On the eruption age and provenance of the Old Crow tephra
Seth D. Burgess, Matthew Coble, Jorge A. Vazquez, Michelle L. Coombs, Kristi L. Wallace
2019, Quaternary Science Reviews (207) 64-79
Tephrochronology is used to correlate and reconstruct geographically disparate sedimentary records of changing environment, climate, and landscape throughout geologic time. Single tephra layers represent isochronous markers across broad regions, thus accurate and precise radiometric constraints on the timing of eruption are critical to their...
Carbon dioxide mineralization feasibility in the United States
Madalyn S. Blondes, Matthew D. Merrill, Steven T. Anderson, Christina A. DeVera
2019, Scientific Investigations Report 2018-5079
Geologic carbon dioxide (CO2) storage is one of many methods for stabilizing the increasing concentration of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere. The injection of CO2 in deep subsurface sedimentary reservoirs is the most commonly discussed method; however, the potential for CO2 leakage can create long-term stability concerns. This report discusses...
Wasting disease and static environmental variables drive sea star assemblages in the northern Gulf of Alaska
Brenda Konar, Timothy J. Mitchell, K. Iken, Thomas Dean, Daniel Esler, Mandy Lindeberg, Benjamin Pister, Ben P. Weitzman
2019, Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology (520) 1-10
Sea stars are ecologically important in rocky intertidal habitats where they can play an apex predator role, completely restructuring communities. The recent sea star die-off throughout the eastern Pacific, known as Sea Star Wasting Disease, has prompted a need to understand spatial and temporal patterns of sea star assemblages and...
Potential for increased inundation in flood-prone regions of southeast Florida in response to climate and sea-level changes in Broward County, Florida, 2060–69
Jeremy D. Decker, Joseph D. Hughes, Eric D. Swain
2019, Scientific Investigations Report 2018-5125
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with Broward County Environmental Planning and Resilience Division, has developed county-scale and local-scale groundwater/surface-water models to study the potential for increased inundation and flooding in eastern Broward County that are due to changes in future climate and sea-level rise. These models were constructed by...
Assemblage structure, vertical distributions and stable‐isotope compositions of anguilliform leptocephali in the Gulf of Mexico
Andrea M. Quattrini, Jennifer McClain Counts, Stephen J. Artabane, Adela Roa-Varon, Tara C. McIver, Michael Rhode, Steve W. Ross
2019, Journal of Fish Biology (94) 621-647
In August 2007, October 2008 and September–October 2010, 241 Tucker trawl and plankton net tows were conducted at the surface to depths of 1377 m at six locations in the northern and eastern Gulf of Mexico (GOM) to document leptocephalus diversity and determine how assemblage structure, larval size, abundance and isotopic...
The mighty Susquehanna—extreme floods in Eastern North America during the past two millennia
Michael Toomey, Meagan Cantwell, Steven Colman, Thomas M. Cronin, Jeffrey P. Donnelly, Liviu Giosan, Clifford Heil, Robert L. Korty, Marci E. Marot, Debra A. Willard
2019, Geophysical Research Letters (46) 3398-3407
The hazards posed by infrequent major floods to communities along the Susquehanna River and the ecological health of Chesapeake Bay remain largely unconstrained due to the short length of streamgage records. Here we develop a history of high‐flow events on the Susquehanna River during the late Holocene from flood deposits...
Postglacial faulting near Crater Lake, Oregon, and its possible association with the Mazama caldera-forming eruption
Charles R. Bacon, Joel E. Robinson
2019, Geological Society of America Bulletin (131) 1440-1458
Volcanoes of subduction-related magmatic arcs occur in a variety of crustal tectonic regimes, including where active faults indicate arc-normal extension. The Cascades arc volcano Mount Mazama overlaps on its west an ∼10-km-wide zone of ∼north-south–trending normal faults. A lidar (light detection and ranging) survey of Crater Lake National Park, reveals...
Stratigraphic cross sections of the Niobrara Interval of the Upper Cretaceous Cody Shale in the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming and Montana
Thomas M. Finn
2019, Scientific Investigations Map 3422
The Bighorn Basin is one of many structural and sedimentary basins that formed in the Rocky Mountain foreland during the Laramide orogeny. The basin is nearly 180 miles long, 100 miles wide, and encompasses about 10,400 square miles in northern Wyoming and southern Montana. The basin is bounded by major...
Factors affecting the occurrence of lead and manganese in untreated drinking water from Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain aquifers, eastern United States—Dissolved oxygen and pH framework for evaluating risk of elevated concentrations
Craig J. Brown, Jeannie R. B. Barlow, Charles A. Cravotta III, Bruce D. Lindsey
2019, Applied Geochemistry (101) 88-102
Groundwater samples collected during 2012 and 2013 from public-supply wells screened in the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain aquifers of the eastern and southeastern U.S. rarely contained lead or manganese concentrations that exceeded drinking-water limits, despite having corrosive characteristics. Data indicate that the occurrence of dissolved lead and manganese in sampled groundwater, prior to...
