Hydraulic and biological analysis of the passability of select fish species at the U.S. Geological Survey streamgaging weir at Blackwells Mills, New Jersey
Alexander J. Haro, Kevin Mulligan, Thomas P. Suro, John Noreika, Amy R. McHugh
2017, Scientific Investigations Report 2017-5103
Recent efforts to advance river connectivity for the Millstone River watershed in New Jersey have led to the evaluation of a low-flow gauging weir that spans the full width of the river. The methods and results of a desktop modelling exercise were used to evaluate the potential ability of three...
Climatic history of the northeastern United States during the past 3000 years
Jennifer R. Marlon, Neil Pederson, Connor Nolan, Simon Goring, Bryan Shuman, Ann Robertson, Robert K. Booth, Patrick J. Bartlein, Melissa A. Berke, Michael Clifford, Edward Cook, Ann Dieffenbacher-Krall, Michael C. Dietze, Amy Hessl, J. Bradford Hubeny, Stephen T. Jackson, Jeremiah Marsicek, Jason S. McLachlan, Cary J. Mock, David J. P. Moore, Jonathan M. Nichols, Dorothy M. Peteet, Kevin Schaefer, Valerie Trouet, Charles Umbanhowar, John W. Williams, Zicheng Yu
2017, Climate of the Past (13) 1355-1379
Many ecosystem processes that influence Earth system feedbacks, including vegetation growth, water and nutrient cycling, and disturbance regimes, are strongly influenced by multi-decadal to millennial-scale variations in climate that cannot be captured by instrumental climate observations. Paleoclimate information is therefore essential for understanding contemporary ecosystems and their potential trajectories under...
Estimation of the groundwater resources of the bedrock aquifers at the Kettle Moraine Springs State Fish Hatchery, Sheboygan County, Wisconsin
Charles Dunning, Daniel T. Feinstein, Cheryl A. Buchwald, Randall J. Hunt, Megan J. Haserodt
2017, Scientific Investigations Report 2017-5074
Groundwater resources information was needed to understand regional aquifer systems and water available to wells and springs for rearing important Lake Michigan fish species at the Kettle Moraine Springs State Fish Hatchery in Sheboygan County, Wisconsin. As a basis for estimating the groundwater resources available, an existing groundwater-flow model was...
Emerging fungal pathogen Ophidiomyces ophiodiicola in wild European snakes
Lydia H. V. Franklinos, Jeffrey M. Lorch, Elizabeth A. Bohuski, Julia Rodriguez-Ramos Fernandez, Owen Wright, Liam Fitzpatrick, Silviu Petrovan, Chris Durrant, Chris Linton, Vojtech Balaz, Andrew A Cunningham, Becki Lawson
2017, Scientific Reports (7)
Snake fungal disease (SFD) is an emerging disease of conservation concern in eastern North America. Ophidiomyces ophiodiicola, the causative agent of SFD, has been isolated from over 30 species of wild snakes from six families in North America. Whilst O. ophiodiicola has been isolated from captive snakes outside North America, the pathogen has...
Seismic response of soft deposits due to landslide: The Mission Peak, California, landslide
Stephen H. Hartzell, Alena L. Leeds, Randall W. Jibson
2017, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (107) 2008-2020
The seismic response of active and intermittently active landslides is an important issue to resolve to determine if such landslides present an elevated hazard in future earthquakes. To study the response of landslide deposits, seismographs were placed on the Mission Peak landslide in the eastern San Francisco Bay region for...
Kīlauea summit eruption—Lava returns to Halemaʻumaʻu
Janet L. Babb, Stephen M. Wessells, Christina A. Neal
2017, General Information Product 182
In March 2008, a new volcanic vent opened within Halemaʻumaʻu, a crater at the summit of Kīlauea Volcano in Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park on the Island of Hawaiʻi. This new vent is one of two ongoing eruptions on the volcano. The other is on Kīlauea’s East Rift Zone, where vents...
Application of paleoecology to ecosystem restoration: A case study from south Florida’s estuaries
G. Lynn Wingard
Kaarina Weckstrom, Krystyna M. Saunders, Peter A. Gell, C. Gregory Skilbeck, editor(s)
2017, Book chapter, Applications of paleoenvironmental techniques in estuarine studies. Part of the Developments in Paleoenvironmental Research book series.
Paleoecological analyses of biotic assemblages from cores collected throughout south Florida’s estuaries indicate gradually increasing salinities over approximately the last 2000 years, consistent with rising sea level. Around the beginning of the twentieth century these gradual patterns of change began to shift, corresponding to the beginning of human alteration of...
Culturally induced range infilling of eastern redcedar: a problem in ecology, an ecological problem, or both?
