Publications
Browse more than 160,000 publications authored by our scientists over the past 100+ year history of the USGS. Publications available are: USGS-authored journal articles, series reports, book chapters, other government publications, and more.
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Searching for the Achilles heel(s) for maintaining invertebrate biodiversity across complexes of depressional wetlands Searching for the Achilles heel(s) for maintaining invertebrate biodiversity across complexes of depressional wetlands
Wetlands are among the most threatened ecosystems worldwide due to climate change and land-use conversion. Regional biodiversity of temporary wetlands is dependent on the existence of habitat complexes with variable hydroperiods. Because temperature and rainfall regimes are predicted to shift globally, together with land-use patterns, different scenarios of wetland loss are expected in...
Authors
Mateus M. Pires, Patricia E. Garcia, Leonardo Maltchik, Cristina Stenert, Luis B. Epele, Kyle McLean, Jamie M. Kneitel, Sophie Racey, Darold P. Batzer
An aridity threshold model of fire sizes and annual area burned in extensively forested ecoregions of the western USA An aridity threshold model of fire sizes and annual area burned in extensively forested ecoregions of the western USA
Wildfire occurrence varies among regions and through time due to the long-term impacts of climate on fuel structure and short-term impacts on fuel flammability. Identifying the climatic conditions that trigger extensive fire years at regional scales can enable development of area burned models that are both spatially and temporally robust, which is crucial for understanding the impacts...
Authors
Paul D. Henne, Todd Hawbaker
Understanding uncertainties in contemporary and future extreme wave events for broad-scale impact and adaptation planning Understanding uncertainties in contemporary and future extreme wave events for broad-scale impact and adaptation planning
Understanding uncertainties in extreme wind-wave events is essential for offshore/coastal risk and adaptation estimates. Despite this, uncertainties in contemporary extreme wave events have not been assessed, and projections are still limited. Here, we quantify, at global scale, the uncertainties in contemporary extreme wave estimates across an ensemble of widely used global wave...
Authors
Joao Morim, Thomas Wahl, Sean Vitousek, Sara Santamaria, Ian Young, Mark Hemer
“Aftershock Faults” and what they could mean for seismic hazard assessment “Aftershock Faults” and what they could mean for seismic hazard assessment
We study stress‐loading mechanisms for the California faults used in rupture forecasts. Stress accumulation drives earthquakes, and that accumulation mechanism governs recurrence. Most moment release in California occurs because of relative motion between the Pacific plate and the Sierra Nevada block; we calculate relative motion directions at fault centers and compare with fault...
Authors
Thomas E. Parsons, Eric L. Geist, Sophie E. Parsons
Density effects on native and non-native trout survival in streams Density effects on native and non-native trout survival in streams
Environmental stressors associated with a changing climate and non-native fish, individually, represent significant threats to native fish conservation. These threats can exacerbate risks to native fishes when conditions interact at the trailing edge of a population's distribution. We collected capture–mark–recapture data for Rio Grande cutthroat trout (RGCT, Oncorhynchus clarkii...
Authors
Brock M. Huntsman, Lauren Flynn, Colleen A. Caldwell, Abigail Lynch, Fitsum Abadi
The detection and attribution of extreme reductions in vegetation growth across the global land surface The detection and attribution of extreme reductions in vegetation growth across the global land surface
Negative extreme anomalies in vegetation growth (NEGs) usually indicate severely impaired ecosystem services. These NEGs can result from diverse natural and anthropogenic causes, especially climate extremes (CEs). However, the relationship between NEGs and many types of CEs remains largely unknown at regional and global scales. Here, with satellite-derived vegetation index data and...
Authors
Huiping Yang, Seth M. Munson, Chris Huntingford, Nuno Carvalhais, Alan K. Knapp, Xiangyi Li, Josep Penuelas, Jakob Zscheichler, Anping Chen
Solid Earth–atmosphere interaction forces during the 15 January 2022 Tonga eruption Solid Earth–atmosphere interaction forces during the 15 January 2022 Tonga eruption
Rapid venting of volcanic material during the 15 January 2022 Tonga eruption generated impulsive downward reaction forces on the Earth of ~2.0 × 1013 N that radiated seismic waves observed throughout the planet, with ~25 s source bursts persisting for ~4.5 hours. The force time history is determined by analysis of teleseismic P waves and Rayleigh waves with periods approximately
Authors
Ricardo Garza-Giron, Thorne Lay, Frederick Pollitz, Hiroo Kanamori, Luis Rivera
National Land Cover Database 2019: A new strategy for creating clean leaf-on and leaf-off Landsat composite images National Land Cover Database 2019: A new strategy for creating clean leaf-on and leaf-off Landsat composite images
National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 2019 is a new epoch of national land cover products for the conterminous United States. Image quality is fundamental to the quality of any land cover product. Image preprocessing has often taken a considerable proportion of overall time and effort for this kind of national project. An approach to prepare image inputs for NLCD 2019 production was...
