Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

All Publications

Access all publications and filter by type, location, and search for keywords to find specific science and data information conducted by our scientists. 

Filter Total Items: 171109

GeoAI for spatial image processing

The development of digital image processing, as a subset of digital signal processing, depended upon the maturity of photography and image science, introduction of computers, discovery and advancement of digital recording devices, and the capture of digital images. In addition, government and industry applications in the Earth and medical sciences were paramount to the growth of the technology. Fr
Authors
Samantha Arundel, Kevin G McKeehan, Wenwen Li, Zhining Gu

Advancing subsurface investigations beyond the borehole with passive seismic horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratio and electromagnetic geophysical methods at transportation infrastructure sites in New Hampshire

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the New Hampshire Department of Transportation (NHDOT), surveyed transportation infrastructure sites using rapidly deployable geophysical methods to assess benefits added to a comprehensive site characterization with traditional geotechnical techniques. Horizontal-to-vertical spectral-ratio (HVSR) passive-seismic and electromagnetic-induction
Authors
James Degnan, Krystle Pelham, Neil Terry, Sydney M. Welch, Carole D. Johnson

A characterization of the deep-sea coral and sponge community along the Oregon Coast using a remotely operated vehicle on the EXPRESS 2022 expedition

Deep-sea coral and sponge (DSCS) communities serve as essential fish habitat (EFH) by providing shelter and nursery habitat, increasing diversity, and increasing prey availability (Freese and Wing, 2003; Bright, 2007; Baillon et al., 2012; Henderson et al., 2020). Off the U.S. West Coast, threats to these long-lived, fragile organisms from bottom contact fishing gear, potential offshore renewable
Authors
Tom Laidig, Diana Watters, Meredith Everett, Nancy G. Prouty, Elizabeth Clarke

Hawaiian volcanic ash, an airborne fomite for nontuberculous mycobacteria

Nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) are environmentally acquired opportunistic pathogens that can cause chronic lung disease. Within the U.S., Hawai'i shows the highest prevalence rates of NTM lung infections. Here, we investigated a potential role for active volcanism at the Kīlauea Volcano located on Hawai'i Island in promoting NTM growth and diversity. We recovered NTM that are known to cause lun
Authors
Stephanie Dawrs, Ravleen Virdi, Grant Norton, Tamar Elias, Nabeeh Hasan, Schuyler Robinson, Jobel Matriz, L. Elaine Epperson, Cody Glickman, Sean Beagle, James L Crooks, Stephen T. Nelson, Edward Chan, David Damby, Michael Strong, Jennifer Honda

Variable climate-growth relationships of quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) among Sky Island mountain ranges in the Great Basin, Nevada, USA

The Great Basin is an arid province located in the interior western United States. The region encompasses millions of hectares and quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) forests comprise a minor portion of the total area. However, montane aspen forests play a disproportionately large role in providing ecosystem services in the region, including water retention, biodiversity, wildlife habitat, 
Authors
Martin Senfeldr, Douglas J. Shinneman, Susan McIlroy, Paul Rogers, R. Justin DeRose

The Coastal Carbon Library and Atlas: Open source soil data and tools supporting blue carbon research and policy

Quantifying carbon fluxes into and out of coastal soils is critical to meeting greenhouse gas reduction and coastal resiliency goals. Numerous ‘blue carbon’ studies have generated, or benefitted from, synthetic datasets. However, the community those efforts inspired does not have a centralized, standardized database of disaggregated data used to estimate carbon stocks and fluxes. In this paper, we
Authors
James R. Holmquist, David H. Klinges, Michael Lonneman, Jaxine Wolfe, Brandon M. Boyd, Meagan J. Eagle, Jonathan Sanderman, Katherine Todd-Brown, Lauren N. Brown, E. Fay Belshe, Samantha K. Chapman, Ron Corstanje, Christopher N. Janousek, James T. Morris, Gregory Noe, Andre S. Rovai, Amanda C. Spivak, Megan Vahsen, Lisamarie Windham-Myers, Kevin D. Kroeger, Patrick Megonigal

Predicting large hydrothermal systems

We train five models using two machine learning (ML) regression algorithms (i.e., linear regression and XGBoost) to predict hydrothermal upflow in the Great Basin. Feature data are extracted from datasets supporting the INnovative Geothermal Exploration through Novel Investigations Of Undiscovered Systems project (INGENIOUS). The label data (the reported convective signals) are extracted from meas

Authors
Stanley Paul Mordensky, Erick Burns, Jacob DeAngelo, John Lipor

Cursed? Why one does not simply add new data sets to supervised geothermal machine learning models

Recent advances in machine learning (ML) identifying areas favorable to hydrothermal systems indicate that the resolution of feature data remains a subject of necessary improvement before ML can reliably produce better models. Herein, we consider the value of adding new features or replacing other, low-value features with new input features in existing ML pipelines. Our previous work identified st

Authors
Stanley Paul Mordensky, Erick Burns, John Lipor, Jacob DeAngelo

Don’t Let Negatives Hold You Back: Accounting for Underlying Physics and Natural Distributions of Hydrothermal Systems When Selecting Negative Training Sites Leads to Better Machine Learning Predictions

Selecting negative training sites is an important challenge to resolve when utilizing machine learning (ML) for predicting hydrothermal resource favorability because ideal models would discriminate between hydrothermal systems (positives) and all types of locations without hydrothermal systems (negatives). The Nevada Machine Learning project (NVML) fit an artificial neural network to identify area

Authors
Pascal D. Caraccioli, Stanley Paul Mordensky, Cary R. Lindsey, Jacob DeAngelo, Erick Burns, John Lipor

Overview of the Cenozoic geology of the northern Harrat Rahat volcanic field, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

The Harrat Rahat volcanic field, located in the west-central part of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is one of the larger Cenozoic harrats among the more than 17 harrats situated upon the Arabia Plate. The map plate contained herein shows, at a scale of 1:100,000, the mapped volcanic geology of northern Harrat Rahat, which consists of the northernmost one-fifth of Harrat Rahat. Northern Harrat Rahat

Authors
Joel E. Robinson, Drew T. Downs

Probabilistic seismic-hazard analysis for the western Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

We present a probabilistic seismic-hazard analysis (PSHA) for the west-central part of the Arabian Peninsula. Our study area includes the northern Harrat Rahat volcanic field and the nearby city of Al Madīnah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This young, active volcanic field experienced one historical eruption in 1256 C.E. (654 in the year of the Hijra) that vented 20 to 22 kilometers (km) southeast of t

Authors
Ryota Kiuchi, Walter D. Mooney, Hani M. Zahran

Seismic hazard assessment for areas of volcanic activity in western Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Earthquake swarms caused by volcanic activity, tectonic stresses, or industrial operations (oil and gas production) can pose considerable risk for nearby settlements. As a rule, a probabilistic seismic hazard assessment (PSHA) that is based on time-independent earthquakes does not take into account earthquake swarms because of their statistically time-dependent nature. We describe the technique an
Authors
Hani M. Zahran, Vladimir Sokolov, Ian C. F. Stewart