Quake warnings, seismic culture
Richard M. Allen, Elizabeth S. Cochran, Tom Huggins, Scott Miles, Diego Otegui
2017, Science (358) 1111-1111
Since 1990, nearly one million people have died from the impacts of earthquakes. Reducing those impacts requires building a local seismic culture in which residents are aware of earthquake risks and value efforts to mitigate harm. Such efforts include earthquake early warning (EEW) systems that provide seconds to minutes notice...
Sampling bees in tropical forests and agroecosystems: A review
Sara G. Prado, Hien T. Ngo, Jaime A. Florez, Jaime A. Collazo
2017, Journal of Insect Conservation (21) 753-770
Bees are the predominant pollinating taxa, providing a critical ecosystem service upon which many angiosperms rely for successful reproduction. Available data suggests that bee populations worldwide are declining, but scarce data in tropical regions precludes assessing their status and distribution, impact on ecological services, and response to management actions. Herein,...
Determining quantity and quality of retained oil in mature marly chalk and marlstone of the Cretaceous Niobrara Formation by low-temperature hydrous pyrolysis
Michael Lewan, Mark D. Sonnenfeld
2017, Conference Paper, Unconventional Resources Technology Conference
Low-temperature hydrous pyrolysis (LTHP) at 300°C (572°F) for 24 h released retained oils from 12- to 20-meshsize samples of mature Niobrara marly chalk and marlstone cores. The released oil accumulated on the water surface of the reactor, and is compositionally similar to oil produced from the same well. The quantities...
Mineralogical characterization of weathered outcrops as a tool for constraining water chemistry predictions during project planning
Tamara Diedrich, Paul Fix, Andrea L. Foster
2017, Conference Paper, Proceedings of IMWA 2017
Weathered samples from naturally exposed outcrops of troctolite associated with a magmatic Ni-Cu sulphide deposit were characterized by synchrotron-based micro-X-ray fluorescence mapping (µ-XRF) and X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS), as well as by lab-based X-ray diffraction, electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy and wet chemical methods. Metal mobility in weathered samples was assessed using a sequential leach...
Developing enterprise tools and capacities for large-scale natural resource monitoring: A visioning workshop
Jennifer M. Bayer, Jake Weltzin, Rebecca A. Scully
2017, Report
In October 2016, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in collaboration with the Pacific Northwest Aquatic Monitoring Partnership (PNAMP, www.pnamp.org), convened a 30-person workshop, https://www.pnamp.org/event/5509, to identify and prioritize development of enterprise systems for programs that monitor the status and trends of species populations and their terrestrial, aquatic, and marine habitats....
Quantifying animal movement for caching foragers: the path identification index (PII) and cougars, Puma concolor
Kirsten E. Ironside, David J. Mattson, Tad Theimer, Brian Jansen, Brandon Holton, Terence R. Arundel, Michael Peters, Joseph O. Sexton, Thomas C. Edwards Jr.
2017, Movement Ecology (5) 1-17
Relocation studies of animal movement have focused on directed versus area restricted movement, which rely on correlations between step-length and turn angles, along with a degree of stationarity through time to define behavioral states. Although these approaches may work well for grazing foraging strategies in a patchy landscape, species...
Overview of avian toxicity studies for the Deepwater Horizon Natural Resource Damage Assessment
Steven J. Bursian, C. R. Alexander, Dave Cacela, Fred L. Cunningham, Karen M. Dean, Brian S. Dorr, Christine K. Ellis, Celine A.J. Godard-Codding, Christopher G. Guglielmo, Katie C. Hanson-Dorr, Kendall E. Harr, Katherine A. Healy, Michael J. Hooper, Katherine E. Horak, John P. Isanhart, Lisa V. Kennedy, Jane E. Link, Ivan Maggini, John K. Moye, Christina R. Perez, Chris A. Pritsos, Susan A. Shriner, Kinberly A. Trust, Peter L. Tuttle
2017, Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety (146) 4-10
The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 establishes liability for injuries to natural resources because of the release or threat of release of oil. Assessment of injury to natural resources resulting from an oil spill and development and implementation of a plan for the restoration, rehabilitation, replacement or acquisition of natural...
Sea turtles, light pollution, and citizen science: A preliminary report
Heather Afford, Susan Teel, Mark Nicholas, Thomas R. Stanley, Jeremy White
2017, Conference Paper, Connections across people, place, and time: Proceedings of the 2017 George Wright Society Conference on Parks, Protected Areas, and Cultural Sites
Sea turtles are an important ecological resource for Gulf Islands National Seashore’s (Gulf Islands) waters and shorelines. Regionally, sea turtles face anthropogenic threats from situations such as entanglement in fishing gear and ingestion of marine debris, as well as possible changes in sex ratios due to increasing temperatures related to human-induced...
