, Peter J. Haeussler, Robert C. Witter, Jenna C. Hill
Natalia A. Ruppert, M. Jadamec, Jeffrey T. Freymueller, editor(s)
2025, Book chapter, Tectonics and seismic structure of Alaska and northwestern Canada: EarthScope and beyond
Strong ground motion from intraslab earthquakes, which do not produce primary paleoseismic evidence, may initiate gravity-driven turbidity flows in subaqueous basins. The resulting deposits (turbidites) can provide a paleoseismic proxy if the conditions that initiate these flows are known. To better constrain the initiating conditions, we use two recent intraslab...
Tectonic tremor observations across Alaska
Aaron Wech
Natalia A. Ruppert, M. Jadamec, Jeffery T. Freymueller, editor(s)
2025, Book chapter, Tectonics and seismic structure of Alaska and northwestern Canada: EarthScope and beyond
Tectonic tremor is a semicontinuous, low-frequency seismic signal associated with stable fault motion at major plate boundaries worldwide. In subduction zones, tremor often coincides with geodetic transients that indicate discrete slow slip on the subducting plate interface. Because tremor epicenters offer better spatial and temporal resolution than geodetic inversions of...
Perspectives on transportable array Alaska background noise levels
Adam T. Ringler, Kasey Aderhold, Robert Anthony, Robert W. Busby, Andy Frassetto, Toshiro Tanimoto, David C. Wilson
Natalia A. Ruppert, M. Jadamec, Jeffery T. Freymueller, editor(s)
2025, Book chapter, Tectonics and seismic structure of Alaska and northwestern Canada: EarthScope and beyond
Background seismic noise fundamentally sets a lower bound on our ability to record signals arising from earthquakes. The background noise spectrum at a station is a combination of cultural noise, ocean-generated microseism noise, intrinsic instrument self-noise, and the sensitivity of the instrument to nonseismic noise sources. The USArray-Transportable Array Alaska...
Multiscale processes drive formation of logjam habitats and use by juvenile Chinook salmon across a boreal stream network in Alaska
Charles N. Cathcart, Jeffrey A. Falke, Jimmy Fox, Robert Henszey, Katherine Lininger
2025, River Research and Applications (41) 593-608
Boreal forest streams are characterized by large volumes of instream wood, yet the relationship between logjams and Pacific salmon productivity remains underqualified. We located logjams (n = 427) within the distribution of Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) in the Chena River, Alaska (Yukon River tributary) and measured dimensions, classified formative process, and snorkel-sampled...
Strontium isotopes reveal diverse life history variations, migration patterns, and habitat use for Broad Whitefish (Coregonus nasus) in Arctic, Alaska
Jason C. Leppi, Daniel J. Rinella, Mark S. Wipfli, Randy J. Brown, Karen J. Spaleta, Matthew S. Whitman
2025, PLoS ONE (17)
Conservation of Arctic fish species is challenging partly due to our limited ability to track fish through time and space, which constrains our understanding of life history diversity and lifelong habitat use. Broad Whitefish (Coregonus nasus) is an important subsistence species for Alaska’s Arctic Indigenous communities, yet little is known...
Simulating present and future groundwater/surface-water interactions and stream temperatures in Beaver Creek, Kenai Peninsula, Alaska
Andrew T. Leaf, Megan J. Haserodt, Benjamin E. Meyer, Stephen, M. Westenbroek, Joshua C. Koch
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5126
In many places, coldwater ecosystems are facing increasing pressure from anthropogenic warming. This study examined stream temperatures and the water balance in the Beaver Creek watershed on the Kenai Peninsula in south-central Alaska—an area that is experiencing rapid warming. Low-gradient streams near the Kenai coast provide important spawning and rearing...
