Publications
Browse more than 160,000 publications authored by our scientists over the past 100+ year history of the USGS. Publications available are: USGS-authored journal articles, series reports, book chapters, other government publications, and more.
Mission Area Publications
Mission Area Publications
We are focused on some of the most significant issues society faces, and our science is making a substantial contribution to the well-being of the Nation and the world. Learn more about the major topics our research covers and the programs focused on those topics.
Filter Total Items: 171795
Global ocean wave fields show consistent regional trends between 1980 and 2014 in a multi-product ensemble
Historical trends in the direction and magnitude of ocean surface wave height, period, or direction are debated due to diverse data, time-periods, or methodologies. Using a consistent community-driven ensemble of global wave products, we quantify and establish regions with robust trends in global multivariate wave fields between 1980 and 2014. We find that about 30–40% of the global ocean experien
Authors
Li H. Erikson, J. Morim, M. Hemer, Ian Young, X. Wang, L. Mentaschi, N. Mori, A. Semedo, Justin Stopa, V Grigorieva, S. Gulev, O. Aarnes, J-R Bidlot, O. Breivik, P. Bricheno, P. Camus, T. Shimura, M. Menendez, M. Markina, V.D. Sharmar, C. Trenham, J.F. Wolf, C. Appendini, S. Caires, N. Groll, A. Webb
Geologic assessment of undiscovered gas resources in Cretaceous–Tertiary coal beds of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico Coastal Plain
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) completed an assessment in 2007 of the undiscovered, technically recoverable, continuous gas potential of Cretaceous–Tertiary coal beds of the onshore areas and State waters of the northern Gulf of Mexico Coastal Plain. The assessment was based on geologic elements including hydrocarbon source rocks, availability of suitable reservoir rocks, and hydrocarbon accumu
Authors
Peter D. Warwick
North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) mobile acoustic transect surveys standard operating procedure 1—Locating and establishing mobile transect routes
This document is the first of three standard operating procedures (SOPs) providing instructions and considerations for conducting mobile acoustic surveys along road transects to collect bat acoustic data following the North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) protocol and sample design. This SOP focuses specifically on selecting NABat grid cells and establishing mobile transect survey routes u
Authors
Jaclyn Martin, Dane Smith, Han Li, MacKenzie Hall, Emily Ferrall, Jason Rae, Bethany Straw, Brian Reichert
North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) Mobile Acoustic Transect Surveys Standard Operating Procedure 2—Field Season and Survey Preparation
This document is the second of three standard operating procedures providing instructions and considerations for conducting mobile acoustic surveys along road transects to collect bat acoustic data following the North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) protocol and sample design. This standard operating procedure focuses specifically on considerations for establishing the field survey season
Authors
Jaclyn Martin, Jason Rae, MacKenzie Hall, Emily Ferrall, Han Li, Bethany Straw, Brian Reichert
North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) mobile acoustic transect surveys standard operating procedure 3—Conducting mobile transect surveys
This standard operating procedure (SOP) provides instructions and considerations for conducting mobile acoustic surveys along road transects to collect bat acoustic data following the North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) protocol and sample design. This report discusses measures for ensuring the safety of surveyors and efficiency of mobile transect surveys. This guidance is intended to ai
Authors
Jaclyn Martin, MacKenzie Hall, Emily Ferrall, Han Li, Jason Rae, Bethany Straw, Brian Reichert
Landsat Collection 2 Level-3 Fractional Snow Covered Area science product
The Landsat Collection 2 Level-3 Fractional Snow Covered Area science product indicates the percentage of pixels covered by snow for Landsat 4–9 imagery. Landsat’s spatial resolution offers the capability to map snow cover patterns across topographically complex mountainous regions. Snow cover is spatially and temporally variable and is often concentrated in remote or inaccessible land regions, ma
Cryptic declines of small, cold-water specialists highlight potential vulnerabilities of headwater streams as climate refugia
Increasing temperatures and climate-driven disturbances like wildfire are a growing threat to many species, including cold-water specialists. Montane areas and cold streams are often considered climate refugia that buffer communities against change. However, climate refugia are often species-specific, and despite growing awareness that life histories and habitat requirements shape responses to cha
Authors
Blake R. Hossack, Michael LeMoine, Emily Oja, Lisa A Eby
Optimizing satellite resources for the global assessment and mitigation of volcanic hazards—Suggestions from the USGS Powell Center Volcano Remote Sensing Working Group
A significant number of the world’s approximately 1,400 subaerial volcanoes with Holocene eruptions are unmonitored by ground-based sensors yet constitute a potential hazard to nearby residents and infrastructure, as well as air travel and global commerce. Data from an international constellation of more than 60 current satellite instruments provide a cost-effective means of tracking activity and
Authors
M. E. Pritchard, M. Poland, K. Reath, B. Andrews, M. Bagnardi, J. Biggs, S. Carn, D. Coppola, S.K. Ebmeier, M.A. Furtney, T. Girona, J. Griswold, T. Lopez, P. Lundgren, S. Ogburn, M. Pavolonis, E. Rumpf, G. Vaughan, C. Wauthier, R. Wessels, R. Wright, K.R. Anderson, M.G. Bato, A. Roman
Hydrogeologic characteristics of Hourglass and New Years Cave Lakes at Jewel Cave National Monument, South Dakota, from water-level and water-chemistry data, 2015–21
Jewel Cave National Monument is in the western Black Hills of South Dakota and contains an extensive cave network, including various subterranean water bodies (cave lakes) that are believed to represent the regionally important Madison aquifer. Recent investigations have sought to improve understanding of hydrogeologic characteristics of cave lakes in Jewel Cave. The U.S. Geological Survey, in coo
Authors
Colton J. Medler
Long-term recovery of Mexican spotted owl nesting habitat after fire in the Lincoln National Forest, New Mexico
BackgroundDry mixed-conifer forests of the southwestern United States are experiencing rapid, anthropogenically driven fire regime change. Prior to the Euro-American settlement, most of these forests experienced frequent surface fires but are now vulnerable to uncharacteristically large, high-severity fires. Fire directly influences the structure and composition of these forests and, in turn, the
Authors
Tara D. Durboraw, Clint W. Boal, Mary S. Fleck, Nathan S. Gill
Indigenous fire management and cross-scale fire-climate relationships in the Southwest United States from 1500 to 1900 CE
Prior research suggests that Indigenous fire management buffers climate influences on wildfires, but it is unclear whether these benefits accrue across geographic scales. We use a network of 4824 fire-scarred trees in Southwest United States dry forests to analyze up to 400 years of fire-climate relationships at local, landscape, and regional scales for traditional territories of three different I
Authors
Chris I. Roos, Christopher H. Guiterman, Ellis Margolis, Thomas W. Swetnam, Nicholas C. Laluk, Kerry F. Thompson, Chris Toya, Calvin A. Farris, Peter Z. Fulé, Jose M. Iniguez, J. Mark Kaib, Christopher D. O’Connor, Lionel Whitehair
Ecological Coastal Units – Standardized global shoreline characteristics
A new set of resources is now available that describe global shoreline characteristics. High resolution (30 m), globally comprehensive Coastal Segment Units (CSUs) and Ecological Coastal Units (ECUs) were developed in a collaboration between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Esri, and the Marine Biodiversity Observation Network (MBON). The data were produced from a segmentation and characterizati
Authors
Roger Sayre, Kevin Butler, Keith Van Graafeiland, Sean Breyer, Dawn Wright