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The USGS provides unbiased, objective, and impartial scientific information upon which our audiences, including resource managers, planners, and other entities, rely.
Browse more than 5,500 book chapters authored by our scientists over the past 100+ year history of the USGS and refine search by topic, location, year, and advanced search.
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Geomorphic responses to dam removal in the United States – a two-decade perspective
Recent decades have seen a marked increase in the number of dams removed in the United States. Investigations following a number of removals are beginning to inform how, and how fast, rivers and their ecosystems respond to released sediment. Though only a few tens of studies detail physical responses to removals, common findings have begun to emerge. They include: (1) Rivers are resilient and resp
Authors
Jon J. Major, Amy E. East, Jim E. O'Connor, Gordon E. Grant, Andrew C. Wilcox, Christopher S. Magirl, Matthias J. Collins, Desiree D. Tullos
Linkages and feedbacks in orogenic systems: An introduction
Orogenic processes operate at scales ranging from the lithosphere to grain-scale, and are inexorably linked. For example, in many orogens, fault and shear zone architecture controls distribution of heat advection along faults and also acts as the primary mechanism for redistribution of heat-producing material. This sets up the thermal structure of the orogen, which in turn controls lithospheric rh
Authors
J. Ryan Thigpen, Richard D. Law, Arthur J. Merschat, Harold Stowell
Temporal and spatial distribution of Paleozoic metamorphism in the southern Appalachian Blue Ridge and Inner Piedmont delimited by ion microprobe U-Pb ages of metamorphic zircon
Ion microprobe U-Pb zircon rim ages from 39 samples from across the accreted terranes of the central Blue Ridge, eastward across the Inner Piedmont, delimit the timing and spatial extent of superposed metamorphism in the southern Appalachian orogen. Metamorphic zircon rims are 10–40 µm wide, mostly unzoned, and dark gray to black or bright white in cathodoluminescence, and truncate and/or embay in
Authors
Arthur J. Merschat, Brendan R. Bream, Matthew T. Huebner, Robert D. Hatcher, Calvin F. Miller
Polar bears and sea ice habitat change
The polar bear (Ursus maritimus) is an obligate apex predator of Arctic sea ice and as such can be affected by climate warming-induced changes in the extent and composition of pack ice and its impacts on their seal prey. Sea ice declines have negatively impacted some polar bear subpopulations through reduced energy input because of loss of hunting habitats, higher energy costs due to greater ice d
Authors
George M. Durner, Todd C. Atwood
Effects of habitat and climate change on blackbird populations
Global biodiversity loss is proceeding at an accelerating pace (Newbold et al. 2015, 2016) in large part due to land use and, climate change, and associated spread of disease and non-native species (Hobbs et al. 2006, Williams and Jackson 2007, Ellis 2011, Radeloff et al. 2015). Over the last century, U.S. average temperature has increased 0.7–1.1°C, leading to an increased frost-free season, more
Authors
Greg M. Forcey, Wayne E. Thogmartin
Fishing activities
Unlike the major anthropogenic changes that terrestrial and coastal habitats underwent during the last centuries such as deforestation, river engineering, agricultural practices or urbanism, those occurring underwater are veiled from our eyes and have continued nearly unnoticed. Only recent advances in remote sensing and deep marine sampling technologies have revealed the extent and magnitude of t
Authors
Ferdinand K. J. Oberle, Pere Puig, Jacobo Martin
Lichens and microfungi in biocrusts: Structure and function now and in the future
Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) are formed by soil-surface communities of biota that live within, or immediately on top of, the uppermost millimeters of soil. They consist of cyanobacteria, algae, mosses, microfungi, and lichenized fungi (hereafter, lichens). Cyanobacterial and microfungal filaments, rhizinae and rhizomorphs of lichens, and rhizinae and protonemata of bryophytes weave throughou
Authors
Jayne Belnap, Otto L. Lange
Rapid prototyping for decision structuring: An efficient approach to conservation decision analysis
No abstract available.
Authors
Georgia E. Garrard, Libby Rumpff, Michael C. Runge, Sarah J. Converse
Systems approaches for coastal hazard assessment and resilience
The framework presented herein supports a changing paradigm in the approaches used by coastal researchers, engineers, and social scientists to model the impacts of climate change and sea level rise (SLR) in particular along low-gradient coastal landscapes. Use of a System of Systems (SoS) approach to the coastal dynamics of SLR is encouraged to capture the nonlinear feedbacks and dynamic responses
Authors
Scott C. Hagen, Davina Passeri, Matthew V. Bilskie, Denise E. DeLorme, David Yoskowitz
The transition from frictional sliding to shear melting in laboratory stick-slip experiments
No abstract available
Authors
David A. Lockner, Brian D. Kilgore, Nicholas M. Beeler, Diane E. Moore