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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.

Filter Total Items: 171176

Invasive-dominated grasslands in Hawaiʻi are resilient to disturbance

Non-native-dominated landscapes may arise from invasion by competitive plant species, disturbance and invasion of early-colonizing species, or some combination of these. Without knowing site history, however, it is difficult to predict how native or non-native communities will reassemble after disturbance events. Given increasing disturbance levels across anthropogenically impacted landscapes, pre
Authors
Stephanie G. Yelenik, Eli T. Rose, Susan Cordell

Comparison of sediment and water column nutrient processing rates in agricultural streams of contrasting buffer land use

Watershed nutrient management often focuses on actions that reduce the movement of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) from agricultural lands into streams. One area of management focus is the buffer of land adjacent to streams. Wetlands and forests in this buffer can intercept and retain N and P from the landscape. In addition to directly intercepting agricultural nutrients, natural habitats in the b
Authors
James H. Larson, Sean Bailey, Rebecca Kreiling, Lynn A. Bartsch, Paul C. Frost, Marguerite A. Xenopoulos, Nolan J.T. Pearce, Mary Anne Evans

Results of 2018–19 water-quality and hydraulic characterization of aquifer intervals using packer tests and preliminary geophysical-log correlations for selected boreholes at and near the former Naval Air Warfare Center Warminster, Bucks County, Pennsylva

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) collected data on the vertical distribution of hydraulic head, specific capacity, and water quality using aquifer-interval-isolation tests and other vertical profiling methods in 15 boreholes completed in fractured sedimentary bedrock in Northampton, Warminster, and Warwick Townships, Bucks County, Pennsylvania during 2018–19. This work was done, in cooperation wi
Authors
Lisa A. Senior, Alex R. Fiore

Summary of Creepmeter Data from 1980 to 2020—Measurements Spanning the Hayward, Calaveras, and San Andreas Faults in Northern and Central California

This report is an update to the presentation by Schulz (1989) introducing potential users to the creepmeter data collected between the publication of Schulz’s report and mid-2020. The creepmeter network monitors aseismic, surface slip at various locations on the Hayward, Calaveras, and San Andreas Faults in northern and central California. There are different designs of creepmeters and these are b
Authors
John Langbein, Roger G. Bilham, Hollice A. Snyder, Todd Ericksen

Evaluation and refinement of chlorophyll-a algorithms for high-biomass blooms in San Francisco Bay (USA)

A massive bloom of the raphidophyte Heterosigma akashiwo occurred in summer 2022 in San Francisco Bay, causing widespread ecological impacts including events of low dissolved oxygen and mass fish kills. The rapidly evolving bloom required equally rapid management response, leading to the use of near-real-time image analysis of chlorophyll from the Ocean and Land Colour Instrument (OLCI) aboard Sen
Authors
Raphael M. Kudela, David B. Senn, Emily T. Richardson, Keith Bouma-Gregson, Brian A. Bergamaschi, Lawrence Sim

All tidal wetlands are blue carbon ecosystems

Managing coastal wetlands is one of the most promising activities to reduce atmospheric greenhouse gases, and it also contributes to meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. One of the options is through blue carbon projects, in which mangroves, saltmarshes, and seagrass are managed to increase carbon sequestration and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, other tidal wetlands
Authors
Maria Fernanda Adame, Jeffrey Kelleway, Ken Krauss, Catherine E. Lovelock, Janine B. Adams, Stacey M. Trevathan-Tackett, Gregory Noe, Luke Jeffrey, Mike Ronan, Maria Zann, Paul E. Carnell, Naima Iram, Damien T. Maher, Daniel Murdiyarso, Sigit D. Sasmito, Da B. Tran, Paul Dargusch, J. Boone Kauffman, Laura S. Brophy

Multiple stressors mediate the effects of warming on leaf decomposition in a large regulated river

Predicting how increasing temperatures interact with other global change drivers to influence the structure and dynamics of Earth's ecosystems is a primary challenge in ecology. Our study made use of multiple simultaneous “natural experiments” to examine how rapid warming, declining nutrients, invasive consumers, and riparian invasive species management interact to influence leaf decomposition in
Authors
Eric Arthur Scholl, Kyle R. Hanus, Tyler Gardner, Theodore Kennedy

Distinct yet adjacent earthquake sequences near the Mendocino Triple Junction: 20 December 2021 Mw 6.1 and 6.0 Petrolia, and 20 December 2022 Mw 6.4 Ferndale

Two earthquake sequences occurred a year apart at the Mendocino Triple Junction in northern California: first the 20 December 2021 �w 6.1 and 6.0 Petrolia sequence, then the 20 December 2022 �w 6.4 Ferndale sequence. To delineate active faults and understand the relationship between these sequences, we applied an automated deep‐learning workflow to create enhanced and relocated earthquake catalogs
Authors
Clara Yoon, David R. Shelly

Analysis of mitochondrial DNA sequence data demonstrates that monophyly of myotis occultus is complicated by greater sampling of myotis lucifugus

The validity of Myotis occultus as a species unique from Myotis lucifugus has been a source of debate. Most recently, many authorities treat M. occultus as a distinct species, at least in part because a previous study showed that M. occultus and M. l. carissima (the subspecies that occurs in closest geographic proximity to M. occultus) form separate monophyletic clades based on sequences of two mi
Authors
Jeffrey M. Lorch, Antoinette J. Piaggio, Daniel R. Taylor

New diagnostic assessment of MCMC algorithm effectiveness, efficiency, reliability, and controllability

Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) is a robust statistical approach for estimating posterior distributions. However, the significant computational cost associated with MCMC presents a considerable challenge, complicating the selection of an appropriate algorithm tailored to the specific problem at hand. This study introduces a novel and comprehensive framework for evaluating the performance of MCMC a
Authors
Hossein KavianiHamedani, Julianne D. Quinn, Jared David Smith

Data-driven adjustments for combined use of NGA-East hard-rock ground motion and site amplification models

Model development in the Next Generation Attenuation-East (NGA-East) project included two components developed concurrently and independently: (1) earthquake ground-motion models (GMMs) that predict the median and aleatory variability of various intensity measures conditioned on magnitude and distance, derived for a reference hard-rock site condition with an average shear-wave velocity in the uppe
Authors
Maria E. Ramos-Sepulveda, Jonathan P. Stewart, Grace Alexandra Parker, Morgan P. Moschetti, Eric M. Thompson, Scott J. Brandenberg, Youssef M A Hashash, Ellen M. Rathje

Vulnerability to sea-level rise varies among estuaries and habitat types: Lessons learned from a network of surface elevation tables in Puget Sound

Estuarine systems that provide valuable ecosystem services to society and important foraging and rearing habitat for fish and wildlife species continue to undergo degradation. In Puget Sound, WA, as much as 70–80% of historic estuarine habitat has been lost to anthropogenic development, and continued losses are expected through the end of the twenty-first century due to rising sea levels. To evalu
Authors
Melanie J. Davis, Katrina L. Poppe, John M. Rybczyk, Eric E. Grossman, Isa Woo, Joshua W. Chamberlin, Michelle Totman, Todd Zackey, Frank Leonetti, Suzanne Shull, Susan E. W. De La Cruz