Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Publications

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

Filter Total Items: 16782

Chapter 7: The hydrothermal diamond anvil cell (HDAC) for Raman spectroscopic studies of geological fluids at high pressures and temperatures

In this chapter, we describe the hydrothermal diamond-anvil cell (HDAC), which is specifically designed for experiments on systems with aqueous fluids to temperatures up to ~1000ºC and pressures up to a few GPa to tens of GPa. This cell permits optical observation of the sample and the in situ determination of properties by ‘photon-in photon-out’ techniques such as Raman spectroscopy. Several meth
Authors
Christian Schmidt, I-Ming Chou

Smolt physiology and endocrinology

The parr-smolt transformation of anadromous salmonids is a suite of behavioral, morphological, and physiological changes that are preparatory for downstream migration and seawater entry. The timing of smolt development varies among species, occurring soon after hatching in pink and chum salmon and after one to several years in Atlantic salmon. In many species the transformation is size dependent a
Authors
Stephen D. McCormick

Advances in spectroscopic methods for quantifying soil carbon

The current gold standard for soil carbon (C) determination is elemental C analysis using dry combustion. However, this method requires expensive consumables, is limited by the number of samples that can be processed (~100/d), and is restricted to the determination of total carbon. With increased interest in soil C sequestration, faster methods of analysis are needed, and there is growing interest
Authors
James B. Reeves, Gregory W. McCarty, Francisco Calderon, W. Dean Hively

Extreme events, trends, and variability in Northern Hemisphere lake-ice phenology (1855-2005)

Often extreme events, more than changes in mean conditions, have the greatest impact on the environment and human well-being. Here we examine changes in the occurrence of extremes in the timing of the annual formation and disappearance of lake ice in the Northern Hemisphere. Both changes in the mean condition and in variability around the mean condition can alter the probability of extreme events.
Authors
Barbara J. Benson, John J. Magnuson, Olaf P. Jensen, Virginia M. Card, Glenn Hodgkins, Johanna Korhonen, David M. Livingstone, Kenton M. Stewart, Gesa A. Weyhenmeyer, Nick G. Granin

Shrews, rats, and a polecat in "the pardoner’s tale"

While historically existing animals and literary animal characters inform allegorical and metaphorical characterization in The Canterbury Tales, figurative usage does not erase recognition of the material animal. "The Pardoner's Tale," for one, challenges the terms of conventional animal metaphors by refocusing attention on common animals as common animals and common human creatures as something w
Authors
Sandy Feinstein, Neal Woodman

On modeling weak sinks in MODPATH

Regional groundwater flow systems often contain both strong sinks and weak sinks. A strong sink extracts water from the entire aquifer depth, while a weak sink lets some water pass underneath or over the actual sink. The numerical groundwater flow model MODFLOW may allow a sink cell to act as a strong or weak sink, hence extracting all water that enters the cell or allowing some of that water to p
Authors
Daniel B. Abrams, Henk Haitjema, Leon J. Kauffman

Sulfur, carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen isotope geochemistry of the Idaho cobalt belt

Cobalt-copper ± gold deposits of the Idaho cobalt belt, including the deposits of the Blackbird district, have been analyzed for their sulfur, carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen isotope compositions to improve the understanding of ore formation. Previous genetic hypotheses have ranged widely, linking the ores to the sedimentary or diagenetic history of the host Mesoproterozoic sedimentary rocks, to Meso
Authors
Craig A. Johnson, Arthur A. Bookstrom, John F. Slack

Changing climate, changing forests: the impacts of climate change on forests of the northeastern United States and eastern Canada

Decades of study on climatic change and its direct and indirect effects on forest ecosystems provide important insights for forest science, management, and policy. A synthesis of recent research from the northeastern United States and eastern Canada shows that the climate of the region has become warmer and wetter over the past 100 years and that there are more extreme precipitation events. Greate
Authors
Lindsey Rustad, John Campbell, Jeffrey S. Dukes, Thomas Huntington, Kathy Fallon Lambert, Jacqueline Mohan, Nicholas Rodenhouse

Histologic, immunologic and endocrine biomarkers indicate contaminant effects in fishes of the Ashtabula River

The use of fish as sentinels of aquatic ecosystem health is a biologically relevant approach to environmental monitoring and assessment. We examined the health of the Ashtabula River using histologic, immunologic, and endocrine biomarkers in brown bullhead (BB; Ameiurus nebulosus) and largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) and compared fish collected from a reference site (Conneaut Creek). Season
Authors
L. R. Iwanowicz, V. S. Blazer, N.P. Hitt, S. D. McCormick, D.S. Devault, C. A. Ottinger

Holocene aridification of India

Spanning a latitudinal range typical for deserts, the Indian peninsula is fertile instead and sustains over a billion people through monsoonal rains. Despite the strong link between climate and society, our knowledge of the long‐term monsoon variability is incomplete over the Indian subcontinent. Here we reconstruct the Holocene paleoclimate in the core monsoon zone (CMZ) of the Indian peninsula u
Authors
C. Ponton, L. Giosan, T.I. Eglinton, D.Q. Fuller, J.E. Johnson, P. Kumar, Timothy S. Collett

Species traits and environmental conditions govern the relationship between biodiversity effects across trophic levels

Changing environments can have divergent effects on biodiversity–ecosystem function relationships at alternating trophic levels. Freshwater mussels fertilize stream foodwebs through nutrient excretion, and mussel species-specific excretion rates depend on environmental conditions. We asked how differences in mussel diversity in varying environments influence the dynamics between primary producers
Authors
D.E. Spooner, C.C. Vaughn, H.S. Galbraith

Mineralogy and environmental geochemistry of historical iron slag, Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site, Pennsylvania, USA

The Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site in southeastern Pennsylvania, which features an Fe smelter that was operational in the 18th and 19th centuries, is dominated by three slag piles. Pile 1 slag, from the Hopewell Furnace, and pile 2 slag, likely from the nearby Cornwall Furnace, were both produced in cold-blast charcoal-fired smelters. In contrast, pile 3 slag was produced in an anthracite
Authors
Nadine M. Piatak, Robert R. Seal