Drilling, construction, geophysical log data, and lithologic log for boreholes USGS 142 and USGS 142A, Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho
Brian V. Twining, Mary K.V. Hodges, Kyle Schusler, Christopher Mudge
2017, Data Series 1058
Starting in 2014, the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Energy, drilled and constructed boreholes USGS 142 and USGS 142A for stratigraphic framework analyses and long-term groundwater monitoring of the eastern Snake River Plain aquifer at the Idaho National Laboratory in southeast Idaho. Borehole USGS...
Evapotranspiration by remote sensing: An analysis of the Colorado River Delta before and after the Minute 319 pulse flow to Mexico
Christopher J. Jarchow, Pamela L. Nagler, Edward P. Glenn, Jorge Ramirez-Hernandez, Eliana Rodriguez-Burgueno
2017, Ecological Engineering (106) 725-732
The unique hydrologic conditions characterizing riparian ecosystems in dryland (arid and semi-arid) areas help maintain high biodiversity and support high levels of primary productivity compared to associated uplands. In western North America, many riparian ecosystems have been damaged by altered flow regimes (e.g., impoundments and diversions) and over utilization of...
Historical and projected trends in landscape drivers affecting carbon dynamics in Alaska
Neal J. Pastick, Paul A. Duffy, Hélène Genet, T. Scott Rupp, Bruce K. Wylie, Kristofer Johnson, M. Torre Jorgenson, Norman B. Bliss, Anthony D. McGuire, Elchin Jafarov, Joseph F. Knight
2017, Ecological Applications (27) 1383-1402
Modern climate change in Alaska has resulted in widespread thawing of permafrost, increased fire activity, and extensive changes in vegetation characteristics that have significant consequences for socioecological systems. Despite observations of the heightened sensitivity of these systems to change, there has not been a comprehensive assessment of factors that drive...
At a global scale, do climate change threatened species also face a greater number of non-climatic threats?
Lucas B. Fortini, Kaipo Dye
2017, Global Ecology and Conservation (11) 207-212
For many species the threats of climate change occur in a context of multiple existing threats. Given the current focus of global change ecology in identifying and understanding species vulnerable to climate change, we performed a global analysis to characterize the multi-threat context for species threatened by climate change. Utilizing...
Holocene surface-faulting earthquakes at the Spring Lake and North Creek Sites on the Wasatch Fault Zone: Evidence for complex rupture of the Nephi Segment
Christopher DuRoss, Michael D. Hylland, Adam Hiscock, Stephen Personius, Richard W. Briggs, Ryan D. Gold, Gregg Beukelman, Geg N McDonald, Ben Erickson, Adam McKean, Steve Angster, Roselyn King, Anthony J. Crone, Shannon A. Mahan
2017, Report, Paleoseismology of Utah
The Nephi segment of the Wasatch fault zone (WFZ) comprises two fault strands, the northern and southern strands, which have evidence of recurrent late Holocene surface-faulting earthquakes. We excavated paleoseismic trenches across these strands to refine and expand their Holocene earthquake chronologies; improve estimates of earthquake recurrence, displacement, and fault...
High-resolution seismic profiling reveals faulting associated with the 1934 Ms 6.6 Hansel Valley earthquake (Utah, USA)
Pier Paolo G. Bruno, Christopher DuRoss, Sotirios Kokkalas
2017, GSA Bulletin (129) 1227-1240
The 1934 Ms 6.6 Hansel Valley, Utah, earthquake produced an 8-km-long by 3-km-wide zone of north-south−trending surface deformation in an extensional basin within the easternmost Basin and Range Province. Less than 0.5 m of purely vertical displacement was measured at the surface, although seismologic data suggest mostly strike-slip faulting at...
The first 50 years of the North American Breeding Bird Survey
John R. Sauer, David Ziolkowski Jr., Keith L. Pardieck, Adam C. Smith, Marie-Anne R. Hudson, Vicente Rodriguez, Humberto Berlanga, Daniel Niven, William A. Link
2017, The Condor (119) 576-593
The vision of Chandler (Chan) S. Robbins for a continental-scale omnibus survey of breeding birds led to the development of the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS). Chan was uniquely suited to develop the BBS. His position as a government scientist had given him experience with designing and implementing continental-scale...
Tackling an intractable problem: Can greater taxon sampling help resolve relationships within the Stenopelmatoidea (Orthoptera: Ensifera)?
