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The U.S. Geological Survey Publications Warehouse is a citation clearinghouse that provides access to over 160,000 publications written by USGS scientists over the century-plus history of the bureau. Below is a list of select scientific publications and information products from the Gulf of Mexico region.
The use of freshwater diversions (river reintroductions) from the Mississippi River as a restoration tool to rehabilitate Louisiana coastal wetlands has been promoted widely since the first such diversion at Caernarvon became operational in the early 1990s. To date, aside from the Bonnet Carré Spillway (which is designed and operated for flood control), there are only four operational Mississippi
Authors
Ken W. Krauss, Gary P. Shaffer, Richard F. Keim, Jim L. Chambers, William B. Wood, Stephen B. Hartley
Habitats around the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) provide critical resources for Nearctic–Neotropical migratory landbirds, the majority of which travel across or around the GOM every spring and fall as they migrate between temperate breeding grounds in North America and tropical wintering grounds in the Caribbean and Central and South America. At the same time, ecosystems in the GOM are changing rapidly, w
Authors
Emily B. Cohen, Wylie C. Barrow, Jeffrey J. Buler, Jill L. Deppe, Andrew Farnsworth, Peter P. Marra, Scott R. McWilliams, David W Mehlman, R. Randy Wilson, Mark S Woodrey, Frank R. Moore
The Deepwater Horizon explosion in April 2010 and subsequent oil spill released 3.19 × 106 barrels (5.07 × 108 L) of MC252 crude oil into important foraging areas of the endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtle Lepidochelys kempii (Lk) in the northern Gulf of Mexico (GoM). We measured δ13C and δ15N in scute biopsy samples from 33 Lk nesting in Texas during 2010–-12. Of these, 27 were equipped with sate
Authors
Kimberly J. Reich, Melania C. López-Castro, Donna J. Shaver, Claire Iseton, Kristen M. Hart, Michael J. Hooper, Christopher J. Schmitt
Species vulnerability is increased when individuals congregate in restricted areas for breeding; yet, breeding habitats are not well defined for many marine species. Identification and quantification of these breeding habitats are essential to effective conservation. Satellite telemetry and switching state-space modeling (SSM) were used to define inter-nesting habitat of endangered Kemp’s ridley t
Authors
Donna J. Shaver, Kristen M. Hart, Ikuko Fujisaki, David N. Bucklin, Autumn Iverson, Cynthia Rubio, Thomas F. Backof, Patrick M. Burchfield, Raul de Jesus Gonzales Diaz Miron, Peter H. Dutton, Amy Frey, Jaime Peña, Daniel Gomez Gamez, Hector J. Martinez, Jaime Ortiz
Cold-water corals support distinct populations of infauna within surrounding sediments that provide vital ecosystem functions and services in the deep sea. Yet due to their sedentary existence, infauna are vulnerable to perturbation and contaminant exposure because they are unable to escape disturbance events. While multiple deep-sea coral habitats were injured by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon (DWH)
Authors
Amanda W.J. Demopoulos, Jill R. Bourque, Erik E. Cordes, Katherine Stamler
Marsh canopy structure was mapped yearly from 2009 to 2012 in the Barataria Bay, Louisiana coastal region that was impacted by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill. Based on the previously demonstrated capability of NASA's UAVSAR polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) image data to map Spartina alterniflora marsh canopy structure, structure maps combining the leaf area index (LAI) an
Authors
Elijah W. Ramsey, Amina Rangoonwala, Cathleen E. Jones
Freshwater and sediment management in estuaries affects water quality, particularly in deltaic estuaries. Furthermore, climate change-induced sea-level rise (SLR) and land subsidence also affect estuarine water quality by changing salinity, circulation, stratification, sedimentation, erosion, residence time, and other physical and ecological processes. However, little is known about how the magnit
Authors
Hongqing Wang, Q. Chen, Kelin Hu, Megan K. LaPeyre
Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, and atmospheric concentrations have risen 2.5 times since the beginning of the Industrial age. While much of this increase is attributed to anthropogenic sources, natural sources, which contribute between 35% and 50% of global methane emissions, are thought to have a role in the atmospheric methane increase, in part due to human influences. Methane emissions f
Coastal ecosystem management typically relies on subjective interpretation of scientific understanding, with limited methods for explicitly incorporating process knowledge into decisions that must meet multiple, potentially competing stakeholder objectives. Conversely, the scientific community lacks methods for identifying which advancements in system understanding would have the highest value to
Authors
P. Soupy Dalyander, Michelle B. Meyers, Brady Mattsson, Gregory Steyer, Elizabeth Godsey, Justin McDonald, Mark R. Byrnes, Mark Ford
Marine species with planktonic larvae often have high spatial and temporal variation in recruitment that leads to subsequent variation in the ecology of benthic adults. Using a combination of published and unpublished data, we compared the population structure of the salt marsh snail, Littoraria irrorata, between the South Atlantic Bight and the Gulf Coast of the United States to infer geographic
Authors
Steven C. Pennings, Scott Zengel, Jacob Oehrig, Merryl Alber, T. Dale Bishop, Donald R. Deis, Donna Devlin, A. Randall Hughes, John J. Hutchens, Whitney M. Kiehn, Caroline R. McFarlin, Clay L. Montague, Sean P. Powers, C. Edward Proffitt, Nicolle Rutherford, Camille L. Stagg, Keith Walters
We evaluate the relative impact of petroleum spill and storm surge on near-shore wetland loss by quantifying the lateral movement of coastal shores in upper Barataria Bay, Louisiana (USA), between June 2009 and October 2012, a study period that extends from the year prior to the Deepwater Horizon spill to 2.5 years following the spill. We document a distinctly different pattern of shoreline loss i
Authors
Amina Rangoonwala, Cathleen E. Jones, Elijah W. Ramsey