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A multi-proxy record of hydroclimate, vegetation, fire, and post-settlement impacts for a subalpine plateau, Central Rocky Mountains U.S.A

Apparent changes in vegetation distribution, fire, and other disturbance regimes throughout western North America have prompted investigations of the relative importance of human activities and climate change as potential causal mechanisms. Assessing the effects of Euro-American settlement is difficult because climate changes occur on multi-decadal to centennial time scales and require longer time
Authors
Lesleigh Anderson, Andrea Brunelle, Robert S. Thompson

Sea level, paleogeography, and archeology on California's Northern Channel Islands

Sea-level rise during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene inundated nearshore areas in many parts of the world, producing drastic changes in local ecosystems and obscuring significant portions of the archeological record. Although global forces are at play, the effects of sea-level rise are highly localized due to variability in glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) effects. Interpretations of co
Authors
Leslie Reeder-Myers, Jon M. Erlandson, Daniel R. Muhs, Torben C. Rick

Late Quaternary sea-level history and the antiquity of mammoths (Mammuthus exilis and Mammuthus columbi), Channel Islands NationalPark, California, USA

Fossils of Columbian mammoths (Mammuthus columbi) and pygmy mammoths (Mammuthus exilis) have been reported from Channel Islands National Park, California. Most date to the last glacial period (Marine Isotope Stage [MIS] 2), but a tusk of M. exilis (or immature M. columbi) was found in the lowest marine terrace of Santa Rosa Island. Uranium-series dating of corals yielded ages from 83.8 ± 0.6 ka to
Authors
Daniel R. Muhs, Kathleen R. Simmons, Lindsey T. Groves, John P. McGeehin, R. Randall Schumann, Larry D. Agenbroad

Forecasting and evaluating patterns of energy development in southwestern Wyoming

The effects of future oil and natural gas development in southwestern Wyoming on wildlife populations are topical to conservation of the sagebrush steppe ecosystem. To aid in understanding these potential effects, the U.S. Geological Survey developed an Energy Footprint simulation model that forecasts the amount and pattern of energy development under different assumptions of development rates and
Authors
Steven L. Garman

User guide for luminescence sampling in archaeological and geological contexts

Luminescence dating provides a direct age estimate of the time of last exposure of quartz or feldspar minerals to light or heat and has been successfully applied to deposits, rock surfaces, and fired materials in a number of archaeological and geological settings. Sampling strategies are diverse and can be customized depending on local circumstances, although all sediment samples need to include a
Authors
Michelle S. Nelson, Harrison J. Gray, Jack A. Johnson, Tammy M. Rittenour, James K. Feathers, Shannon Mahan

Precise interpolar phasing of abrupt climate change during the last ice age

The last glacial period exhibited abrupt Dansgaard–Oeschger climatic oscillations, evidence of which is preserved in a variety of Northern Hemisphere palaeoclimate archives1. Ice cores show that Antarctica cooled during the warm phases of the Greenland Dansgaard–Oeschger cycle and vice versa2, 3, suggesting an interhemispheric redistribution of heat through a mechanism called the bipolar seesaw4, 
Authors
Christo Buizert, Betty M. Adrian, Jinho Ahn, Mary Albert, Richard B. Alley, Daniel Baggenstos, Thomas K. Bauska, Ryan C. Bay, Brian B. Bencivengo, Charles R. Bentley, Edward J. Brook, Nathan J. Chellman, Gary D. Clow, Jihong Cole-Dai, Howard Conway, Eric Cravens, Kurt M. Cuffey, Nelia W. Dunbar, Jon S. Edwards, John M. Fegyveresi, Dave G. Ferris, Joan J. Fitzpatrick, T. J. Fudge, Chris J. Gibson, Vasileios Gkinis, Joshua J. Goetz, Stephanie Gregory, Geoffrey Mill Hargreaves, Nels Iverson, Jay A. Johnson, Tyler R. Jones, Michael L. Kalk, Matthew J. Kippenhan, Bess G. Koffman, Karl Kreutz, Tanner W. Kuhl, Donald A. Lebar, James E. Lee, Shaun A. Marcott, Bradley R. Markle, Olivia J. Maselli, Joseph R. McConnell, Kenneth C. McGwire, Logan E. Mitchell, Nicolai B. Mortensen, Peter D. Neff, Kunihiko Nishiizumi, Richard M. Nunn, Anais J. Orsi, Daniel R. Pasteris, Joel B. Pedro, Erin C. Pettit, P. Buford Price, John C. Priscu, Rachael H. Rhodes, Julia L. Rosen, Andrew J. Schauer, Spruce W. Schoenemann, Paul J. Sendelbach, Jeffrey P. Severinghaus, Alexander J. Shturmakov, Michael Sigl, Kristina R. Slawny, Joseph M. Souney, Todd A. Sowers, Matthew K. Spencer, Eric J. Steig, Kendrick C. Taylor, Mark S. Twickler, Bruce H. Vaughn, Donald E. Voigt, Edwin D. Waddington, Kees C. Welten, Anthony W. Wendricks, James W. C. White, Mai Winstrup, Gifford J. Wong, Thomas E. Woodruff