Authors
Suming Jin, Jon Dewitz, Patrick Danielson, Brian Granneman, Catherine Costello, Zhe Zhu
Drivers and facilitators of the illegal killing of elephants across 64 African sites Drivers and facilitators of the illegal killing of elephants across 64 African sites
Ivory poaching continues to threaten African elephants. We (1) used criminology theory and literature evidence to generate hypotheses about factors that may drive, facilitate or motivate poaching, (2) identified datasets representing these factors, and (3) tested those factors with strong hypotheses and sufficient data quality for empirical associations with poaching. We advance on...
Authors
Timothy Kuiper, Res Altwegg, Colin Beale, Thea Carroll, Holy Dublin, Severin Hauenstein, Mrigesh Kshatriya, Carl Schwarz, Chris Thouless, Andy Royle, E.J. Milner-Gulland
Comparison of ventifact orientations and recent wind direction indicators on the floor of Jezero crater, Mars Comparison of ventifact orientations and recent wind direction indicators on the floor of Jezero crater, Mars
Wind-abraded rocks and aeolian bedforms have been observed at the Mars 2020 Perseverance landing site, providing evidence for recent and older wind directions. This study reports orientations of aeolian features measured in Perseverance images to infer formative wind directions. It compares these measurements with orbital observations, climate model predictions, and wind data acquired by...
Authors
Kenneth E. Herkenhoff, Rob Sullivan, Claire E Newman, Gerhard Paar, Mariah Baker, Daniel Viudez-Moreiras, James W. Ashley, Andreas Bechtold, Jorge I Nunez
Modeled production, oxidation, and transport processes of wetland methane emissions in temperate, boreal, and Arctic regions Modeled production, oxidation, and transport processes of wetland methane emissions in temperate, boreal, and Arctic regions
Wetlands are the largest natural source of methane (CH4) to the atmosphere. The eddy covariance method provides robust measurements of net ecosystem exchange of CH4, but interpreting its spatiotemporal variations is challenging due to the co-occurrence of CH4 production, oxidation, and transport dynamics. Here, we estimate these three processes using a data-model fusion approach across...
Authors
Masahito Ueyama, Sarah Knox, Kyle B. Delwiche, Sheel Bansal, William J. Riley, Dennis Baldocchi, Takashi Hirano, Gavin McNicol, Karina Schafer, Lisamarie Windham-Myers, Benjamin Poulter, Robert B. Jackson, Kuang-Yu Chang, Jiquan Chen, Housen Chu, Ankur R. Desai, Sebastien Gogo, Hiroki Iwata, Minseok Kang, Ivan Mammarella, Matthias Peichl, Oliver Sonnentag, Eeva-Stiina Tuittila, Youngryel Ryu, Eugenie S. Euskirchen, Mathias Goeckede, Adrien Jacotot, Mats B. Nilsson, Torsten Sachs
Reference materials for phase equilibrium studies. 2. Solid–liquid equilibria (IUPAC Technical Report) Reference materials for phase equilibrium studies. 2. Solid–liquid equilibria (IUPAC Technical Report)
This article is the second of three projected IUPAC Technical Reports on reference materials for phase equilibrium studies. The goal of this project was to select reference systems with critically evaluated property values for the verification of instruments and techniques used in phase equilibrium studies of mixtures. This report proposes seven systems for solid–liquid equilibrium...
Authors
Ala Bazyleva, William E Acree, Vladimir Diky, Glenn T Hefter, Johan Jacquemin, M Clara F Magalhaes, Joseph W Magee, D. Kirk Nordstrom, John O’Connell, James D Olson, Ilya Polishuk, Kurt A G Schmidt, John M Shaw, J P Martin Trusler, Ronald D Weir