Millennial-scale variability during the last glacial in vegetation records from North America
Gonzalo Jiménez-Moreno, R. Scott Anderson, S. Desprat, L.D. Grigg, E.C. Grimm, L.E. Heusser, Brian F. Jacobs, C. Lopez-Martinez, C.L. Whitlock, Debra A. Willard
2010, Quaternary Science Reviews (29) 2865-2881
High-resolution pollen records from North America show that terrestrial environments were affected by Dansgaard-Oeschger (D-O) and Heinrich climate variability during the last glacial. In the western, more mountainous regions, these climate changes are generally observed in the pollen records as altitudinal movements of climate-sensitive plant species, whereas in the southeast,...
Effect of concentration of dispersed organic matter on optical maturity parameters: Interlaboratory results of the organic matter concentration working group of the ICCP.
J.G. Mendonca Filho, C.V. Araujo, A.G. Borrego, A. Cook, D. Flores, P. Hackley, J.C. Hower, M.L. Kern, K. Kommeren, J. Kus, Maria Mastalerz, J.O. Mendonca, T.R. Menezes, J. Newman, P. Ranasinghe, I.V.A.F. Souza, I. Suarez-Ruiz, Y. Ujiie
2010, International Journal of Coal Geology (84) 154-165
The main objective of this work was to study the effect of the kerogen isolation procedures on maturity parameters of organic matter using optical microscopes. This work represents the results of the Organic Matter Concentration Working Group (OMCWG) of the International Committee for Coal and Organic Petrology (ICCP) during the...
A general science-based framework for dynamical spatio-temporal models
C. K. Wikle, M.B. Hooten
2010, Test (19) 417-451
Spatio-temporal statistical models are increasingly being used across a wide variety of scientific disciplines to describe and predict spatially-explicit processes that evolve over time. Correspondingly, in recent years there has been a significant amount of research on new statistical methodology for such models. Although descriptive models that approach the problem...
Meteoric 10Be in soil profiles - A global meta-analysis
Joseph A. Graly, Paul R. Bierman, Lucas J. Reusser, Milan J. Pavich
2010, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (74) 6814-6829
In order to assess current understanding of meteoric 10Be dynamics and distribution in terrestrial soils, we assembled a database of all published meteoric 10Be soil depth profiles, including 104 profiles from 27 studies in globally diverse locations, collectively containing 679 individual measurements. This allows for the systematic comparison of meteoric...
Geoinformatics: Transforming data to knowledge for geosciences
A.K. Sinha, Z. Malik, A. Rezgui, C. G. Barnes, K. Lin, G. Heiken, W.A. Thomas, L.C. Gundersen, R. Raskin, I. Jackson, P. Fox, D. McGuinness, D. Seber, H. Zimmerman
2010, GSA Today (20) 4-10
An integrative view of Earth as a system, based on multidisciplinary data, has become one of the most compelling reasons for research and education in the geosciences. It is now necessary to establish a modern infrastructure that can support the transformation of data to knowledge. Such an information infrastructure for...
Constructing an interdisciplinary flow regime recommendation
J.M. Bartholow
2010, Journal of the American Water Resources Association (46) 892-906
It is generally agreed that river rehabilitation most often relies on restoring a more natural flow regime, but credibly defining the desired regime can be problematic. I combined four distinct methods to develop and refine month-by-month and event-based flow recommendations to protect and partially restore the ecological integrity of the...
Climate change threatens polar bear populations: A stochastic demographic analysis
C.M. Hunter, H. Caswell, M.C. Runge, E.V. Regehr, Steven C. Amstrup, I. Stirling
2010, Ecology (91) 2883-2897
The polar bear (Ursus maritimus) depends on sea ice for feeding, breeding, and movement. Significant reductions in Arctic sea ice are forecast to continue because of climate warming. We evaluated the impacts of climate change on polar bears in the southern Beaufort Sea by means of a demographic analysis, combining...
A simple physical model for deep moonquake occurrence times
R.C. Weber, B.G. Bills, C.L. Johnson
2010, Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors (182) 152-160
The physical process that results in moonquakes is not yet fully understood. The periodic occurrence times of events from individual clusters are clearly related to tidal stress, but also exhibit departures from the temporal regularity this relationship would seem to imply. Even simplified models that capture some of the relevant...
