Publications

Welcome! The USGS is the Nation's premier source of information in support of science-based decision making for resource management. We are excited to have the opportunity to bring together a diverse array of USGS scientists, managers, specialists, and others from science centers around the Gulf working on biologic, geologic, and hydrologic issues related to the Gulf of Mexico and the...

A vegetation community map was produced for the Ozark National Scenic Riverways consistent with the association level of the National Vegetation Classification System. Vegetation communities were differentiated using a large array of variables derived from remote sensing and topographic data, which were fused into independent mathematical functions using a discriminant analysis...

group of river managers, stakeholders, and scientists met during summer 2005 to design a more naturalized flow regime for the Lower Missouri River (LMOR). The objective was to comply with requirements under the U.S. Endangered Species Act to support reproduction and survival of threatened and endangered species, with emphasis on the endangered pallid sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus albus)...

Bidirectional flows in a river system can occur under stratified flow conditions and in addition to creating significant errors in discharge estimates, the upstream propagating currents are capable of transporting contaminants and affecting water quality. Detailed field observations of bidirectional flows were made in the Chicago River in Chicago, Illinois in the winter of 2005-06. Using...

The hypothesis that phytoplankton is the sole carbon source for the OCS deep-reef community (>60 m) was tested. Trophic structure for NE Gulf of Mexico deep reefs was analyzed via carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes. Carbon signatures for 114 entities (carbon sources, sediment, fishes, and invertebrates) supported surface phytoplankton as the primary fuel for the deep reef. However, a...

The borehole geophysical logging program at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)-Florida Integrated Science Center (FISC) provides subsurface information needed to resolve geologic, hydrologic, and environmental issues in Florida. The program includes the acquisition, processing, display, interpretation, and archiving of borehole geophysical logs. The borehole geophysical logging program is...

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Houston-Galveston Area Council and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, collected water-quality, stream-habitat, and biological data from five sites on Highland and Marchand Bayous in Galveston County, Texas, during 2006–07. Water-quality data-collection surveys consisted of synoptic 24-hour continuous measurements of water...

Voles (n=6) and small ground-nesting birds (n=12) were live-captured near the DeLong Mountain Regional Transportation System haul road in Cape Krusenstern National Monument in northwest Alaska in 2006 to assess metals exposure and sub-lethal biological effects. Similar numbers of animals were captured from a reference site in southern Cape Krusenstern National Monument for comparison

On August 29-31, 2008, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) deployed a mobile monitoring network consisting of 124 pressure transducers (sensors) (figs. 1, 2) at 80 sites over an area of about 4,200 square miles to record the timing, extent, and magnitude of inland hurricane storm surge and coastal flooding generated by Hurricane Gustav, which made landfall in southeastern Louisiana on...

Solar radiation data are critically important for the estimation of evapotranspiration. Analysis of visible-channel data derived from Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) using radiative transfer modeling has been used to produce spatially- and temporally-distributed datasets of solar radiation. An extensive network of (pyranometer) surface measurements of solar...

The Gulf Sturgeon Recovery Plan (USFWS, GSMFC and NMFS 1995) stressed the need to provide maximum protection to Gulf sturgeon spawning habitat. The approach employed by various Gulf sturgeon researchers, including ourselves, to document spawning has been to identify potential spawning habitat on the basis of physical characteristics and/or tracking data, collect eggs, and then raise the...

This study examined the hydrography and bottom boundary-layer dynamics of two typical storm events affecting coastal North Carolina (NC); a hurricane and the passages of two small consecutive extratropical storms during November 2005. Two upward-looking 1200-kHz Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers (ADCP) were deployed on the inner shelf in northern Long Bay, NC at water depths of less...