Community tools for cartographic and photogrammetric processing of Mars Express HRSC images
Randolph L. Kirk, Elpitha Howington-Kraus, Kenneth L. Edmundson, Bonnie L. Redding, Donna M. Galuszka, Trent M. Hare, K. Gwinner
B. Wu, K. Di, J. Oberst, I. Karachevtseva, editor(s)
2017, Conference Paper, Proceedings: 2017 international symposium on planetary remote sensing and mapping (Volume XLII-3/W1)
The High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on the Mars Express orbiter (Neukum et al. 2004) is a multi-line pushbroom scanner that can obtain stereo and color coverage of targets in a single overpass, with pixel scales as small as 10 m at periapsis. Since commencing operations in 2004 it has imaged...
A Bayesian-based system to assess wave-driven flooding hazards on coral reef-lined coasts
S. G. Pearson, Curt D. Storlazzi, A. R. van Dongeren, M. F. S. Tissier, A. J. H. M. Reniers
2017, Journal of Geophysical Research C: Oceans (122) 10099-10117
Many low-elevation, coral reef-lined, tropical coasts are vulnerable to the effects of climate change, sea level rise, and wave-induced flooding. The considerable morphological diversity of these coasts and the variability of the hydrodynamic forcing that they are exposed to make predicting wave-induced flooding a challenge. A process-based wave-resolving hydrodynamic model...
Comment on linking the sex difference in PCB concentrations of fish to release of eggs at spawning: Time to jettison the dogma
Charles P. Madenjian
2017, Oceanography & Fisheries (5)
For the past 20 years or so, a commonly used explanation in the scientific literature for higher polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) concentrations in male fish than in female fish has been that females lose a high proportion of their PCB body burden by releasing eggs at spawning time, and therefore the...
Population-level plasticity in foraging behavior of western gulls (Larus occidentalis)
Scott A. Shaffer, Sue Cockerham, Peter Warzybok, Russell W. Bradley, Jaime Jahncke, Corey A. Clatterbuck, Magali Lucia, Jennifer A. Jelincic, Anne L. Cassell, Emily Kelsey, Josh Adams
2017, Movement Ecology (5)
BackgroundPlasticity in foraging behavior among individuals, or across populations may reduce competition. As a generalist carnivore, western gulls (Larus occidentalis) consume a wide range of marine and terrestrial foods. However, the foraging patterns and habitat selection (ocean or land) of western gulls is not...
A statistical method to predict flow permanence in dryland streams from time series of stream temperature
Ivan Arismendi, Jason B. Dunham, Michael Heck, Luke Schultz, David Hockman-Wert
2017, Water (9) 1-13
Intermittent and ephemeral streams represent more than half of the length of the global river network. Dryland freshwater ecosystems are especially vulnerable to changes in human-related water uses as well as shifts in terrestrial climates. Yet, the description and quantification of patterns of flow permanence in these systems is challenging...
Earthquake Early Warning ShakeAlert System: Testing and certification platform
Elizabeth S. Cochran, Monica D. Kohler, Douglas D. Given, Stephen Guiwits, Jennifer Andrews, Men-Andrin Meier, Mohammad Ahmad, Ivan Henson, J. Renate Hartog, Deborah Smith
2017, Seismological Research Letters (89) 108-117
Earthquake early warning systems provide warnings to end users of incoming moderate to strong ground shaking from earthquakes. An earthquake early warning system, ShakeAlert, is providing alerts to beta end users in the western United States, specifically California, Oregon, and Washington. An essential aspect of the earthquake early warning system...
Northern hemisphere jet stream positions indices as diagnostic tools for climate and ecosystem dynamics
Soumaya Belmecheri, Flurin Babst, Amy R. Hudson, Julio L. Betancourt, Valerie Trouet
2017, Earth Interactions (21) 1-23
The latitudinal position of the Northern Hemisphere jet stream (NHJ) modulates the occurrence and frequency of extreme weather events. Precipitation anomalies in particular are associated with NHJ variability; the resulting floods and droughts can have considerable societal and economic impacts. This study develops a new climatology of the 300-hPa NHJ...
Earthquake early Warning ShakeAlert system: West coast wide production prototype
Monica D. Kohler, Elizabeth S. Cochran, Douglas D. Given, Stephen Guiwits, Doug Neuhauser, Ivan Hensen, J. Renate Hartog, Paul Bodin, Victor Kress, Stephen Thompson, Claude Felizardo, Jeff Brody, Rayo Bhadha, Stan Schwarz
2017, Seismological Research Letters (89) 99-107
Earthquake early warning (EEW) is an application of seismological science that can give people, as well as mechanical and electrical systems, up to tens of seconds to take protective actions before peak earthquake shaking arrives at a location. Since 2006, the U.S. Geological Survey has been working in collaboration with...
Macroscale patterns of synchrony identify complex relationships among spatial and temporal ecosystem drivers
Noah R. Lottig, Pang-Ning Tan, Tyler Wagner, Kendra Spence Cheruvelil, Patricia A. Soranno, Emily H. Stanley, Caren E. Scott, Craig A. Stow, Shuai Yuan
2017, Ecosphere (8) 1-11
Ecology has a rich history of studying ecosystem dynamics across time and space that has been motivated by both practical management needs and the need to develop basic ideas about pattern and process in nature. In situations in which both spatial and temporal observations are available, similarities in temporal behavior...
