Reports

No abstract available.

Lake Ontario’s nearshore fish community consists of a diverse assemblage of warm- and cool-water species. The “nearshore zone,” loosely separated from the “offshore zones” by the 15-m depth contour, consists of complex habitats spanning a gamut from vast open-coastal areas to sheltered embayments and wetlands. Lake Ontario’s nearshore habitat has been affected to varying degrees by human

The 2017 census of southern sea otters (Enhydra lutris nereis) was conducted between late April and early July along the mainland coast of central California and in April at San Nicolas Island in southern California. The 3-year average of combined counts from the mainland range and San Nicolas Island was 3,186, down by 86 sea otters from the previous year. This is the second year that...

Two sets of digital flood-inundation map libraries that spanned a combined 16.7-mile reach of the Meramec River that extends upstream from Valley Park, Missouri, to downstream from Fenton, Mo., were created by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Louis Metropolitan Sewer District, Missouri Department of Transportation, Missouri...

Natural resource management is conducted in the context of multiple anthropogenic stressors and is further challenged owing to changing climate. Experiments to determine the effects of climate change on complex ecological systems are nearly impossible. However, using a simulation model to synthesize current understanding of key ecological processes through the life cycle of a fish...

Large rivers carry terrestrial sediment, contaminants, and other materials to the coastal zone where they can affect marine biogeochemical cycles and ecosystems. This U.S. Geological Survey study combined river and marine sediment geochemistry and organic contaminant analyses to identify riverborne sediment and associated contaminants at shoreline sites in Commencement Bay, Puget Sound...

The Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) responded to eruptions, volcanic unrest or suspected unrest, and seismic events at 14 volcanic centers in Alaska during 2015. The most notable volcanic activity consisted of continuing intermittent ash eruptions from Cleveland and Shishaldin volcanoes in the Aleutian Islands. Two eruptive episodes, at Veniaminof and Pavlof, on the Alaska Peninsula...

Detecting populations of rare or cryptic species is essential for their conservation. For species like giant gartersnakes (Thamnophis gigas), conventional survey methods can be expensive and inefficient. These sampling difficulties might be overcome by modern techniques that detect deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) shed by organisms into the environment (eDNA). We evaluated the efficacy of...

On September 8, 1981, the Oklahoma Water Resources Board established regulatory limits on the maximum annual yield of groundwater (343,042 acre-feet per year) and equal-proportionate-share (EPS) pumping rate (1.0 acre-foot per acre per year) for the North Fork Red River aquifer. The maximum annual yield and EPS were based on a hydrologic investigation that used a numerical groundwater...

The water we drink, air we breathe, and soil we come into contact with have the potential to adversely affect our health because of contaminants in the environment. Environmental samples can characterize the extent of potential contamination, but traditional methods for collecting water, air, and soil samples below the ground (for example, well drilling or direct-push soil sampling) are...

The U.S. Coal Resources and Reserves Assessment Project, as part of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Energy Resources Program, conducts systematic, geology-based, regional assessments of significant coal beds in major coal basins in the United States. These assessments detail the quantity, quality, location, and economic potential of the Nation’s remaining coal resources and reserves...