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The USGS provides unbiased, objective, and impartial scientific information upon which our audiences, including resource managers, planners, and other entities, rely.
Browse more than 65,000 articles authored by our scientists over the past 100+ year history of the USGS and refine search by topic, location, year, and advanced search.
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Abundance and movement patterns of fish accessing a reconnected Lake Erie coastal wetland: Insights from high-resolution sonar data Abundance and movement patterns of fish accessing a reconnected Lake Erie coastal wetland: Insights from high-resolution sonar data
Coastal wetlands of the Laurentian Great Lakes are complex ecosystems that provide essential biological services, including providing habitat for a suite of fish species. As restoration efforts for these coastal wetlands increase, there is a need to characterize how well restored areas support the life histories of wetland, riverine, and lake fishes. Most traditional survey methods (e.g...
Authors
Kurt P. Kowalski, Alexandra A. Bozimowski, McKenzie K.H. Smith, Michael R. Eggleston, Maxwell F. Ramsay, Holly J. Eschenburg
A chromosome-level genome assembly of a vernal pool specialist amphibian, the Western Spadefoot, Spea hammondii A chromosome-level genome assembly of a vernal pool specialist amphibian, the Western Spadefoot, Spea hammondii
We assembled and annotated a chromosome-level genome for the Western Spadefoot, Spea hammondii (Anura, Scaphiopodidae) representing one of only three amphibians included in the California Conservation Genomics Project (CCGP). Spea hammondii is a vernal pool breeding anuran native to California and northwestern Baja California which has undergone both range contractions and local...
Authors
Ben Thompsky, Eric Beraut, Robert D. Cooper, Merly Escalona, Robert E. Espinoza, Robert N. Fisher, Courtney Miller, Oanh Nguyen, Samuel Sacco, Ruta Sahasrabudhe, William E. Seligmann, Erin Tofflemier, Ian J. Wang, H. Bradley Schaffer
Mineral chemistry perspective on remobilization of stored magma at Kamakai'a Hills, Southwest Rift Zone of Kilauea, Island of Hawai'i, USA Mineral chemistry perspective on remobilization of stored magma at Kamakai'a Hills, Southwest Rift Zone of Kilauea, Island of Hawai'i, USA
Differentiated magmas stored in the rift zones of Kīlauea have received more attention in recent years following eruption of andesite during the early phase of 2018 lower East Rift Zone activity. Despite this growing interest, some of the most voluminous eruptions of differentiated rift zone magmas remain poorly studied. One such eruption, and the most voluminous exposed differentiated...
Authors
Drew T. Downs, May Sas
How wildlife respond to tropical cyclones: Short-term tactics and long-term impacts How wildlife respond to tropical cyclones: Short-term tactics and long-term impacts
From butterflies to lizards and from sharks to seabirds, wildlife exhibit tactics to survive the impacts of tropical cyclones, also known as hurricanes, cyclones, or typhoons depending on where they occur. Some species seek refuge during the storm by moving, some remain in place and ride it out, and others move longer distances, avoiding the main impacts of the storm altogether. Tropical...
Authors
Erin L. Koen, Mohamed Khalil Meliane, Zachery B. Holmes, Karl E. Miller, William J. Barichivich, Emilie Dedeban, Alex Furst, Miranda Imeri, Peyton E. Niebanck, Samantha Nunn, Kailee Pearson, Nicole Rita, Brier Ryver, Dakotah Shaffer, Susan C. Walls, E. Hance Ellington
Influence of modeling assumptions on pedestrian evacuation success for non-eruptive lahar hazards at Mount Rainier, Washington Influence of modeling assumptions on pedestrian evacuation success for non-eruptive lahar hazards at Mount Rainier, Washington
Previous efforts to characterize lahar threats posed to communities downstream of volcanoes have focused primarily on delineating hazard zones that lack information on lahar-arrival times and exposure estimates that implicitly treat threats to be the same regardless of distance from the volcano. Estimated lahar-arrival times, travel times for individuals to leave hazard zones, and...