Photogrammetry-based body condition for monitoring an Arctic marine mammal experiencing habitat loss
Karyn D. Rode, Anthony S. Fischbach, Mitzi Synnott, John Stewart, Nick Northcraft, Erika Allen, Kelly Trotto, Catherine Vancsok, Nicolas Issenjou, Sheriden Ploof, Stephanie Rager, Stacy DiRocco, Staci Owens, Adriane Prahl
2024, Marine Ecology Progress Series (751) 211-227
Monitoring animal body condition can provide insight on population responses to environmental change. Pacific walruses (Odobenus rosmarus divergens) are experiencing loss of their sea ice habitat which has decreased the time that females spend foraging during a critical period of pregnancy and lactation. Here we investigate the potential for body...
A benchmark for computational analysis of animal behavior, using animal-borne tags
Benjamin Hoffmann, Maddie Cusimano, Vittorio Baglione, Daniela Canestrari, Damien Chevallier, Dominic L. DeSantis, Lorene Jeantet, Monique Ladds, Takuya Maekawa, Mata-Silva Vicente, Victor Moreno-Gonzalez, Anthony M. Pagano, Eva Trapote, Outi Vainio, Antti Vehkaoja, Ken Yoda, Katherine Zacarian, Ari Friedlaender
2024, Movement Ecology (12)
BackgroundAnimal-borne sensors (‘bio-loggers’) can record a suite of kinematic and environmental data, which are used to elucidate animal ecophysiology and improve conservation efforts. Machine learning techniques are used for interpreting the large amounts of data recorded by bio-loggers, but there exists no common framework for comparing the different...
Using the horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratio method to estimate thickness of the Barry Arm landslide, Prince William Sound, Alaska
Andrew L. Collins, Kate E. Allstadt, Dennis M. Staley
2024, Open-File Report 2024-1071
Conducting detailed investigations of large landslides is difficult, especially in the subsurface, largely due to environmental factors such as steep slopes, difficult access, and numerous objective hazards. These factors have made it challenging to accurately estimate the depth to the failure surface of the Barry Arm landslide, a large (roughly...
The dynamics of sea otter prey selection under population growth and expansion
Clint Leach, Ben Weitzman, Jim Bodkin, Daniel Esler, George G. Esslinger, Kimberly A. Kloecker, Daniel Monson, Jamie N. Womble, Mevin B. Hooten
2024, Ecosphere (15)
Sea otters (Enhydra lutris) were extirpated from much of their range in the North Pacific by the early 1900s but have made a remarkable recovery in Southeast Alaska. Sea otter populations have been particularly successful in Glacier Bay, Alaska, a protected tidewater glacier fjord with a diverse and productive nearshore...
Perspectives on equitable co-production workshop report
Kristin Timm, K. Akerlof, Aparna Bamzai-Dodson, G. Bogard, A. Chase, R. Cloyd, J. Garron, M. Gavazzi, E. Heath, M. Labriole, M. Madajewicz, J. L. Sheats, Carol Simpson, Ryan C. Toohey, N. Udu-gama
2024, Report
The co-production of knowledge is increasingly recognized as an approach to conducting research intended to achieve a societal impact. In this study, we used a broad definition of co-production, defining it as “a process that brings together diverse groups to iteratively create new knowledge and practices (1).” However, co-production has...
A journey to the center of the USGS National Strong-motion Project processing and beyond
Lisa Sue Schleicher, Jamison Haase Steidl, Eric M. Thompson, Alan K. Yong, Jeff Brody, James Luke Blair, Mike Hearne, Brad T. Aagaard, Susan E. Hough, Han Shao, Garet Huddleston, Keira Heilpern, Kristin Marano, Gabe Ferragut, B. Worden, David J. Wald, Jason De Cristofaro, Adria Ruth McClain, B. Dunham, D. Nget, J. Aragon, J. Gomez, V. Amador, V. Carrasco Rodriquez, E. E. Luna, D. Cembalski, D. Childs, J. Smith, D. Croker, L. Gee
2024, Conference Paper
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) National Strong Motion Project (NSMP) has the primary U.S. government responsibility to acquire, process, and disseminate significant strong-motion earthquake ground motion records measured at surficial free-field stations, structures (buildings, dams, and bridges, and geotechnical arrays to the earthquake engineering community. As a result of...
