All Publications

Rationale Vein calcite in Devils Hole has been precipitating continuously in oxygen-isotope equilibrium at a constant temperature for over 500 000 years, providing an unmatched δ18O paleoclimate time series. A substantial issue is that coeval calcite (based on matching δ18O values) has uranium-series ages differing by 12 000 years. Methods An unparalleled high-accuracy δ18O chronology...

The Little Sequatchie River and Pryor Cove Branch, in southern Tennessee, drain the eastern escarpment of the Cumberland Plateau to the Sequatchie River near the southern end of the Sequatchie Valley. The Little Sequatchie River is the largest tributary to the Sequatchie River by drainage area, covering over 120 square miles. The hydrology of the two drainage areas has been largely...

The U.S. Geological Survey constructed a two-dimensional hydrodynamic model that was applied to a 15.8-mile tailwater reach of the Colorado River in Glen Canyon that begins 0.25 mile downstream from Glen Canyon Dam and extends to Lees Ferry in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Arizona. The model used the Flow and Sediment Transport with Morphological Evolution of Channels (FaSTMECH)...

Geospatial data describing the topography, natural features, human-built features, and land uses of a particular area or region can come from independent data providers and, therefore, vary in format, data encoding, and geographic coverage. Because of the complexity of the processes and procedures required for unifying these heterogeneous data into a dataset with consistent format...

Site 11 is a former landfill at North Chevalier Field Disposal Area in Operable Unit 2 at Naval Air Station Pensacola, in northwest Florida. Site 11 is adjacent to Bayou Grande, a shallow, tidally influenced, saline estuary of the Pensacola Bay watershed. Federal and Florida regulators have expressed concern that contaminants detected in groundwater beneath the inland parts of Site 11...

The introduction of HPAI H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b viruses to North America in late 2021 resulted in avian influenza outbreaks in poultry, mortality events in many wild bird species, and spillover into many mammalian species. Reassortment events with North American low pathogenic virus were identified as early as February 2022 and over 100 genotypes have been characterized. Such diversity...

The Interior Population (IP) of Cygnus buccinator (Trumpeter Swan), formerly extirpated by market hunting, was re-established in eastern North America by releasing individuals from both migratory and non-migratory populations. Their current annual movement patterns are largely unknown. We deployed 113 GPS-GSM transmitters on IP C. buccinator in 6 U.S. states and 1 Canadian province...

This report describes a compilation of brood observations for Anatidae species breeding in Maine during an 18-year period (1977–94) that were made by the U.S. Geological Survey’s Patuxent Wildlife Research Center while it was operated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. During four focused studies, variables affecting the declining Anas rubripes (Brewster, 1902) (American black duck...

The Ceratocystis fungal disease complex, rapid ʻōhiʻa death (ROD), has killed over one million ʻōhiʻa (Metrosideros polymorpha), the keystone tree species of Hawaiʻi. The causal fungi can be spread by invasive ambrosia beetles (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) through fungal inoculum found on their bodies and in the frass they produce. Thus, there is a critical need to manage beetle attack on...

Population estimates are often required for identifying relationships between predators and their prey and to inform conservation and management actions. The random encounter model (REM) estimates population density of wildlife lacking individually unique markings, based on photographs or videos from remote camera-traps. However, the REM has strict sampling and input requirements that...

Shallow shear‐wave velocities (⁠⁠ Vs) sometimes are estimated from joint inversions of horizontal‐to‐vertical (H/V) spectral ratios and surface‐wave dispersion curves derived from ambient noise or small active sources. Here, we evaluate carrying out these inversions using Rayleigh‐wave dispersion curves computed from crustal‐scale P‐wave seismic refraction data. We use data from the 2014...

Executive Summary Earthquakes represent one of our Nation’s most significant and costly natural hazards, with estimated annual loses from earthquakes close to $15 billion in 2023. Over the past two centuries, 37 U.S. States have experienced an earthquake exceeding a magnitude of 5, and 50 percent of States have a significant potential for future damaging shaking; these statistics speak...