Publications

Wildfires alter surface soil moisture by consuming vegetation and exposing the soil to increased solar radiation, increased precipitation throughfall, and reduced infiltration from soil hydrophobicity. This can affect the water balance within the watershed and, in turn, influence post-fire nutrient cycling and ecosystem succession. Modeling surface soil moisture over large areas using...

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, sampled a 1-mile stream reach of School Branch in Hendricks County, Indiana. Sampling consisted of 24 tile drain sites and surface-water sites both upstream and downstream from the tile drains. This study intended to (1) assess the variability of discharge, nutrients, and Escherichia coli...

Effective management of deep-sea ecosystems and the high seas is hindered by the absence of a globally consistent framework for characterizing benthic habitats. Here we present the first global ecological classification of the seafloor, comprising 250 unique ecological benthic units (EBUs), distributed on the seafloor as nearly 700,000 EBU polygon occurrences, generated by intersecting a...

Magnetite is ubiquitous in porphyry Cu systems and in sediment sourcing both barren and mineralized regions, with potential as an indicator mineral in concealed and coarsely-mapped terranes. We develop and test a workflow for integrated geochemistry and (U–Th)/He (He) dating for inferring detrital magnetite (DMt) provenance in these settings. The ca. 70 Ma Taurus porphyry Cu–Mo(–Au)...

In cooperation with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, the U.S. Geological Survey monitored 98 Gavia immer (common loon) focal territories and 43 nonfocal territories in north-central Minnesota in 2025. Focal territories are those sampling units from which study inferences can be made. Nonfocal territories were adjacent to focal territories and were observed to monitor common...

No abstract available.

The Amontons-Coulomb friction law assumes that the frictional force between materials is independent of sliding velocity. However, as Coulomb noted, this is a rough approximation, and a second-order dependence of friction on the logarithm of sliding velocity is incorporated in a commonly used ‘rate- and state-dependent’ friction representation. Here we conduct shear experiments on mica...

Leptospira interrogans serovar Pomona infections cause periodic outbreaks in California sea lions (CSLs; Zalophus californianus) and sporadic deaths in phocids. However, the frequency of infection and associated health impacts remain uncharacterized in sympatric threatened southern sea otters (SSOs; Enhydra lutris nereis), which serve as important sentinels of coastal health. Given the...

A major part of the history of the Amazonian period on Mars is the movement of water ice between near-surface reservoirs across the planet. This work assesses the ages and volumes of different parts of the Martian water ice inventory over the last ∼1 Gyr, to reconstruct the time history of ice reservoirs to the extent that it is currently known and determine whether they provide a mass...

1. Mitigation measures are commonly employed to reduce the negative effects of industrial development on wildlife but are not often evaluated for their efficacy. For example, oil fields in the Arctic typically incorporate design features intended to increase permeability for migratory, barren-ground caribou (Rangifer tarandus), even though there is limited empirical evidence of the...

Research and testing within the Air Force Research Laboratory at Edwards Air Force Base in the southwestern Mojave Desert has been conducted since the 1950s. This testing requires large quantities of groundwater for cooling and operations involving hazardous constituents that have entered the groundwater. To better understand the potential movement of contaminants through the groundwater...

The Waihe‘e-Kahaluʻu watershed and surrounding areas lie in a dike-impounded groundwater setting of the Ko‘olau Range, O‘ahu, Hawai‘i, where groundwater withdrawal from wells and tunnels have resulted in reductions in streamflow. Resource managers and surface-water users seek information that can be used to balance the needs of competing uses of groundwater and streamflow in the...