Articles
Science Quality and Integrity
The USGS provides unbiased, objective, and impartial scientific information upon which our audiences, including resource managers, planners, and other entities, rely.
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.
Filter Total Items: 77816
Increasing seasonal variation in the extent of rivers and lakes from 1984 to 2022 Increasing seasonal variation in the extent of rivers and lakes from 1984 to 2022
Knowledge of the spatial and temporal distribution of surface water is important for water resource management, flood risk assessment, monitoring ecosystem health, constraining estimates of biogeochemical cycles and understanding our climate. While global-scale spatiotemporal change detection of surface water has significantly improved in recent years due to planetary-scale remote...
Authors
Bjorn Nyberg, Roger Sayre, Elco Luijendijk
Empirical ground-motion basin response in the California Great Valley, Reno, Nevada, and Portland, Oregon Empirical ground-motion basin response in the California Great Valley, Reno, Nevada, and Portland, Oregon
We assess how well the Next-Generation Attenuation-West 2 (NGA-West2) ground-motion models (GMMs), which are used in the US Geological Survey’s (USGS) National Seismic Hazard Model (NSHM) for crustal faults in the western United States, predict the observed basin response in the Great Valley of California, the Reno basin in Nevada, and Portland and Tualatin basins in Oregon. These GMMs...
Authors
Sean Kamran Ahdi, Brad T. Aagaard, Morgan P. Moschetti, Grace Alexandra Parker, Oliver S. Boyd, William J. Stephenson
Tracking magma pathways and surface faulting in the Southwest Rift Zone and the Koaʻe fault system (Kīlauea volcano, Hawai ‘i) using photogrammetry and structural observations Tracking magma pathways and surface faulting in the Southwest Rift Zone and the Koaʻe fault system (Kīlauea volcano, Hawai ‘i) using photogrammetry and structural observations
Volcanic islands are often subject to flank instability, resulting from a combination of magmatic intrusions along rift zones and gravitational spreading causing extensional faulting at the surface. Here, we study the Koaʻe fault system (KFS), located south of the summit caldera of Kīlauea volcano in Hawaiʻi, one of the most active volcanoes on Earth, prone to active faulting, episodic...
Authors
Stefano Mannini, Joel Ruch, Richard W. Hazlett, Drew T. Downs, Carolyn Parcheta, Steven P. Lundblad, James Anderson, Ryan L. Perroy, Nicolas Oestreicher
Contribution of host species and pathogen clade to snake fungal disease hotspots in Europe Contribution of host species and pathogen clade to snake fungal disease hotspots in Europe
Infectious diseases are influenced by interactions between host and pathogen, and the number of infected hosts is rarely homogenous across the landscape. Areas with elevated pathogen prevalence can maintain a high force of infection and may indicate areas with disease impacts on host populations. However, isolating the ecological processes that result in increases in infection prevalence...
Authors
Gaelle Blanvillain, Jeffrey M. Lorch, Nicolas Joudrier, Stanislaw Bury, Thibault Cuenot, Michael Franzen, Fernando Martinez-Freiria, Gaetan Guiller, Balint Halpern, Aleksandra Kolanek, Katarzyna Kurek, Olivier Lourdais, Alix Michon, Radka Musilova, Silke Schweiger, Barbara Szulc, Sylvain Ursenbacher, Oleksandr Zinenko, Joseph R. Hoyt
Concept of a satellite cross-calibration radiometer for in-orbit calibration of commercial optical satellites Concept of a satellite cross-calibration radiometer for in-orbit calibration of commercial optical satellites
The satellite Earth observation (EO) sector is burgeoning with hundreds of commercial satellites being launched each year, delivering a rich source of data that could be exploited for societal benefit. Data streams from the growing number of commercial satellites are of variable quality, limiting the potential for their combined use in science applications that need long time-series data...
Authors
Medhavy Thankappan, Jon Christopherson, Simon John Cantrell, Robert Ryan, Mary Pagnutti, Courtney Bright, Denis Naughton, Kathryn Lynn Ruslander, Lan-Wei Wang, David Hudson, Jerad Shaw, Shankar N. Ramaseri Chandra, Cody Anderson
Artificial structure selection by economically important reef fishes at North Carolina artificial reefs Artificial structure selection by economically important reef fishes at North Carolina artificial reefs
Artificial reefs can play an important role in marine fisheries management by supplementing or enhancing natural habitats. Despite their increased use in recent years, the choice of structures used at artificial reefs remains largely haphazard due to the lack of information on reef structure performance. Few studies have examined the use of different artificial reef structures by...