Seismicity and anisotropic imaging reveal an active detachment beneath the northern Alaska Range foothills
Vera Schulte-Pelkum, Adrian Bender, Natalia A. Ruppert
Natalia A. Ruppert, M. Jadamec, Jeffery T. Freymueller, editor(s)
2024, Book chapter, Tectonics and seismic structure of Alaska and northwestern Canada: EarthScope and beyond
North of the Denali Fault, the collision between the Yakutat block with North America is accommodated by a fold-thrust belt giving rise to the northern Alaska Range foothills. At the western end, the Kantishna Hills anticline hosts prominent microseismicity and surface deformation, interpreted as active folding of the Kantishna Hills...
Updating the crustal fault model for the 2023 National Seismic Hazard Model for Alaska
Peter J. Haeussler, Adrian Bender, Peter M. Powers, Rich D. Koehler, Daniel S. Brothers
Natalia A. Ruppert, M. Jadamec, Jeffery T. Freymueller, editor(s)
2024, Book chapter, Tectonics and seismic structure of Alaska and northwestern Canada: EarthScope and beyond
We present the crustal fault model for Alaska, based on geologic observations, as a primary input for the 2023 revision of the U.S. Geological Survey National Seismic Hazard Model. We update the 2013 Alaska Quaternary fault and fold database to produce a simplified model of 105 fault sections and four...
The effects of spatio-temporal variation in marine resources on the occupancy dynamics of a terrestrial avian predator
Joshua H. Schmidt, Heather A. Coletti, Kyle A. Cutting, Tammy L. Wilson, Buck A. Mangipane, Carlene N. Schultz, Dylan T. Schertz
2024, Ecosphere (15)
Identifying how species respond to system drivers such as weather, climate, habitat, and resource availability is critical in understanding population change. In coastal areas, the transfer of nutrients across the marine and terrestrial interface increases complexity. Nesting populations of bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) along the Pacific coast of North America,...
Brittle regime slip partitioned damage and deformation mechanisms along the eastern Denali fault zone in southwestern, Yukon
Jonathan Saul Caine, Omero F. Orlandini, Frederick W. Vollmer, Heather A. Lowers
2024, Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth (129)
Rare bedrock exposures of the eastern Denali fault zone in southwestern Yukon allow for the measurement, sampling, and analyses of brittle regime fault slip data and deformation mechanisms to explore relations to far field, oblique plate motions. Host rock lithologies and associated slip surfaces show episodic damage zone‐related deformation and...
Water-quality comparisons in the Greater Mooses Tooth unit of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, 2010 and 2023
Brent M. Hall
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5098
The United States has long held oil reserves in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR–A), but oil production did not begin until 2015. The waters of the NPR–A are generally considered “pristine,” but water quality has not been characterized temporally or spatially in a rigorous manner. In 2010 and...
Real-time pier scour monitoring and observations at three scour-critical sites in Idaho, water years 2020–22
Ryan L. Fosness, Paul V. Schauer
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5095
To observe real-time pier scour at three scour-critical sites in Idaho, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with Idaho Transportation Department, installed and operated fixed real-time (15-minute interval) bed elevation scour sonar sensors at three bridge locations associated with U.S. Geological Survey streamflow gaging stations for water years 2020 through...
Neogene hydrothermal Fe- and Mn-oxide mineralization of Paleozoic continental rocks, Amerasia Basin, Arctic Ocean
James R. Hein, Kira Mizell, Amy Gartman
2024, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (25)
Rocks dredged from water depths of 1,605, 2,500, 3,300, and 3,400 m in the Arctic Ocean included Paleozoic continental rocks pervasively mineralized during the Neogene by hydrothermal Fe and Mn oxides. Samples were recovered in three dredge hauls from the Chukchi Borderland and one from Mendeleev Ridge north of Alaska and...