Complex terrain alters temperature and moisture limitations of forest soil respiration across a semiarid to subalpine gradient

Forest soil respiration is a major carbon (C) flux that is characterized by significant variability in space and time. We quantified growing season soil respiration during both a drought year and a nondrought year across a complex landscape to identify how landscape and climate interact to control soil respiration. We asked the following questions: (1) How does soil respiration vary across the cat
Authors
Erin Michele Berryman, H.R. Barnard, H.R. Adams, M.A. Burns, E. Gallo, P. D. Brooks

Digital representation of oil and natural gas well pad scars in southwest Wyoming: 2012 update

The recent proliferation of oil and natural gas energy development in the Greater Green River Basin of southwest Wyoming has accentuated the need to understand wildlife responses to this development. The location and extent of surface disturbance that is created by oil and natural gas well pad scars are key pieces of information used to assess the effects of energy infrastructure on wildlife popul
Authors
Steven L. Garman, Jamie L. McBeth

Radar attenuation and temperature within the Greenland Ice Sheet

The flow of ice is temperature-dependent, but direct measurements of englacial temperature are sparse. The dielectric attenuation of radio waves through ice is also temperature-dependent, and radar sounding of ice sheets is sensitive to this attenuation. Here we estimate depth-averaged radar-attenuation rates within the Greenland Ice Sheet from airborne radar-sounding data and its associated radio
Authors
Joseph A MacGregor, Jilu Li, John D Paden, Ginny A Catania, Gary D. Clow, Mark A Fahnestock, Prasad S. Gogineni, Robert E. Grimm, Mathieu Morlighem, Soumyaroop Nandi, Helene Seroussi, David E Stillman

Insufficient sampling to identify species affected by turbine collisions

We compared the number of avian species detected and the sampling effort during fatality monitoring at 50 North American wind facilities. Facilities with short intervals between sampling events and high effort detected more species, but many facilities appeared undersampled. Species accumulation curves for 2 wind facilities studied for more than 1 year had yet to reach an asymptote. The monitoring
Authors
Julie A. Beston, James E. Diffendorfer, Scott Loss

U.S. Geological Survey Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Roadmap 2014

The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) is responsible for protecting the natural resources and heritage contained on almost 20 percent of the land in the United States. This responsibility requires acquisition of remotely sensed data throughout vast lands, including areas that are remote and potentially dangerous to access. One promising new technology for data collection is unmanned aircraft s
Authors
Jill J. Cress, Michael E. Hutt, Jeff L. Sloan, Mark A. Bauer, Mark R. Feller, Susan E. Goplen

Variables and potential models for the bleaching of luminescence signals in fluvial environments

Luminescence dating of fluvial sediments rests on the assumption that sufficient sunlight is available to remove a previously obtained signal in a process deemed bleaching. However, luminescence signals obtained from sediment in the active channels of rivers often contain residual signals. This paper explores and attempts to build theoretical models for the bleaching of luminescence signals in flu
Authors
Harrison J. Gray, Shannon Mahan