Publications

Estuaries are under threat globally from a wide range of stressors, with rates of ecosystem metabolism – respiration (R), gross primary production (GPP), and net ecosystem metabolism (NEM) – representing a way for resource managers to quantify their impacts. In this study, we assessed how natural and anthropogenic stressors have altered metabolism within the extensively modified...

After more than 2 years of quiescence following its major 2018 flank lava effusion and summit caldera collapse, Kīlauea, Hawaiʻi, returned to frequent eruptive activity in late 2020. Microgravity measurements from the summit region in 2019 and 2022 span this reawakening and indicate a gravity increase of up to hundreds of microgals near the center of the summit caldera. Much of this...

The impact of the Canyon Diablo iron meteorite in Arizona ∼61,000 years ago resulted in partial vaporization of the meteorite and target rocks, producing a vapor plume and melt particles with taenite, olivine and clinopyroxene in glassy matrix. The resulting Meteor Crater is ∼1.2 km in diameter and ∼200 m deep. Although the crater has been the natural laboratory for impact cratering, the

Anthropogenic ecological transformations are challenging conventional environmental management paradigms, as maintaining historical ecological structures and functions becomes increasingly untenable. The resist–accept–direct (RAD) framework offers a strategic tool to navigate these shifts. However, as a product of the dominant socio-cultural system, the RAD framework risks perpetuating...

Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean conventional resources of 96 trillion cubic feet of gas in the Northern Alaska Province.

A little more than two years after the destructive 2018 lower East Rift Zone eruption and summit collapse ended, renewed volcanic activity began at Kīlauea volcano, Hawaiʻi. During 2020–2025, activity at the volcano included six eruptions in the summit caldera, one in the Southwest Rift Zone, and one in the middle East Rift Zone, as well as multiple non-eruptive intrusions in all three...

Understanding the movement and survival of birds of conservation concern during migration is critical for guiding conservation action. Unfortunately, the migratory life stage is understudied in many bird species because of the challenges of following such species over large distances, particularly those with small body sizes. One established method for tracking movement of small avian...

Executive Summary The U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science Calibration and Validation (Cal/Val) Center of Excellence (ECCOE) focuses on improving the accuracy, precision, calibration, and product quality of remote-sensing data, leveraging years of multiscale optical system geometric and radiometric calibration and characterization experience. The ECCOE Landsat...

Lake whitefish Coregonus clupeaformis abundance has declined throughout most of the Laurentian Great Lakes in North America for two decades. Current management strategies in Lake Erie assume that there is a single stock of lake whitefish that spawns in the West Basin. There is documented lake whitefish spawning activity throughout the lake, leading to questions about locally adapted...

The decline in wading birds in their traditional colonial nesting grounds in the Everglades wetland during the twentieth century motivated a series of modeling efforts to understand the dependence of successful nesting by wading birds on the human-altered hydrology of the Everglades. Although habitat quality modeling has helped define the environmental characteristics necessary for...

Executive Summary The U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science Calibration and Validation (Cal/Val) Center of Excellence (ECCOE) focuses on improving the accuracy, precision, calibration, and product quality of remote-sensing data, leveraging years of multiscale optical system geometric and radiometric calibration and characterization experience. The ECCOE Landsat...

Large dam removals are increasingly important river restoration actions, but long-term ecological responses remain poorly understood, especially for removals involving large sediment releases. We evaluated benthic macroinvertebrate (BMI) responses following removal of the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams on the Elwha River, Washington, USA. At the time of removal (2011–2014), these were the...