Sedimentology, sequence-stratigraphy, and geochemical variations in the Mesoproterozoic Nonesuch Formation, northern Wisconsin, USA
Esther Kingsbury Stewart, Jeffrey L. Mauk
2017, Precambrian Research (294) 111-132
We use core descriptions and portable X-ray fluorescence analyses to identify lithofacies and stratigraphic surfaces for the Mesoproterozoic Nonesuch Formation within the Ashland syncline, Wisconsin. We group lithofacies into facies associations and construct a sequence stratigraphic framework based on lithofacies stacking and stratigraphic surfaces. The fluvial-alluvial facies association (upper...
Streamflow alteration at selected sites in Kansas
Kyle E. Juracek, Ken Eng
2017, Scientific Investigations Report 2017-5046
An understanding of streamflow alteration in response to various disturbances is necessary for the effective management of stream habitat for a variety of species in Kansas. Streamflow alteration can have negative ecological effects. Using a modeling approach, streamflow alteration was assessed for 129 selected U.S. Geological Survey streamgages in the...
Using dynamic population simulations to extend resource selection analyses and prioritize habitats for conservation
Julie A. Heinrichs, Cameron L. Aldridge, Michael S. O’Donnell, Nathan Schumaker
2017, Ecological Modelling (359) 449-459
Prioritizing habitats for conservation is a challenging task, particularly for species with fluctuating populations and seasonally dynamic habitat needs. Although the use of resource selection models to identify and prioritize habitat for conservation is increasingly common, their ability to characterize important long-term habitats for dynamic populations are variable. To examine...
Tolerance to disturbance regulated by attractiveness of resources: A case study of desert bighorn sheep within the River Mountains, Nevada
Chris E. Lowrey, Kathleen M. Longshore
2017, Western North American Naturalist (77) 82-98
Human activity may mimic predation risks for wildlife by causing abandonment of foraging sites and increasing expenditure of energy. Animals that can tolerate nonlethal disturbance may minimize these fitness costs. We examine this aspect of the risk—disturbance hypothesis by first analyzing recent habitat use of desert bighorn sheep relative to...
What has been learned from pressure cores
Sheng Dai, Ray Boswell, William F. Waite, Junbong Jang, J. Y. Lee, Y Seol
2017, Conference Paper, 9th International conference on gas hydrates, Denver Colorado, June 25-30, 2017
The advancement of pressure core acquisition and analysis technology in recent decades has enabled detailed imaging and direct measurement of naturally occurring hydrate-bearing sediments and has shed light onto hydrate habits, formation processes, fundamental physical properties, and hydrate deposit responses during gas production. This paper reviews the development and capabilities...
Sylvatic plague vaccine partially protects prairie dogs (Cynomys spp.) in field trials
Tonie E. Rocke, Daniel W. Tripp, Robin E. Russell, Rachel C. Abbott, Katherine Richgels, Marc R. Matchett, Dean E. Biggins, Randall Griebel, Greg Schroeder, Shaun M. Grassel, David R. Pipkin, Jennifer Cordova, Adam Kavalunas, Brian Maxfield, Jesse T. Boulerice, Michael W. Miller
2017, EcoHealth (14) 438-450
Sylvatic plague, caused by Yersinia pestis, frequently afflicts prairie dogs (Cynomys spp.), causing population declines and local extirpations. We tested the effectiveness of bait-delivered sylvatic plague vaccine (SPV) in prairie dog colonies on 29 paired placebo and treatment plots (1–59 ha in size; average 16.9 ha) in 7...
Assessment of water and proppant quantities associated with petroleum production from the Bakken and Three Forks Formations, Williston Basin Province, Montana and North Dakota, 2016
Seth S. Haines, Brian A. Varela, Sarah J. Hawkins, Nicholas J. Gianoutsos, Joanna N. Thamke, Mark A. Engle, Marilyn E. Tennyson, Christopher J. Schenk, Stephanie B. Gaswirth, Kristen R. Marra, Scott A. Kinney, Tracey J. Mercier, Cericia D. Martinez
2017, Fact Sheet 2017-3044
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has completed an assessment of water and proppant requirements and water production associated with the possible future production of undiscovered oil and gas resources in the Three Forks and Bakken Formations (Late Devonian to Early Mississippian) of the Williston Basin Province in Montana and North...
Scanning and georeferencing historical USGS quadrangles
Kristin A. Fishburn, Larry R. Davis, Gregory J. Allord
2017, Fact Sheet 2017-3048
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Geospatial Program is scanning published USGS 1:250,000-scale and larger topographic maps printed between 1884, the inception of the topographic mapping program, and 2006. The goal of this project, which began publishing the Historical Topographic Map Collection in 2011, is to provide access to a...