Authors
Ryan M. Tharp, Nathan J. Hostetter, Avery B. Paxton, J. Christopher Taylor, Jeffrey A. Buckel
Deep resistivity geophysics of the San Juan–Silverton caldera complex, San Juan County, Colorado (USA) Deep resistivity geophysics of the San Juan–Silverton caldera complex, San Juan County, Colorado (USA)
Magnetotelluric (MT) and audiomagnetotelluric (AMT) data are used to better understand the subsurface geology and mineral resources in the San Juan–Silverton caldera complex located near Silverton, Colorado, western United States, as part of the extensive southern Rocky Mountains volcanic field that covers much of southwestern Colorado and northern New Mexico. Seven MT and AMT profiles...
Authors
Brian D. Rodriguez, Douglas Yager, Eric D. Anderson, Robert L. Runkel, Bennett Eugene Hoogenboom, Bruce Smith, Maria Deszcz-Pan
Communication approaches and specialists that can improve fisheries management Communication approaches and specialists that can improve fisheries management
This paper aims to expand fisheries managers' understanding of how the science of communication can facilitate effective fisheries management. We offer context-specific definitions of four communication approaches that are commonly performed by fisheries managers but poorly defined and can easily be confused or conflated. These are as follows:Outreach,Education,Social Marketing...
Authors
Vaughn Robison, Megan Siobhan Jones, Brian D. Erickson, Kelly Biedenweg
Where east meets west: Phylogeography of the high Arctic North American brant goose Where east meets west: Phylogeography of the high Arctic North American brant goose
Genetic variation in Arctic species is often influenced by vicariance during the Pleistocene, as ice sheets fragmented the landscape and displaced populations to low- and high-latitude refugia. The formation of secondary contact or suture zones during periods of ice sheet retraction has important consequences on genetic diversity by facilitating genetic connectivity between formerly...
Authors
Robert Wilson, Sean Boyd, Sarah A. Sonsthagen, David H. Ward, Preben Clausen, Kathryn Dickson, Bartwolt Ebbinge, Gudmundur Gudmundsson, George Sage, Jolene Rearick, Dirk V. Derksen, Sandra Talbot
SKHASH: A python package for computing earthquake focal mechanisms SKHASH: A python package for computing earthquake focal mechanisms
We introduce a Python package for computing focal mechanism solutions. This algorithm, which we refer to as SKHASH, is largely based on the HASH algorithm originally written in Fortran over 20 yr ago. HASH innovated the use of suites of solutions, spanning the expected errors in polarities and takeoff angles, to estimate focal mechanism uncertainty. SKHASH benefits from new features with...
Authors
Robert Skoumal, Jeanne L. Hardebeck, Peter M. Shearer
Patterns of marsh surface accretion rates along salinity and hydroperiod gradients between active and inactive coastal deltaic floodplains Patterns of marsh surface accretion rates along salinity and hydroperiod gradients between active and inactive coastal deltaic floodplains
High subsidence rates are inherent to coastal deltas worldwide, contributing to rapid rates of relative sea-level rise and compromising the sustainability of coastal wetlands. Different parts of river deltas, however, experience accretion or erosion, depending on the coupling between ecological and morphological processes. Wetland expansion occurs in active deltaic coastal basins that...
Authors
Andy F. Cassaway, Robert R. Twilley, Andre S. Rovai, Gregg A. Snedden
Breeding population size of the Pink-footed Shearwater Ardenna creatopus on Isla Mocha, Chile Breeding population size of the Pink-footed Shearwater Ardenna creatopus on Isla Mocha, Chile
Species population estimates are a fundamental component of conservation planning, but there are deficiencies in reliable data for many seabirds. The Pink-footed Shearwater Ardenna creatopus is a seabird that breeds on three islands worldwide, with the largest population on Isla Mocha, Chile. We aimed to update the breeding population estimate of Pink-footed Shearwaters on Isla Mocha...
Authors
Ryan D. Carle, Tiare Varela, Valentina Colodro, T.J. Clark-Wolf, Jonathan J. Felis, Peter Hodum, Francisco Javier Astete Castillo, Veronica Lopez