Authors
Nathan J. Wood, Jeff Peters
Fifteen years of WRTDS for advancing water-quality science: A critical review of methodological developments and global applications Fifteen years of WRTDS for advancing water-quality science: A critical review of methodological developments and global applications
Contamination by nutrients, major ions, and metals poses a major threat to global water sustainability. Understanding how these pollutants vary across time and space requires long-term monitoring and robust statistical approaches. Traditional methods, however, often struggle to account for streamflow variability, seasonality, and nonlinear responses. Introduced in 2010, the Weighted...
Authors
Qian Zhang, Robert M. Hirsch, Laura A. DeCicco, Jennifer C. Murphy
Towards affordable wetland evapotranspiration monitoring using the Variance-Bowen Ratio method: Insights from three contrasting wetlands Towards affordable wetland evapotranspiration monitoring using the Variance-Bowen Ratio method: Insights from three contrasting wetlands
Accurate measurement of evapotranspiration (ET) is essential for sustainable water management. Standard methods such as eddy covariance (EC) are costly, while alternatives such as surface renewal are cheaper but require calibration and complex data processing. This study evaluates the utility of the Variance-Bowen Ratio (VBR) method for estimating ET across three California’s wetlands...
Authors
Tianxin Wang, Gabriel B. Senay, Joseph Verfaille, Daphne J. Szutu, MacKenzie Friedrichs, Jack R. Eggleston, Dennis Baldocchi
Global glacier mass change in 2025 Global glacier mass change in 2025
Glaciers lost 408 ± 132 Gt of mass during the hydrological year 2025, equivalent to 1.1 ± 0.4 mm sea-level rise. Since 1975, glacier mass loss has totalled 9,583 ± 1,211 Gt, equivalent to 26.4 ± 3.3 mm of sea-level rise, with six of the highest mass-loss years on record occurring in the past seven years.
Authors
Michael Zemp, Ethan Z. Welty, Samuel U. Nussbaumer, Jacqueline Bannwart, Isabelle Gärtner-Roer, Albin Wells, Andreas Peter Ahlstrøm, Brian Anderson, Liss Marie Andreassen, Mohd. Farooq Azam, Jamie Barnett, Carlo Baroni, Nicholas Edward Barrand, Andreas Bauder, Eric Bernard, Etienne Berthier, Giulia Bertolotti, Tobias Bolch, Mylène Bonnefoy-Demongeot, Matthias H. Braun, David Burgess, David Cappelletti, Jonathan L. Carrivick, Luca Carturan, Daniele Cat Berro, Jorge Luis Ceballos, Guillermo Cobos, Rolando Cruz, Nicolas Cullen, Bolívar Cáceres, Johanna Dahlkvist, Otgonbayar Demberel, Simon de Villiers, Roberto Dinale, Eugene Drozdov, Inés Dussaillant, Luzmila Dávila, Nelly Elagina, Hallgeir Elvehøy, Alexander Erofeev, Daniel Falaschi, Andrea Fischer, Mauro Fischer, Caitlyn Florentine, Koji Fujita, Stephan Peter Galos, Ayon Garcia, Noel Gourmelen, Federico Grosso, Afanasiy Gubanov, Andri Gunnarsson, Anne Guyez, Lea Hartl, Martin Hoelzle, Jorge Huenante, Romain Hugonnet, Matthias Huss, Bernhard Hynek, Takuro Imazu, Rodolfo Iturraspe, Livia Jakob, Sharad Joshi, Neamat Karimi, Nina Kirchner, Bjarne Kjøllmoen, Jack Kohler, Stanislav Kutuzov, Ivan Lavrentiev, James Matthew Lea, Amerigo Lendvai, Huilin Li, Shenghai Li, Zhongqin Li, Andreas Linsbauer, Sebastián Marinsek, Enrico Mattea, Christoph Mayer, Christopher McNeil, Luca Mercalli, Alexandra Messerli, Carolyn Michael, Umberto Morra di Cella, Francisco Navarro, Hofiz Navruzshoev, Anton Neureiter, Gennady Nosenko, Massimo Pecci, Mauri Pelto, Victor Popovnin, Rainer Prinz, Carla Puigdomenech, Heather Purdie, Finnur Pálsson, Alberto Rossotto, Lucas Ruiz, Louis Sass, Erik Schytt Mannerfelt, Riccardo Scotti, Donghui Shangguan, Brenda Shepherd, Delphine Six, Andrey Smirnov, Ireneusz Sobota, Markus Strudl, Shin Sugiyama, Emmanuel Thibert, Laura Thomson, Thorsteinn Thorsteinsson, Levan Tielidze, Florian Tolle, Pavel Toropov, Paolo Tuccella, Gulomjon Umirzakov, Ryskul Usubaliev, Lauren Vargo, Wei Yang, Bernhard Zagel
Growth, movement, and survival of precocial shorebird chicks are constrained by their environment. Growth, movement, and survival of precocial shorebird chicks are constrained by their environment.
