All Publications

Distributed volcanic fields are present in various tectonic settings worldwide, and their characteristics reflect differing influences from magmatic and tectonic processes. In the southwestern United States alone, there are 37 Quaternary distributed volcanic fields. After the primary period of extensional tectonics in the southern Basin and Range 15–5 million years ago, the Sentinel...

The Culver’s root borer moth (Papaipema sciata) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) is a rare Noctuid that requires Culver’s root (Veronicastrum virginicum) to complete its lifecycle within remnant native grasslands and open woodlands in the midwest and northeast United States. We report on 26 years of monitoring this species’ colonization of Culver’s root stems at Algonac State Park (ASP) in...

Objectives

Wildlife agencies invest substantial resources in monitoring ungulate reproductive rates given ongoing concerns about population trends and their implications for management. For barren-ground caribou (Rangifer tarandus) in the North American Arctic, data on parturition and neonate survival have traditionally been collected using visual observations of antler retention and calf presence...

We investigate trends in foraminiferal phenology using a 12-year (2008–2020), well-resolved (7 to 28-day resolution) time series of planktonic foraminiferal fluxes from a U.S. Geological Survey sediment trap in the northern Gulf of America (Gulf of Mexico; 27.5°N, 90.3°W). The total foraminiferal flux declined over this time. We used Horn-Morisita dissimilarity analysis, principal...

Dry forests of the western United States evolved with frequent, spatially extensive, low-severity fires, followed by a century of fire exclusion. Recently, these same forests have experienced large and increasingly severe fires causing widespread forest loss. To what extent do modern high-severity fires depart from pre-1900 fire regimes, and how do these departures affect the future...

Native freshwater mussels (family Unionidae) are in decline globally, including in the Laurentian Great Lakes. Glochidia, the parasitic larvae of unionid mussels, typically attach to sub-adult and adult fishes. Attachment of glochidia to larval fishes is more rare, and a lack of documentation exists on glochidial attachment on fish in the Great Lakes in general. We document the...

Global actual evapotranspiration (ET) is one of the essential climate variables needed to understand and manage the relationships among food, energy, and water resources. The U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center launched a provisional ET product in 2020, offering on-demand, field-scale global coverage derived from Landsat data through the EROS...

Many authors are understandably confused about the capitalization of the words “lower,” “middle,” “upper,” “early,” and “late.” Where these words are used simply as descriptive adjectives, they should be in lowercase; where they form the first word of a formal chronostratigraphic or geochronologic unit name, they should be in uppercase.

Distributed volcanic fields—also referred to as “monogenetic fields” or simply “volcanic fields”—are found on every continent, on the seafloors, and in every tectonic setting on Earth. Yet, our understanding of what constitutes a distributed volcanic field, and our knowledge of the common products, spatiotemporal patterns in activity, and plumbing systems of these fields, are commonly...

The U.S. Geological Survey deployed instream chlorophyll fluorescence sensors on the Illinois River in Illinois to better understand the formation, dynamics, and persistence of riverine algal blooms. At five sensor locations across four U.S. Geological Survey streamgages, chlorophyll fluorescence (fChl) sensors were set to measure instantaneous fChl in micrograms per liter as chlorophyll...