US Topo—Topographic maps for the Nation
Kristin A. Fishburn, William J. Carswell Jr.
2017, Fact Sheet 2017-3045
Building on the success of 125 years of mapping, the U.S. Geological Survey created US Topo, a georeferenced digital map produced from The National Map data. US Topo maps are designed to be used like the traditional 7.5-minute quadrangle paper topographic maps for which the U.S. Geological Survey is so...
Juvenile salmonid monitoring in the White Salmon River, Washington, post-Condit Dam removal, 2016
Ian G. Jezorek, Jill M. Hardiman
2017, Open-File Report 2017-1070
Condit Dam, at river kilometer 5.3 on the White Salmon River, Washington, was breached in 2011 and removed completely in 2012, allowing anadromous salmonids access to habitat that had been blocked for nearly 100 years. A multi-agency workgroup concluded that the preferred salmonid restoration alternative was natural recolonization with...
The Niobrara Formation as a challenge to water quality in the Arkansas River, Colorado, USA
Carleton R. Bern, Stogner
2017, Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies (12) 181-195
Study regionArkansas River, east of the Rocky Mountains.Study focusCretaceous sedimentary rocks in the western United States generally pose challenges to water quality, often through mobilization of salts and trace metals by irrigation. However, in the Arkansas River Basin of Colorado, patchy exposure of multiple Cretaceous formations...
Evidence of fuels management and fire weather influencing fire severity in an extreme fire event
Jamie M Lydersen, Brandon M. Collins, Matthew L. Brooks, John R. Matchett, Kristen L. Shive, Nicholas A. Povak, Van R. Kane, Douglas F. Smith
2017, Ecological Applications (27) 2013-2030
Following changes in vegetation structure and pattern, along with a changing climate, large wildfire incidence has increased in forests throughout the western U.S. Given this increase there is great interest in whether fuels treatments and previous wildfire can alter fire severity patterns in large wildfires. We assessed the relative influence...
Prevalence of Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis and B. salamandrivorans in the Gulf Coast Waterdog, Necturus beyeri, from Southeast Louisiana, USA
Brad M. Glorioso, J. Hardin Waddle, Corinne L. Richards-Zawacki
2017, Herpetological Review (48) 360-363
The globally widespread amphibian fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) has been linked to amphibian declines worldwide (Lips et al. 2006; Skerratt et al. 2007). In Louisiana, USA, Bd has been found in several amphibian species (Chatfield et al. 2012; Rothermel et al. 2008), but to our knowledge no population-level die-offs...
Field-trip guides to selected volcanoes and volcanic landscapes of the western United States
Water Resources Division, U.S. Geological Survey
2017, Scientific Investigations Report 2017-5022
The North American Cordillera is home to a greater diversity of volcanic provinces than any comparably sized region in the world. The interplay between changing plate-margin interactions, tectonic complexity, intra-crustal magma differentiation, and mantle melting have resulted in a wealth of volcanic landscapes. Field trips in this guide book collection...
Payments for carbon sequestration to alleviate development pressure in a rapidly urbanizing region
Jordan W. Smith, Monica Dorning, Douglas A. Shoemaker, Andreanne Meley, Lauren Dupey, Ross K. Meentemeyer
2017, Forest Science (63) 270-282
The purpose of this study was to determine individuals' willingness to enroll in voluntary payments for carbon sequestration programs through the use of a discrete choice experiment delivered to forest owners living in the rapidly urbanizing region surrounding Charlotte, North Carolina. We examined forest owners' willingness to enroll in payments...
Acute toxicity of polyacrylamide flocculants to early life stages of freshwater mussels
Sean B. Buczek, W. Gregory Cope, Richard A. McLaughlin, Thomas J. Kwak
2017, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (36) 2715-2721
Polyacrylamide has become an effective tool for reducing construction-related suspended sediment and turbidity, which are considered to have significant adverse impacts on aquatic ecosystems and are a leading cause of the degradation of North American streams and rivers. However, little is known about the effects of polyacrylamide on many freshwater...
Selected water-resources activities of the U.S. Geological Survey in New England in 2017
Peter K. Weiskel
2017, Fact Sheet 2017-3049
The New England Water Science Center of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is headquartered in Pembroke, New Hampshire, with offices in East Hartford, Connecticut; Augusta, Maine; Northborough, Massachusetts; and Montpelier, Vermont. The areas of expertise covered by the water science center’s staff of 130 include aquatic biology, chemistry, geographic information...