Aubrey Streit Krug, Daniel R. Uden, Craig R. Allen, Dirac Twidwell
2017, Ecology and Society (22)
The philosopher John Passmore distinguished between (1) “problems in ecology,” or what we might call problems in scientific understanding of ecological change, and (2) “ecological problems,” or what we might call problems faced by societies due to ecological change. The spread of eastern redcedar (Juniperus virginiana) and conversion of the...
The story of a Yakima fold and how it informs Late Neogene and Quaternary backarc deformation in the Cascadia subduction zone, Manastash anticline, Washington, USA
Harvey M. Kelsey, Tyler C. Ladinsky, Lydia M. Staisch, Brian L. Sherrod, Richard J. Blakely, Thomas Pratt, William J. Stephenson, Jackson K. Odum, Elmira Wan
2017, Tectonics (36) 2085-2107
The Yakima folds of central Washington, USA, are prominent anticlines that are the primary tectonic features of the backarc of the northern Cascadia subduction zone. What accounts for their topographic expression and how much strain do they accommodate and over what time period? We investigate Manastash anticline, a north vergent...
New insight into the origin of manganese oxide ore deposits in the Appalachian Valley and Ridge of northeastern Tennessee and northern Virginia, USA
Sarah K. Carmichael, Daniel H. Doctor, Crystal G. Wilson, Joshua Feierstein, Ryan J. McAleer
2017, GSA Bulletin (129) 1158-1180
Manganese oxide deposits have long been observed in association with carbonates within the Appalachian Mountains, but their origin has remained enigmatic for well over a century. Ore deposits of Mn oxides from several productive sites located in eastern Tennessee and northern Virginia display morphologies that include botryoidal and branching forms,...
Groundwater declines are linked to changes in Great Plains stream fish assemblages
Joshuah S. Prekins, Keith B. Gido, Jeffrey A. Falke, Kurt D. Fausch, Harry Crockett, Eric R. Johnson, John Sanderson
2017, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (114) 7373-7378
Groundwater pumping for agriculture is a major driver causing declines of global freshwater ecosystems, yet the ecological consequences for stream fish assemblages are rarely quantified. We combined retrospective (1950–2010) and prospective (2011–2060) modeling approaches within a multiscale framework to predict change in Great Plains stream fish assemblages associated with groundwater...
Modeling watershed-scale impacts of stormwater management with traditional versus low impact development design
Stephanie A. Sparkman, Dianna M. Hogan, Kristina G. Hopkins, J. V. Loperfido
2017, Journal of the American Water Resources Association (53) 1081-1094
Stormwater runoff and associated pollutants from urban areas in the greater Chesapeake Bay Watershed (CBW) impair local streams and downstream ecosystems, despite urbanized land comprising only 7% of the CBW area. More recently, stormwater best management practices (BMPs) have been implemented in a low impact development (LID) manner to treat...
A transect through Vermont’s most famous volcano – Mount Ascutney: GSNH Summer 2017 Field Trip
Gregory J. Walsh
2017, Report
No abstract available....
238U–230Th–226Ra–210Pb–210Po disequilibria constraints on magma generation, ascent, and degassing during the ongoing eruption of Kīlauea
Guillaume Girard, Mark K. Reagan, Kenneth W. W. Sims, Carl Thornber, Christopher L. Waters, Erin H. Phillips
2017, Journal of Petrology (58) 1199-1226
The timescales of magma genesis, ascent, storage and degassing at Kīlauea volcano, Hawai‘i are addressed by measuring 238U-series radionuclide abundances in lava and tephra erupted between 1982 and 2008. Most analyzed samples represent lavas erupted by steady effusion from Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō and Kūpahianaha from 1983 to 2008. Also included are samples...
Hypogene caves of the central Appalachian Shenandoah Valley in Virginia
Daniel H. Doctor, Wil Orndorff
2017, Book chapter, Hypogene karst regions and caves of the world
Several caves in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia show evidence for early hypogenic conduit development with later-enhanced solution under partly confined phreatic conditions guided by geologic structures. Many (but not all) of these caves have been subsequently invaded by surface waters as a result of erosion and exhumation. Those not...
Role of a naturally varying flow regime in Everglades restoration
Judson Harvey, Paul R. Wetzel, Thomas E. Lodge, Victor C. Engel, Michael S. Ross
2017, Restoration Ecology (25) S27-S38
The Everglades is a low-gradient floodplain predominantly on organic soil that undergoes seasonally pulsing sheetflow through a network of deepwater sloughs separated by slightly higher elevation ridges. The seasonally pulsing flow permitted the coexistence of ridge and slough vegetation, including the persistence of productive, well-connected sloughs that seasonally concentrated prey...