Four major Holocene earthquakes on the Reelfoot fault recorded by sackungen in the New Madrid seismic zone, USA
Ryan D. Gold, Christopher B. DuRoss, Jaime E. Delano, Randall W. Jibson, Richard W. Briggs, Shannon A. Mahan, Robert Williams, D. Reide Corbett
2019, Journal of Geophysical Research B: Solid Earth (124) 3105-3126
Three sequences of well-documented, major ~M7+ earthquakes (1811-1812 CE, ~1450 CE, and ~900 CE) in the New Madrid seismic zone, USA, contribute significantly to seismic hazard in the region. However, it is unknown whether this <550 yr recurrence interval has been constant throughout the Holocene given limited geomorphic evidence of...
Dikes in the Koaʻe fault system, and the Koaʻe-east rift zone structural grain at Kīlauea Volcano, Hawaii
Donald A. Swanson, Richard S. Fiske, Carl Thornber, Michael P. Poland
2019, Book chapter, Field volcanology: A tribute to the distinguished career of Don Swanson
Two small scoria vents were discovered in the Koa‘e fault system, an extensional regime connecting the east and southwest rift zones of Kīlauea that was previously considered to be noneruptive. The chemical composition of the scoria suggests an early to middle nineteenth-century age. The vents prove that magma can intrude...
Hydrogeology of Lower Amargosa Valley and groundwater discharge to the Amargosa Wild and Scenic River, Inyo and San Bernardino Counties, California, and adjacent areas in Nye and Clark Counties, Nevada
Wayne R. Belcher, Donald S. Sweetkind, Candice B. Hopkins, Megan E. Poff
2019, Scientific Investigations Report 2018-5151
In 2009, Congress designated certain reaches of the Amargosa River in Inyo County, California between the town of Shoshone and Dumont Dunes as a Wild and Scenic River. As part of the management of the Amargosa Wild and Scenic River, the Bureau of Land...
A new perspective on the 19th century golden pumice deposit of Kilauea volcano
Sebastien Biass, Donald A. Swanson, Bruce F. Houghton
Michael P. Poland, Michael O. Garcia, Victor E. Camp, Anita L. Grunder, editor(s)
2019, Book chapter, Field Volcanology: A Tribute to the Distinguished Career of Don Swanson
The golden pumice deposit (unit K1) represents one of the latest episodes of Hawaiian fountaining in the Keanakāko‘i Tephra and is the product of the first high fountaining eruption at Kīlauea summit in ~300 yr, since the caldera formed in ca. 1500 CE. We present a new physical characterization of...
A scale to characterize the strength and impacts of atmospheric rivers
F. Martin Ralph, Jonathan J. Rutz, Jason M. Cordeira, Michael D. Dettinger, Michael Anderson, David Reynolds, Lawrence J. Schick, Christopher Smallcomb
2019, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (100) 269-289
Atmospheric rivers (ARs) play vital roles in the western United States and related regions globally, not only producing heavy precipitation and flooding, but also providing beneficial water supply. This paper introduces a scale for the intensity and impacts of ARs. Its utility may be greatest where ARs are the most...
Field diagnostics and seasonality of Ophidiomyces ophiodiicola in wild snake populations
Jennifer M. McKenzie, Steven J. Price, J. Leo Fleckenstein, Andrea N. Drayer, Grant M. Connette, Elizabeth A. Bohuski, Jeffrey M. Lorch
2019, EcoHealth (16) 141-150
Snake fungal disease (SFD) is an emerging disease caused by the fungal pathogen, Ophidiomyces ophiodiicola. Clinical signs of SFD include dermal lesions, including regional and local edema, crusts, and ulcers. Snake fungal disease is widespread in the Eastern United States, yet there are limited data on how clinical signs...
Monitoring the pulse of our Nation's rivers and streams—The U.S. Geological Survey streamgaging network
Sandra M. Eberts, Michael D. Woodside, Mark N. Landers, Chad R. Wagner
2019, Fact Sheet 2018-3081
In the late 1800s, John Wesley Powell, second Director of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), proposed gaging the flow of rivers and streams in the Western United States to evaluate the potential for irrigation. Around the same time, several cities in the Eastern United States established primitive streamgages to help...
Evaluation of temporally correlated noise in global navigation satellite system time series: Geodetic monument performance
John Langbein, Jerry L. Svarc
2019, Journal of Geophysical Research B: Solid Earth (124) 925-942
Estimates of background noise of Global Positioning System‐derived time series of positions for 740 sites in the western United States are examined. These data consist of daily epochs of three components of displacements that are at least 9.75 years long within the interval between 2000 and 2018. We find that these time series...
Explaining harvests of wild-harvested herbaceous plants: American ginseng as a case study
John Paul Schmidt, Jennifer Cruse-Sanders, James L. Chamberlain, Susana Ferreira, John A. Young
2019, Biological Conservation (231) 139-149
Wild-harvested plants face increasing demand globally. As in many fisheries, monitoring the effect of harvesting on the size and trajectory of resource stocks presents many challenges given often limited data from disparate sources. Here we analyze American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius L.) harvests from 18 states in the eastern U.S. 1978–2014 to infer temporal patterns...