Field-trip guide to Mount Hood, Oregon, highlighting eruptive history and hazards
William E. Scott, Cynthia A. Gardner
2017, Scientific Investigations Report 2017-5022-G
This guidebook describes stops of interest for a geological field trip around Mount Hood volcano. It was developed for the 2017 International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth’s Interior (IAVCEI) Scientific Assembly in Portland, Oregon. The intent of this guidebook and accompanying contributions is to provide an overview...
Field-trip guide to the vents, dikes, stratigraphy, and structure of the Columbia River Basalt Group, eastern Oregon and southeastern Washington
Victor E Camp, Stephen P. Reidel, Martin E. Ross, Richard J. Brown, Stephen Self
2017, Scientific Investigations Report 2017-5022-N
The Columbia River Basalt Group covers an area of more than 210,000 km2 with an estimated volume of 210,000 km3. As the youngest continental flood-basalt province on Earth (16.7–5.5 Ma), it is well preserved, with a coherent and detailed stratigraphy exposed in the deep canyonlands of eastern Oregon...
RNA sequencing analysis of transcriptional change in the freshwater mussel Elliptio complanata after environmentally relevant sodium chloride exposure
Laura S. Robertson, Heather S. Galbraith, Deborah D. Iwanowicz, Carrie J. Blakeslee, Robert S. Cornman
2017, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (36) 2352-2366
To identify potential biomarkers of salt stress in a freshwater sentinel species, we examined transcriptional responses of the common mussel Elliptio complanata to controlled sodium chloride (NaCl) exposures. Ribonucleic acid sequencing (RNA-Seq) of mantle tissue identified 481 transcripts differentially expressed in adult mussels exposed to 2 ppt NaCl (1.2 ppt chloride) for...
Influence of lithostatic stress on earthquake stress drops in North America
Oliver S. Boyd, Daniel E. McNamara, Stephen H. Hartzell, George Choy
2017, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (107) 856-868
We estimate stress drops for earthquakes in and near the continental United States using the method of spectral ratios. The ratio of acceleration spectra between collocated earthquakes recorded at a given station removes the effects of path and recording site and yields source parameters including corner frequency for, and the...
Can we save large carnivores without losing large carnivore science?
Benjamin L. Allen, Lee R. Allen, Henrik Andren, Guy Ballard, Luigi Boitani, Richard M. Engeman, Peter J.S. Fleming, Peter M. Haswell, Adam T. Ford, Rafal Kowalczyk, L. David Mech, John Linnell, Daniel M. Parker
2017, Food Webs (12) 64-75
Large carnivores are depicted to shape entire ecosystems through top-down processes. Studies describing these processes are often used to support interventionist wildlife management practices, including carnivore reintroduction or lethal control programs. Unfortunately, there is an increasing tendency to ignore, disregard or devalue fundamental principles of the scientific method when communicating...
Towards a planetary spatial data infrastructure
Jason Laura, Trent M. Hare, Lisa R. Gaddis, Robin L. Fergason, Skinner Jr., Justin Hagerty, Brent A. Archinal
2017, ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information (6)
Planetary science is the study of planets, moons, irregular bodies such as asteroids and the processes that create and modify them. Like terrestrial sciences, planetary science research is heavily dependent on collecting, processing and archiving large quantities of spatial data to support a range of activities. To address the complexity...
Movements of four native Hawaiian birds across a naturally fragmented landscape
Jessie L. Knowlton, David J. Flaspohler, Eben H. Paxton, Tadashi Fukami, Christian P. Giardina, Daniel S. Gruner, Erin E. Wilson Rankin
2017, Journal of Avian Biology (48) 921-931
Animals often increase their fitness by moving across space in response to temporal variation in habitat quality and resource availability, and as a result of intra and inter-specific interactions. The long-term persistence of populations and even whole species depends on the collective patterns of individual movements, yet animal movements have...
Younger-Dryas cooling and sea-ice feedbacks were prominent features of the Pleistocene-Holocene transition in Arctic Alaska
Benjamin V. Gaglioti, Daniel H. Mann, Matthew J. Wooller, Benjamin M. Jones, Gregory C. Wiles, Pamela Groves, Michael L. Kunz, Carson Baughman, Richard E. Reanier
2017, Quaternary Science Reviews (169) 330-343
Declining sea-ice extent is currently amplifying climate warming in the Arctic. Instrumental records at high latitudes are too short-term to provide sufficient historical context for these trends, so paleoclimate archives are needed to better understand the functioning of the sea ice-albedo feedback. Here we use the oxygen isotope values of...