A method for quantifying cloud immersion in a tropical mountain forest using time-lapse photography
Maoya Bassiouni, Martha A. Scholl, Angel J. Torres-Sanchez, Sheila F. Murphy
2017, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology (243) 100-112
Quantifying the frequency, duration, and elevation range of fog or cloud immersion is essential to estimate cloud water deposition in water budgets and to understand the ecohydrology of cloud forests. The goal of this study was to develop a low-cost and high spatial-coverage method to detect occurrence of cloud immersion...
Degradation of crude 4-MCHM (4-methylcyclohexanemethanol) in sediments from Elk River, West Virginia
Isabelle M. Cozzarelli, Denise M. Akob, Mary Jo Baedecker, Tracey Spencer, Jeanne B. Jaeschke, Darren S. Dunlap, Adam C. Mumford, Amisha T. Poret-Peterson, Douglas B. Chambers
2017, Environmental Science & Technology (51) 12139-12145
In January 2014, approximately 37 800 L of crude 4-methylcyclohexanemethanol (crude MCHM) spilled into the Elk River, West Virginia. To understand the long-term fate of 4-MCHM, we conducted experiments under environmentally relevant conditions to assess the potential for the 2 primary compounds in crude MCHM (1) to undergo biodegradation and (2)...
Geologic assessment of undiscovered conventional oil and gas resources in the Lower Paleogene Midway and Wilcox Groups, and the Carrizo Sand of the Claiborne Group, of the Northern Gulf coast region
Peter D. Warwick
2017, Open-File Report 2017-1111
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) recently conducted an assessment of the undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and gas potential of Tertiary strata underlying the onshore areas and State waters of the northern Gulf of Mexico coastal region. The assessment was based on a number of geologic elements including an evaluation of...
Analysis of seafloor change around Dauphin Island, Alabama, 1987–2015
James G. Flocks, Nancy T. DeWitt, Chelsea A. Stalk
2017, Open-File Report 2017-1112
Dauphin Island is a 26-km-long barrier island located southwest of Mobile Bay, Alabama, in the north-central Gulf of Mexico. The island contains sandy beaches, dunes, maritime forests, freshwater ponds and intertidal wetlands, providing habitat for many endangered and threatened species. Dauphin Island also provides protection for and maintains estuarine conditions...
Factors associated with bat mortality at wind energy facilities in the United States
Maureen Thompson, Julie A. Beston, Matthew A. Etterson, James E. Diffendorfer, Scott R. Loss
2017, Biological Conservation (215) 241-245
Hundreds of thousands of bats are killed annually by colliding with wind turbines in the U.S., yet little is known about factors causing variation in mortality across wind energy facilities. We conducted a quantitative synthesis of bat collision mortality with wind turbines by reviewing 218 North American studies representing 100...
Projecting impacts of climate change on water availability using artificial neural network techniques
Eric D. Swain, Julieta Gomez-Fragoso, Sigfredo Torres-Gonzalez
2017, Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management (143)
Lago Loíza reservoir in east-central Puerto Rico is one of the primary sources of public water supply for the San Juan metropolitan area. To evaluate and predict the Lago Loíza water budget, an artificial neural network (ANN) technique is trained to predict river inflows. A method is...
Holocene earthquakes of magnitude 7 during westward escape of the Olympic Mountains, Washington
Alan R. Nelson, Stephen Personius, Ray E. Wells, Elizabeth R. Schermer, Lee-Ann Bradley, Jason Buck, Nadine G. Reitman
2017, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (107) 2394-2415
The Lake Creek–Boundary Creek fault, previously mapped in Miocene bedrock as an oblique thrust on the north flank of the Olympic Mountains, poses a significant earthquake hazard. Mapping using 2015 light detection and ranging (lidar) confirms 2004 lidar mapping of postglacial (<<mn...
Annual estimates of recharge, quick-flow runoff, and ET for the contiguous U.S. using empirical regression equations
Meredith Reitz, Ward E. Sanford, Gabriel Senay, J. Cazenas
2017, Journal of the American Water Resources Association (53) 961-983
This study presents new data-driven, annual estimates of the division of precipitation into the recharge, quick-flow runoff, and evapotranspiration (ET) water budget components for 2000-2013 for the contiguous United States (CONUS). The algorithms used to produce these maps ensure water budget consistency over this broad spatial scale, with contributions from...
Ancient lakes, Pleistocene climates and river avulsions structure the phylogeography of a large but little-known rock scorpion from the Mojave and Sonoran deserts
Matthew R. Graham, Dustin A. Wood, Jonathan A. Henault, Zachary J. Valois, Paula E. Cushing
2017, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society (122) 133-146
Recent syntheses of phylogeographical data from terrestrial animals in the Mojave and Sonoran deserts have revealed a complex history of geologic and climatic vicariance events. We studied the phylogeography of Smeringurus vachoni to see how vicariance events may have impacted a large, endemic rock scorpion. Additionally, we used the phylogeographical data to...
