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Publications

These publications showcase the significant science conducted in our Science Centers.

Filter Total Items: 16780

Comparing catchment hydrologic response to a regional storm using specific conductivity sensors

A better understanding of stormwater generation and solute sources is needed to improve the protection of aquatic ecosystems, infrastructure, and human health from large runoff events. Much of our understanding of water and solutes produced during stormflow comes from studies of individual, small headwater catchments. This study compared many different types of catchments during a single large eve
Authors
Ashley Inserillo, Mark B. Green, James B. Shanley, Joseph Boyer

Enhanced Arctic amplification began at the Mid-Brunhes Event 430,000 years ago

Arctic Ocean temperatures influence ecosystems, sea ice, species diversity, biogeochemical cycling, seafloor methane stability, deep-sea circulation, and CO2 cycling. Today's Arctic Ocean and surrounding regions are undergoing climatic changes often attributed to "Arctic amplification" - that is, amplified warming in Arctic regions due to sea-ice loss and other processes, relative to global mean t
Authors
Thomas M. Cronin, Gary S. Dwyer, Emma Caverly, Jesse Farmer, Lauren H. DeNinno, Julio Rodriguez-Lazaro, Laura Gemery

Virginia flow-ecology modeling results—An initial assessment of flow reduction effects on aquatic biota

BackgroundThe U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), reviewed a previously compiled set of linear regression models to assess their utility in defining the response of the aquatic biological community to streamflow depletion.As part of the 2012 Virginia Healthy Watersheds Initiative (HWI) study conducted by Tetra Tech, Inc., for t
Authors
Jennifer L. Rapp, Pamela A. Reilly

Groundwater-quality data associated with abandoned underground coal mine aquifers in West Virginia, 1973-2016: Compilation of existing data from multiple sources

This report describes a compilation of existing water-quality data associated with groundwater resources originating from abandoned underground coal mines in West Virginia. Data were compiled from multiple sources for the purpose of understanding the suitability of groundwater from abandoned underground coal mines for public supply, industrial, agricultural, and other uses. This compilation includ
Authors
Mitchell A. McAdoo, Mark D. Kozar

Multi-scale 46-year remote sensing change detection of diamond mining and land cover in a conflict and post-conflict setting

The town of Tortiya was created in the rural northern region of Côte d′Ivoire in the late 1940s to house workers for a new diamond mine. Nearly three decades later, the closure of the industrial-scale diamond mine in 1975 did not diminish the importance of diamond profits to the region's economy, and resulted in the growth of artisanal and small-scale diamond mining (ASM) within the abandoned indu
Authors
Jessica D. Dewitt, Peter G. Chirico, Sarah E. Bergstresser, Timothy A. Warner

Design tradeoffs in long-term research for stream salamanders

Long-term research programs can benefit from early and periodic evaluation of their ability to meet stated objectives. In particular, consideration of the spatial allocation of effort is key. We sampled 4 species of stream salamanders intensively for 2 years (2010–2011) in the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park, Maryland, USA to evaluate alternative distributions of sampling locati
Authors
Adrianne B. Brand, Evan H. Campbell Grant

Pharmaceuticals in water, fish and osprey nestlings in Delaware River and Bay

Exposure of wildlife to Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) is likely to occur but studies of risk are limited. One exposure pathway that has received attention is trophic transfer of APIs in a water-fish-osprey food chain. Samples of water, fish plasma and osprey plasma were collected from Delaware River and Bay, and analyzed for 21 APIs. Only 2 of 21 analytes exceeded method detection limit
Authors
Thomas G. Bean, Barnett A. Rattner, Rebecca S. Lazarus, Daniel D. Day, S. Rebekah Burket, Bryan W. Brooks, Samuel P. Haddad, William W. Bowerman

Central Arctic Ocean paleoceanography from  ∼50 ka to present, on the basis of ostracode faunal assemblages from the SWERUS 2014 expedition

Late Quaternary paleoceanographic changes at the Lomonosov Ridge, central Arctic Ocean, were reconstructed from a multicore and gravity core recovered during the 2014 SWERUS-C3 Expedition. Ostracode assemblages dated by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) indicate changing sea-ice conditions and warm Atlantic Water (AW)inflow to the Arctic Ocean from ∼50 ka to present. Key taxa used as environment
Authors
Laura Gemery, Thomas M. Cronin, Robert K. Poirier, Christof Pearce, Natalia Barrientos, Matt O'Regan, Carina Johansson, Andrey Koshurnikov, Martin Jakobsson

The role of deep-water sedimentary processes in shaping a continental margin: The Northwest Atlantic

The tectonic history of a margin dictates its general shape; however, its geomorphology is generally transformed by deep-sea sedimentary processes. The objective of this study is to show the influences of turbidity currents, contour currents and sediment mass failures on the geomorphology of the deep-water northwestern Atlantic margin (NWAM) between Blake Ridge and Hudson Trough, spanning about 32
Authors
David C. Mosher, D.C. Campbell, J.V. Gardner, D.J.W. Piper, Jason Chaytor, M. Rebesco

Management of arthropod pathogen vectors in North America: Minimizing adverse effects on pollinators

Tick and mosquito management is important to public health protection. At the same time, growing concerns about declines of pollinator species raise the question of whether vector control practices might affect pollinator populations. We report the results of a task force of the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign (NAPPC) that examined potential effects of vector management practices on
Authors
Howard S. Ginsberg, Timothy A. Bargar, Michelle L. Hladik, Charles Lubelczyk

Increased hurricane frequency near Florida during Younger Dryas Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation slowdown

The risk posed by intensification of North Atlantic hurricane activity remains controversial, in part due to a lack of available storm proxy records that extend beyond the relatively stable climates of the late Holocene. Here we present a record of storm-triggered turbidite deposition offshore the Dry Tortugas, south Florida, USA, that spans abrupt transitions in North Atlantic sea-surface tempera
Authors
Michael Toomey, Robert L. Korty, Jeffrey P. Donnelly, Peter J. van Hengstum, William B. Curry

Reply to ‘Marsh vulnerability to sea-level rise’

Response to Parkinson et al. Rebuttal of Kirwan, M. L., Temmerman, S., Skeehan, E. E., Guntenspergen, G. R.,& Fagherazzi, S. (2016). Overestimation of marsh vulnerability to sea level rise. Nature Climate Change, 6(3):253-2601.
Authors
Matthew L. Kirwan, Stijn Temmerman, Glenn R. Guntenspergen, Sergio Fagherazzi