Amy G. Vandergast, David B Weissman, Dustin Wood, David C F Rentz, Corinna S Bazelet, Norihiro Ueshima
2017, Zootaxa (4291) 1-33
The relationships among and within the families that comprise the orthopteran superfamily Stenopelmatoidea (suborder Ensifera) remain poorly understood. We developed a phylogenetic hypothesis based on Bayesian analysis of two nuclear ribosomal and one mitochondrial gene for 118 individuals (84 de novo and 34 from GenBank). These included Gryllacrididae from North,...
Use of North American Breeding Bird Survey data in avian conservation assessments
Kenneth V. Rosenberg, Peter J. Blancher, Jessica C. Stanton, Arvind O. Panjabi
2017, The Condor (119) 594-606
Conservation resources are limited, and prioritizing species based on their relative vulnerability and risk of extinction is a fundamental component of conservation planning. In North America, the conservation consortium Partners in Flight (PIF) has developed and implemented a data-driven species assessment process, at global and regional scales, based on quantitative...
Greenup and evapotranspiration following the Minute 319 pulse flow to Mexico: An analysis using Landsat 8 Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data
Christopher J. Jarchow, Pamela L. Nagler, Edward P. Glenn
2017, Ecological Engineering (106) 776-783
In the southwestern U.S., many riparian ecosystems have been altered by dams, water diversions, and other anthropogenic activities. This is particularly true of the Colorado River, where numerous dams and agricultural diversions have affected this water course, especially south of the U.S.–Mexico border. In the spring of 2014, 130 million...
Integrating Breeding Bird Survey and demographic data to estimate Wood Duck population size in the Atlantic Flyway
Guthrie S. Zimmerman, John R. Sauer, G. Scott Boomer, Patrick K. Devers, Pamela R. Garrettson
2017, The Condor (119) 616-628
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) uses data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) to assist in monitoring and management of some migratory birds. However, BBS analyses provide indices of population change rather than estimates of population size, precluding their use in developing abundance-based objectives and limiting...
Streamflow investigations on a reach of Hobble Creek near Springville, Utah
Steven J. Gerner
2017, Open-File Report 2017-1084
The Central Utah Water Conservancy District (CUWCD) is proposing to deliver supplemental flow to Hobble Creek from Strawberry Reservoir through the Mapleton-Springville Lateral pipeline. A substantial portion of the supplemental water is intended to benefit June Sucker recovery and other fish and wildlife along Hobble Creek. The objective of this...
The use of passive membrane samplers to assess organic contaminant inputs at five coastal sites in west Maui, Hawaii
Pamela L. Campbell, Nancy G. Prouty, Curt D. Storlazzi, Nicole D’antonio
2017, Open-File Report 2017-1097
Five passive membrane samplers were deployed for 28 continuous days at select sites along and near the west Maui coastline to assess organic compounds and contaminant inputs to diverse, shallow coral reef ecosystems. Daily and weekly fluctuations in such inputs were captured on the membranes using integrative sampling. The distribution...
Topographic, edaphic, and vegetative controls on plant-available water
Salli F. Dymond, John B. Bradford, Paul V. Bolstad, Randall K. Kolka, Stephen D. Sebestyen, Thomas S. DeSutter
2017, Ecohydrology (10) 1-12
Soil moisture varies within landscapes in response to vegetative, physiographic, and climatic drivers, which makes quantifying soil moisture over time and space difficult. Nevertheless, understanding soil moisture dynamics for different ecosystems is critical, as the amount of water in a soil determines a myriad ecosystem services and processes such as...
Detect and exploit hidden structure in fatty acid signature data
Jeffrey F. Bromaghin, Suzanne M. Budge, Gregory W. Thiemann
2017, Ecosphere (8)
Estimates of predator diet composition are essential to our understanding of their ecology. Although several methods of estimating diet are practiced, methods based on biomarkers have become increasingly common. Quantitative fatty acid signature analysis (QFASA) is a popular method that continues to be refined and extended. Quantitative fatty acid signature...
Rodenticide incidents of exposure and adverse effects on non-raptor birds
Nimish B. Vyas
2017, Science of the Total Environment (609) 68-76
Interest in the adverse effects of rodenticides on birds has focused primarily on raptors. However, non-raptor birds are also poisoned (rodenticide exposure resulting in adverse effects including mortality) by rodenticides through consumption of the rodenticide bait and contaminated prey. A literature search for rodenticide incidents (evidence of exposure to a...
It takes more than water: Restoring the Colorado River Delta
Jennifer Pitt, Eloise Kendy, Karen Schlatter, Osvel Hinojosa-Huerta, Karl W. Flessa, Patrick B. Shafroth, Jorge Ramirez-Hernandez, Pamela L. Nagler, Edward P. Glenn
2017, Ecological Engineering (106) 629-632
Environmental flows have become important tools for restoring rivers and associated riparian ecosystems (Arthington, 2012; Glenn et al., 2017). In March 2014, the United States and Mexico initiated a bold effort in restoration, delivering from Morelos Dam a “pulse flow” of water into the Colorado River in its delta for...