Assessment of undiscovered oil and gas resources in the South Florida basin, 2016
Tina L. Roberts-Ashby, Paul C. Hackley, Celeste D. Lohr, Christopher J. Schenk, Tracey J. Mercier, Katherine J. Whidden, Phuong A. Le, Marilyn E. Tennyson, Stephanie B. Gaswirth, Cheryl A. Woodall, Michael E. Brownfield, Heidi M. Leathers-Miller, Kristen R. Marra, Thomas M. Finn
2019, Fact Sheet 2018-3074
Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated mean undiscovered, technically recoverable resources of 49 million barrels of oil and 18 billion cubic feet of gas in the onshore and State waters part of the South Florida basin....
Seasonal distribution of Dall's porpoise in Prince William Sound, Alaska
J.R. Moran, M.B. O’Dell, Mayumi L. Arimitsu, Jan M Straley, D.M.S. Dickson
2019, Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography (147) 164-172
Dall's porpoise, Phocoenoides dalli, are a conspicuous predator in the Prince William Sound ecosystem, yet there has been little effort directed towards monitoring this species since the 1980s, prior to the Exxon Valdez oil spill. We used vessel-based surveys to examine the seasonal distribution of Dall's porpoise in the waters...
Landscape genetics reveal broad and fine‐scale population structure due to landscape features and climate history in the northern leopard frog (Rana pipiens) in North Dakota
Justin M. Waraniak, Justin D. L. Fisher, Kevin Purcell, David M. Mushet, Craig A. Stockwell
2019, Ecology and Evolution (9) 1041-1060
Prehistoric climate and landscape features play large roles structuring wildlife populations. The amphibians of the northern Great Plains of North America present an opportunity to investigate how these factors affect colonization, migration, and current population genetic structure. This study used 11 microsatellite loci to genotype 1,230 northern leopard frogs (Rana...
Allowable take of black vultures in the eastern United States
Guthrie S. Zimmerman, Brian A. Millsap, Michael L. Avery, John R. Sauer, Michael C. Runge, Kenneth D. Richkus
2019, Journal of Wildlife Management (83) 272-282
Black vultures (Coragyps atratus) have been increasing in density and expanding their range in the eastern United States since at least the 1960s. In many areas, their densities have increased to the level where they are causing damage to property and livestock and the number of requests for allowable take...
The 2018 rift eruption and summit collapse of Kilauea Volcano
Christina A. Neal, Steven Brantley, Loren Antolik, Janet Babb, Matthew K. Burgess, Michael Cappos, Jefferson Chang, Sarah Conway, Liliana G. Desmither, Peter Dotray, Tamar Elias, Pauline Fukunaga, Steven Fuke, Ingrid A. Johanson, Kevan Kamibayashi, James P. Kauahikaua, R. Lopaka Lee, S. Pekalib, Asta Miklius, Brian Shiro, Don Swanson, Patricia A. Nadeau, Michael H. Zoeller, P. Okubo, Carolyn Parcheta, Matthew R. Patrick, William Tollett, Frank A. Trusdell, Edward F. Younger, Emily K. Montgomery-Brown, Kyle R. Anderson, Michael P. Poland, Jessica L. Ball, Joseph A. Bard, Michelle L. Coombs, Hannah R. Dietterich, Christoph Kern, Weston Thelen, Peter Cervelli, Tim R. Orr, Bruce F. Houghton, Cheryl Gansecki, Richard Hazlett, Paul R. Lundgren, Angela K. Diefenbach, Allan Lerner, Greg Waite, Peter J. Kelly, Laura E. Clor, Cynthia Werner, Katherine Mulliken, Gary B. Fisher, David Damby
2019, Science (363) 367-374
In 2018, Kīlauea Volcano experienced its largest lower East Rift Zone (LERZ) eruption and caldera collapse in at least 200 years. After collapse of the Pu'u 'Ō'ō vent on 30 April, magma propagated downrift. Eruptive fissures opened in the LERZ on 3 May, eventually extending ~6.8 km. A...
Fire legacies in eastern ponderosa pine forests
C. P. Roberts, V. M. Donovan, C. Wonkka, L. Powell, Craig R. Allen, D. G. Angeler, D. Wedin, D. Twidwell
2019, Ecology and Evolution (9) 1869-1879
Disturbance legacies structure communities and ecological memory, but due to increasing changes in disturbance regimes, it is becoming more difficult to characterize disturbance legacies or determine how long they persist. We sought to quantify the characteristics and persistence of material legacies (e.g., biotic residuals of disturbance)...
Distribution of modern salt-marsh Foraminifera from the eastern Mississippi Sound, U.S.A.
Christian Haller, Christopher G. Smith, Pamela Hallock, Albert C. Hine, Lisa Osterman, Terrence McCloskey
2019, Journal of Foraminiferal Research (49) 29-47
This study documented surface distributions of live and dead foraminiferal assemblages in the low-gradient tidal marshes of the barrier island and estuarine complex of the eastern Mississippi Sound (Grand Bay, Pascagoula River, Fowl River, Dauphin Island). A total of 71,833 specimens representing 38 species were identified from a gradient of...