Greenhouse gas mitigation can reduce sea-ice loss and increase polar bear persistence
Steven C. Amstrup, E.T. Deweaver, David C. Douglas, B.G. Marcot, George M. Durner, C.M. Bitz, D.A. Bailey
2010, Nature (468) 955-958
On the basis of projected losses of their essential sea-ice habitats, a United States Geological Survey research team concluded in 2007 that two-thirds of the worlds polar bears (Ursus maritimus) could disappear by mid-century if business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions continue. That projection, however, did not consider the possible benefits of...
Site-occupancy distribution modeling to correct population-trend estimates derived from opportunistic observations
M. Kery, J. Andrew Royle, Hans Schmid, M. Schaub, B. Volet, G. Hafliger, N. Zbinden
2010, Conservation Biology (24) 1388-1397
Species' assessments must frequently be derived from opportunistic observations made by volunteers (i.e., citizen scientists). Interpretation of the resulting data to estimate population trends is plagued with problems, including teasing apart genuine population trends from variations in observation effort. We devised a way to correct for annual variation in effort...
Surface-wave potential for triggering tectonic (nonvolcanic) tremor
D.P. Hill
2010, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (100) 1859-1878
Source processes commonly posed to explain instances of remote dynamic triggering of tectonic (nonvolcanic) tremor by surface waves include frictional failure and various modes of fluid activation. The relative potential for Love- and Rayleigh-wave dynamic stresses to trigger tectonic tremor through failure on critically stressed thrust and vertical strike-slip faults...
Sage-grouse habitat selection during winter in Alberta
Jennifer L. Carpenter, Cameron L. Aldridge, Mark S. Boyce
2010, Journal of Wildlife Management (74) 1806-1814
Greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) are dependent on sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) for food and shelter during winter, yet few studies have assessed winter habitat selection, particularly at scales applicable to conservation planning. Small changes to availability of winter habitats have caused drastic reductions in some sage-grouse populations. We modeled winter habitat...
Late Hesperian plains formation and degradation in a low sedimentation zone of the northern lowlands of Mars
J.A.P. Rodriguez, K. L. Tanaka, D.C. Berman, J.S. Kargel
2010, Icarus (210) 116-134
The plains materials that form the martian northern lowlands suggest large-scale sedimentation in this part of the planet. The general view is that these sedimentary materials were transported from zones of highland erosion via outflow channels and other fluvial systems. The study region, the northern circum-polar plains south of Gemini...
Persistence of canine distemper virus in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem's carnivore community
Emily S. Almberg, Paul C. Cross, D.W. Smith
2010, Ecological Applications (20) 2058-2074
Canine distemper virus (CDV) is an acute, highly immunizing pathogen that should require high densities and large populations of hosts for long-term persistence, yet CDV persists among terrestrial carnivores with small, patchily distributed groups. We used CDV in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem's (GYE) wolves (Canis lupus) and coyotes (Canis latrans)...
Allocating monitoring effort in the face of unknown unknowns
B.A. Wintle, M.C. Runge, S.A. Bekessy
2010, Ecology Letters (13) 1325-1337
There is a growing view that to make efficient use of resources, ecological monitoring should be hypothesis-driven and targeted to address specific management questions. 'Targeted' monitoring has been contrasted with other approaches in which a range of quantities are monitored in case they exhibit an alarming trend or provide ad...
Population dynamics of spotted owls in the Sierra Nevada, California
J.A. Blakesley, M.E. Seamans, M.M. Conner, A.B. Franklin, Gary C. White, R. J. Gutierrez, J.E. Hines, J.D. Nichols, T.E. Munton, D.W.H. Shaw, J.J. Keane, G.N. Steger, T. L. McDonald
2010, Wildlife Monographs 1-36
The California spotted owl (Strix occidentalis occidentalis) is the only spotted owl subspecies not listed as threatened or endangered under the United States Endangered Species Act despite petitions to list it as threatened. We conducted a meta-analysis of population data for 4 populations in the southern Cascades and Sierra Nevada,...