Geologic field-trip guide to Long Valley Caldera, California
Wes Hildreth, Judy Fierstein
2017, Scientific Investigations Report 2017-5022-L
This guide to the geology of Long Valley Caldera is presented in four parts: (1) An overview of the volcanic geology; (2) a chronological summary of the principal geologic events; (3) a road log with directions and descriptions for 38 field-trip stops; and (4) a summary of the geophysical unrest...
Noble gas data from Goldfield and Tonopah epithermal Au-Ag deposits, ancestral Cascades Arc, USA: Evidence for a primitive mantle volatile source
Andrew H. Manning, Albert H. Hofstra
2017, Ore Geology Reviews (89) 683-700
The He, Ne, and Ar isotopic composition of fluid inclusions in ore and gangue minerals were analyzed to determine the source of volatiles in the high-grade Goldfield and Tonopah epithermal Au-Ag deposits in southwestern Nevada, USA. Ar and Ne are mainly atmospheric, whereas He has only a minor atmospheric component....
Shallow marine response to global climate change during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, Salisbury Embayment, USA
Jean Self-Trail, Marci M. Robinson, Timothy J. Bralower, Jocelyn A. Sessa, Elizabeth A. Hajek, Lee R. Kump, Sheila M. Trampush, Debra A. Willard, Lucy E. Edwards, David S. Powars, Gregory A. Wandless
2017, Paleoceanography (32) 710-728
The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) was an interval of extreme warmth that caused disruption of marine and terrestrial ecosystems on a global scale. Here we examine the sediments, flora, and fauna from an expanded section at Mattawoman Creek-Billingsley Road (MCBR) in Maryland and explore the impact of warming at a...
Competition amplifies drought stress in forests across broad climatic and compositional gradients
Kelly Gleason, John B. Bradford, Alessandra Bottero, Tony D’Amato, Shawn Fraver, Brian J. Palik, Michael Battaglia, Louis R. Iverson, Laura Kenefic, Christel C. Kern
2017, Ecosphere (8) 1-16
Forests around the world are experiencing increasingly severe droughts and elevated competitive intensity due to increased tree density. However, the influence of interactions between drought and competition on forest growth remains poorly understood. Using a unique dataset of stand-scale dendrochronology sampled from 6405 trees, we quantified how annual growth of...
Spatial variation in edaphic characteristics is a stronger control than nitrogen inputs in regulating soil microbial effects on a desert grass
Y. Anny Chung, Robert L Sinsabaugh, Cheryl R. Kuske, Sasha C. Reed, Jennifer A. Rudgers
2017, Journal of Arid Environments (142) 59-65
Increased atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition can have wide-ranging effects on plant community structure and ecosystem function, some of which may be indirectly mediated by soil microbial responses to an altered biogeochemical environment. In this study, soils from a field N fertilization experiment that spanned a soil texture gradient were used...
A synthesis of thresholds for focal species along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf Coasts: A review of research and applications
Emily J. Powell, Megan C. Tyrrell, Andrew Milliken, John M. Tirpak, Michelle D. Staudinger
2017, Ocean and Coastal Management (148) 75-88
The impacts from climate change are increasing the possibility of vulnerable coastal species and habitats crossing critical thresholds that could spur rapid and possibly irreversible changes. For species of high conservation concern, improved knowledge of quantitative thresholds could greatly improve management. To meet this need, we synthesized information pertaining to...
United States-Chile binational exchange for volcanic risk reduction, 2015—Activities and benefits
Thomas C. Pierson, Margaret T. Mangan, Luis E. Lara Pulgar, Alvaro Ramos Amigo
2017, Circular 1432
In 2015, representatives from the United States and Chile exchanged visits to discuss and share their expertise and experiences dealing with volcano hazards. Communities in both countries are at risk from various volcano hazards. Risks to lives and property posed by these hazards are a function not only of the...
Dating of river terraces along Lefthand Creek, western High Plains, Colorado, reveals punctuated incision
Melissa A. Foster, Robert S. Anderson, Harrison J. Gray, Shannon A. Mahan
2017, Geomorphology (295) 176-190
The response of erosional landscapes to Quaternary climate oscillations is recorded in fluvial terraces whose quantitative interpretation requires numerical ages. We investigate gravel-capped strath terraces along the western edge of Colorado's High Plains to constrain the incision history of this shale-dominated landscape. We use ¹⁰Be and ²⁶Al cosmogenic radionuclides (CRNs),...
