All Publications

Estimates of coseismic vertical displacements from past and potential future subduction zone earthquakes provide critical constraints on regional seismic and tsunami hazard. Many studies use elastic homogeneous half-space models to calculate vertical displacements from a specified earthquake slip distribution, neglecting complexities of 3D structure in subduction zone settings. Here, we...

Many salamander populations are declining, and methods to determine how best to allocate limited resources to slow or reverse these declines could support land managers in their decision‐making processes. Multiple types of uncertainty may delay management decisions, including when (1) knowledge of a species' ecology is incomplete, (2) climate change effects on environmental covariates...

Potash, potassium-bearing water-soluble salt, is the primary global economic source of potassium. Potash is recognized as a critical mineral in Canada as it is the largest source of potassium used in fertilizers. It is essential for global agricultural productivity and food security. Canada is the world’s largest potash exporter with vast deposits in the widely mined Prairie Evaporite of

San Francisco Bay, California, typically has chlorophyll a (chl-a) concentrations below 10 µg L−1, despite nutrient loadings exceeding those in many estuaries with recurring harmful algal blooms (HABs). However, in August 2022 there was a Heterosigma akashiwo (raphidophyte) bloom with chl-a concentrations exceeding 450 µg L−1, resulting in widespread hypoxia and fish die-off. We used...

In April 2021, a synoptic study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and National Park Service (NPS) identified wastewater-related contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) in springs along the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. These springs are located north of Bright Angel Wash, an ephemeral channel that receives treated effluent from the South Rim Wastewater Treatment Plant...

Purpose

Seasonal snow is an integral component of global hydrological systems, global energy budget and Earth's climate. As an important part of many Earth systems, seasonal snow is also an essential source of water for many human populations and ecosystems around the world. As such, the measurement of seasonal snow and characterization of uncertainty in those measurements is crucial. To...

Over the last few decades, freshwater turtles have become more common in the illegal wildlife trade because of growing global demand. Illegally traded turtles may be intercepted by several different agencies with separate jurisdictions. When turtles are confiscated, uncertainties may make releasing them back to the wild difficult. We used tools from decision analysis to achieve the...

Momentum is growing for the management of coral reefs as a strategy to reduce climate risks in tropical coastlines. Yet, quantification of the life-time costs, impacts, and benefits remains limited. This study provides one of the first rigorous, spatially explicit, regional-scale Benefit:Cost Analyses (BCA) for coral reef restoration and was designed to meet the BCA requirements of major...

The Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas at Austin (UT-BEG) is leading the Gulf Coast Carbon Ore, Rare Earth, and Critical Minerals (CORE-CM) Initiative to assess the potential to produce critical minerals (CMs), including rare earth elements (REEs) from coal, coal ash, and produced water related to oil and gas production, and related materials (alumina processing waste...

Long-term monitoring indicates bluegill catch rates are relatively stable in some reaches of the Upper Mississippi River and highly variable in others, whereas in the Illinois River, catch rates have decreased. A lack of age structure information precludes understanding population processes responsible for patterns in catch rates. To build a better understanding of why catch rates have...

The transition from small genetic to genome-scale datasets for studying biodiversity has revealed that genetic exchange through introgressive hybridization is a widespread phenomenon in nature. Despite this, a lack of high-quality reference genomes for most non-model species limits our understanding of the impact of this process for many taxonomic groups. This restricts the range of...