Ground-motion modeling of Hayward fault scenario earthquakes, part I: Construction of the suite of scenarios
Brad T. Aagaard, Robert W. Graves, David P. Schwartz, David A. Ponce, Russell W. Graymer
2010, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (100) 2927-2944
We construct kinematic earthquake rupture models for a suite of 39 Mw 6.6-7.2 scenario earthquakes involving the Hayward, Calaveras, and Rodgers Creek faults. We use these rupture models in 3D ground-motion simulations as discussed in Part II (Aagaard et al., 2010) to provide detailed estimates of the shaking for each...
Sedimentary basins reconnaissance using the magnetic Tilt-Depth method
A. Salem, S. Williams, E. Samson, D. Fairhead, D. Ravat, R.J. Blakely
2010, Exploration Geophysics (41) 198-209
We compute the depth to the top of magnetic basement using the Tilt-Depth method from the best available magnetic anomaly grids covering the continental USA and Australia. For the USA, the Tilt-Depth estimates were compared with sediment thicknesses based on drilling data and show a correlation of 0.86 between the...
Response of Colorado river runoff to dust radiative forcing in snow
T. H. Painter, J.S. Deems, J. Belnap, A.F. Hamlet, C. C. Landry, B. Udall
2010, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (107) 17125-17130
The waters of the Colorado River serve 27 million people in seven states and two countries but are overallocated by more than 10% of the river's historical mean. Climate models project runoff losses of 7-20% from the basin in this century due to human-induced climate change. Recent work has shown...
Moisture and vegetation controls on decadal-scale accrual of soil organic carbon and total nitrogen in restored grasslands
S. L. O’Brien, J.D. Jastrow, D.A. Grimley, M. A. Gonzalez-Meler
2010, Global Change Biology (16) 2573-2588
Revitalization of degraded landscapes may provide sinks for rising atmospheric CO2, especially in reconstructed prairies where substantial belowground productivity is coupled with large soil organic carbon (SOC) deficits after many decades of cultivation. The restoration process also provides opportunities to study the often-elusive factors that regulate soil processes. Although the...
A methodology for ecosystem-scale modeling of selenium
Theresa S. Presser, Samuel N. Luoma
2010, Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management (6) 685-710
The main route of exposure for selenium (Se) is dietary, yet regulations lack biologically based protocols for evaluations of risk. We propose here an ecosystem-scale model that conceptualizes and quantifies the variables that determinehow Se is processed from water through diet to predators. This approach uses biogeochemical and physiological factors...
Simulation and analysis of conjunctive use with MODFLOW's farm process
R. T. Hanson, W. Schmid, C.C. Faunt, B. Lockwood
2010, Ground Water (48) 674-689
The extension of MODFLOW onto the landscape with the Farm Process (MF-FMP) facilitates fully coupled simulation of the use and movement of water from precipitation, streamflow and runoff, groundwater flow, and consumption by natural and agricultural vegetation throughout the hydrologic system at all times. This allows for more complete analysis...
Mid-Piacensian mean annual sea surface temperature: an analysis for data-model comparisons
Harry J. Dowsett, Marci M. Robinson, Kevin M. Foley, Danielle K. Stoll
2010, Stratigraphy (7) 189-198
Numerical models of the global climate system are the primary tools used to understand and project climate disruptions in the form of future global warming. The Pliocene has been identified as the closest, albeit imperfect, analog to climate conditions expected for the end of this century, making an independent data...
Dynamics and spatio-temporal variability of environmental factors in Eastern Australia using functional principal component analysis
J.K. Szabo, E.M. Fedriani, M. M. Segovia-Gonzalez, L.B. Astheimer, M.J. Hooper
2010, Journal of Biological Systems (18) 763-785
This paper introduces a new technique in ecology to analyze spatial and temporal variability in environmental variables. By using simple statistics, we explore the relations between abiotic and biotic variables that influence animal distributions. However, spatial and temporal variability in rainfall, a key variable in ecological studies, can cause difficulties...
Using noble gases measured in spring discharge to trace hydrothermal processes in the Norris Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park, U.S.A.
W.P. Gardner, D. D. Susong, D. K. Solomon, H.P. Heasler
2010, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research (198) 394-404
Dissolved noble gas concentrations in springs are used to investigate boiling of hydrothermal water and mixing of hydrothermal and shallow cool water in the Norris Geyser Basin area. Noble gas concentrations in water are modeled for single stage and continuous steam removal. Limitations on boiling using noble gas concentrations are...