GNSS reflectometry from low-cost sensors for continuous in situ contemporaneous glacier mass balance and flux divergence
Albin Wells, David R. Rounce, Louis C. Sass, Caitlyn Florentine, Adam Garbo, Emily Baker, Christopher J. McNeil
2024, Journal of Glaciology (70)
Recent advances in remote sensing have produced global glacier surface elevation change data. Parsing these elevation change signals into contributions from the climate (i.e. climatic mass balance) and glacier dynamics (i.e. flux divergence) is critical to enhance our process-based understanding of glacier change. In this study, we evaluate three approaches...
Juvenile coho salmon growth differences track biennial pink salmon spawning patterns
Kevin A. Fitzgerald, J. Ryan Bellmore, Jason B. Fellman, Matthew L.H. Cheng, Naomi Boyles-Muehleck, Claire E. Delbecq, Jeffrey A. Falke
2024, Freshwater Biology (69) 1583-1595
1. Spawning Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) provide marine-derived resources (MDR) to freshwater food webs in the form of eggs, flesh and maggots that consume salmon carcasses, all of which positively impact stream-dwelling fish growth. Pink salmon (O. gorbuscha) are widely distributed throughout coastal catchments along the North Pacific Ocean and display increased...
Planktonic to sessile: Drivers of spatial and temporal variability across barnacle life stages and indirect effects of the Pacific Marine Heatwave
Sarah Beth Traiger, James L. Bodkin, Rob Campbell, Heather Coletti, Daniel Esler, Kris Holderied, Katrin Iken, Brenda Konar, Caitlin McKinstry, Daniel Monson, Jessica Pretty, Martin Renner, Brian H. Robinson, Robert M. Suryan, Benjamin P Weitzman
2024, Journal of Plankton Research
Barnacles are a foundation species in intertidal habitats. During the Pacific Marine Heatwave (PMH), intertidal barnacle cover increased in the northern Gulf of Alaska (GoA); however, the role of pelagic larval supply in this increase was unknown. Using long-term monitoring data on intertidal benthic (percent cover) and pelagic larval...
Increased pathogen exposure of a marine apex predator over three decades
Karyn D. Rode, Caroline R. Van Hemert, Ryan R. Wilson, Susannah P. Woodruff, Kristy Pabilonia, Lora Ballweber, Oliver C. Kwok, Jitender P Dubey
2024, PLoS ONE (19)
Environmental changes associated with global warming create new opportunities for pathogen and parasite transmission in Arctic wildlife. As an apex predator ranging over large, remote areas, changes in pathogens and parasites in polar bears are a useful indicator of changing transmission dynamics in Arctic ecosystems. We examined prevalence and risk...
From causes of conflict to solutions: Shifting the lens on human–carnivore coexistence research
Kyle Artelle, Heather E. Johnson, Rebecca M. McCaffery, Christopher Schell, Tyus Williams, Seth Wilson
2024, Conservation Science and Practice (6)
Human-carnivore conflicts pose significant challenges in the management and conservation of carnivores across the globe. Abundant research has led to generalizable insights into the causes of such conflicts. For example, conflicts predictably occur when carnivores have access to human food resources, particularly when their natural...
Direct measurements of firn-density evolution from 2016 to 2022 at Wolverine Glacier, Alaska
Max Stevens, Louis C. Sass, Caitlyn Florentine, Christopher J. McNeil, Emily Baker, Katherine Eleanore Bollen
2024, Journal of Glaciology (70)
Knowledge of snow and firn-density change is needed to use elevation-change measurements to estimate glacier mass change. Additionally, firn-density evolution on glaciers is closely connected to meltwater percolation, refreezing and runoff, which are key processes for glacier mass balance and hydrology. Since 2016, the U.S. Geological Survey...