A mass balance approach to investigate arsenic cycling in a petroleum plume
Brady A. Ziegler, Madeline E. Schreiber, Isabelle M. Cozzarelli, Ng. G.-H. Crystal
2017, Environmental Pollution (231) 1351-1361
Natural attenuation of organic contaminants in groundwater can give rise to a series of complex biogeochemical reactions that release secondary contaminants to groundwater. In a crude oil contaminated aquifer, biodegradation of petroleum hydrocarbons is coupled with the reduction of ferric iron (Fe(III)) hydroxides in aquifer sediments. As a result, naturally...
Comparison of two viewing methods for estimating largemouth bass and walleye ages from sectioned otoliths and dorsal spines
Eric J. Wegleitner, Daniel A. Isermann
2017, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (37) 1304-1310
Many biologists use digital images for estimating ages of fish, but the use of images could lead to differences in age estimates and precision because image capture can produce changes in light and clarity compared to directly viewing structures through a microscope. We used sectioned sagittal otoliths from 132 Largemouth...
The sand dunes of the Colorado River, Grand Canyon, USA
Daniel D. Buscombe, Matthew Kaplinski, Paul E. Grams, Thomas Ashley, Brandon McElroy, David M. Rubin
2017, Conference Paper, RCEM 2017 – Back to Italy—The 10th Symposium on River, Coastal and Estuarine Morphodynamics
The flow (Wright and Kaplinski, 2011), suspended sediment transport (Topping et al., 2000), sediment storage (Grams et al., 2013), and sedimentology of sandbars (Rubin et al., 1998) of the 250 miles of the Colorado River that run through Grand Canyon National Park have been well studied and described. However, there...
Radiometric characterization of Landsat Collection 1 products
Esad Micijevic, Obaidul Haque, Nischal Mishra
2017, Conference Paper, Proceedings Volume 10402, Earth Observing Systems XXII
Landsat data in the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) archive are being reprocessed to generate a tiered collection of consistently geolocated and radiometrically calibrated products that are suitable for time series analyses. With the implementation of the collection management, no major updates will be made to calibration of the Landsat sensors...
Water-resources and land-surface deformation evaluation studies at Fort Irwin National Training Center, Mojave Desert, California
Jill N. Densmore, Justine E. Dishart, David M. Miller, David C. Buesch, Lyndsay B. Ball, Paul A. Bedrosian, Linda R. Woolfenden, Geoffrey Cromwell, Matthew K. Burgess, Joseph Nawikas, David O’Leary, Adam Kjos, Michelle Sneed, Justin T. Brandt
2017, Conference Paper, 2017 Desert Symposium Field Guide and Proceedings - ECSZ does it: Revisiting the eastern California Shear Zone
The U.S. Army Fort Irwin National Training Center (NTC), in the Mojave Desert, obtains all of its potable water supply from three groundwater basins (Irwin, Langford, and Bicycle) within the NTC boundaries (fig. 1; California Department of Water Resources, 2003). Because of increasing water demands at the NTC, the U.S....
Energetic requirements of green sturgeon (Acipenser medirostris) feeding on burrowing shrimp (Neotrypaea californiensis) in estuaries: importance of temperature, reproductive investment, and residence time
Joshua M. Borin, Mary L. Moser, Adam G. Hansen, David A. Beauchamp, Stephen C. Corbett, Brett R. Dumbauld, Casey Pruitt, Jennifer L. Ruesink, Cinde Donoghue
2017, Environmental Biology of Fishes (100) 1561-1573
Habitat use can be complex, as tradeoffs among physiology, resource abundance, and predator avoidance affect the suitability of different environments for different species. Green sturgeon (Acipenser medirostris), an imperiled species along the west coast of North America, undertake extensive coastal migrations and occupy estuaries during the summer and...
Rehabilitating sea otters: Feeling good versus being effective
James A. Estes, M. Tim Tinker
Peter Kareiva, Michelle Marvier, Brian Silliman, editor(s)
2017, Book chapter, Effective conservation science: Data not dogma
This chapter examines the complexities of assessing the merits and drawbacks of wildlife rehabilitation. Wildlife rehabilitation is often costly, and the resulting benefits differ depending on whether one’s interest is in the welfare of individual animals or conserving populations. Two examples of this dilemma include the rehabilitation of oiled sea...
How the solid earth works
Raymond A. Price
Thomas K. Bundtzen, Warren J. Nokleberg, Raymond A. Price, David W. Scholl, David B. Stone, editor(s)
2017, Book chapter, Dynamic geology of the Northern Cordillera (Alaska and western Canada) and adjacent marine areas: Tectonics, hazards, and resources
No abstract available....