Young animals are often less mobile than adults, while also having high energetic demands. They may therefore be more vulnerable to local-scale changes in environmental conditions. In particular, when 1 sex must grow more rapidly than the other to achieve a larger adult size, that sex may experience especially dramatic reductions in growth and survival in the face of suboptimal...
Authors
Feipeng Huang, Chris Tyson, Brett R. Addis, Cory Elowe, Lauren Puleo, Stephan Saint-Juste, Maria Stager, Rose J. Swift, Luke Wilde, Nathan R. Senner
First vertebrate assemblage from the middle member of the Fremouw Formation (Lower Triassic) of Antarctica First vertebrate assemblage from the middle member of the Fremouw Formation (Lower Triassic) of Antarctica
The Fremouw Formation of the Central Transantarctic Mountains preserves the southernmost record of Early to Middle Triassic terrestrial ecosystems that developed in the aftermath of the end-Permian mass extinction. Although the well-studied vertebrate fossil assemblage in the lower member of the Fremouw Formation provides a detailed snapshot of subpolar ecosystems immediately following...
Authors
C. Henrik Woolley, Julia A. McIntosh, Roger M.H. Smith, Christian A. Sidor
Between quiescence and crisis: Hawaiian Volcano Observatory communication and response strategies on the Island of Hawaiʻi Between quiescence and crisis: Hawaiian Volcano Observatory communication and response strategies on the Island of Hawaiʻi
Over the past two centuries, eruptions of Mauna Loa volcano have damaged infrastructure and destroyed several communities on the Island of Hawaiʻi. Future eruptions will impact existing population centers and critical infrastructure, which continue to grow each year. The U.S. Geological Survey Hawaiian Volcano Observatory has developed and practiced methods to promote eruption...
Authors
Katie Mulliken, Ken Hon, David Alan Phillips, Janet Babb, Frank Trusdell, Christina Neal, Michael H. Zoeller, Michael Poland, Wendy K. Stovall
Satellite tracking of Galapagos Petrel Pterodroma phaeopygia reveals distribution and movements during chick rearing Satellite tracking of Galapagos Petrel Pterodroma phaeopygia reveals distribution and movements during chick rearing
We tracked 19 adult Galapagos Petrels Pterodroma phaeopygia during the chick-rearing seasons in 2009 and 2010 (Santa Cruz Island [n = 16] and Floreana Island [n = 3]) in the Galápagos Islands, Ecuador. Eight petrels performed 27 complete foraging trips lasting 0.6 to 18.8 days. Short trips (3.2 ± 2.1 days; 785 km; max displacement 671 km) and long trips (10.8 ± 3.9 days; 2,856 km; max...
Authors
Carolina B. Proaño, Sebastian M. Cruz, Josh Adams, Martin Wikelski