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.
Science Quality and Integrity
Science Quality and Integrity
The USGS provides unbiased, objective, and impartial scientific information upon which our audiences, including resource managers, planners, and other entities, rely.
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: 171178
A comprehensive fault system inversion approach: Methods and application to NSHM23
We present updated inversion‐based fault‐system solutions for the 2023 update to the National Seismic Hazard Model (NSHM23), standardizing earthquake rate model calculations on crustal faults across the western United States. We build upon the inversion methodology used in the Third Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast (UCERF3) to solve for time‐independent rates of earthquakes in an int
Authors
Kevin R. Milner, Edward H. Field
Train, inform, borrow, or combine? Approaches to process-guided deep learning for groundwater-influenced stream temperature prediction
Although groundwater discharge is a critical stream temperature control process, it is not explicitly represented in many stream temperature models, an omission that may reduce predictive accuracy, hinder management of aquatic habitat, and decrease user confidence. We assessed the performance of a previously-described process-guided deep learning model of stream temperature in the Delaware River B
Authors
Janet R. Barclay, Simon Nemer Topp, Lauren Elizabeth Koenig, Margaux Jeanne Sleckman, Alison P. Appling
A decade of death and other dynamics: Deepening perspectives on the diversity and distribution of sea stars and wasting
Mass mortality events provide valuable insight into biological extremes and also ecological interactions more generally. The sea star wasting epidemic that began in 2013 catalyzed study of the microbiome, genetics, population dynamics, and community ecology of several high-profile species inhabiting the northeastern Pacific but exposed a dearth of information on the diversity, distributions, and i
Authors
Michael Dawson, Paige Duffin, Melina Giakoumis, Lauren M Schiebelhut, Rodrigo Beas-Luna, Keith Bosley, Rita Castilho, Christine Ewers-Saucedo, Katie Gavenus, Aimee Keller, Brenda Konar, John L. Largier, Julio Lorda, Melissa Miner, Monica Moritsch, Sergio Navarette, Peter T. Raimondi, Sarah Beth Traiger, Monica Turner, John Wares
Alaska's climate sensitive Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta supports seven million Arctic-breeding shorebirds, including the majority of six North American populations
Baseline information about declining North American shorebird populations is essential to determine the effects of global warming at low-lying coastal areas of the Arctic and subarctic, where numerous taxa breed, and to assess population recovery throughout their range. We estimated population sizes on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in western Alaska on the eastern edge of the Bering Sea. We conducted
Authors
James E. Lyons, Stephen C. Brown, Sarah T. Saalfeld, James A. Johnson, Brad A. Andres, Kristine M. Sowl, Robert E. Gill, Brian J. McCaffery, Lindall Kidd, Metta McGarvey, Brad Winn, H. River Gates, Diane A. Granfors, Richard B. Lanctot
Highway-runoff quality from segments of open-graded friction course and dense-graded hot-mix asphalt pavement on Interstate 95, Massachusetts, 2018–21
Highway runoff is a source of sediment and associated constituents to downstream waterbodies that can be managed with the use of stormwater-control measures that reduce sediment loads. The use of open-graded friction course (OGFC) pavement has been identified as a method to reduce loads from highway runoff because it retains sediment in pavement voids; however, few datasets are available in New En
Authors
Kirk P. Smith, Alana B. Spaetzel, Phillip A. Woodford
The effects of management practices on grassland birds—Loggerhead Shrike (Lanius ludovicianus)
The key to Loggerhead Shrike (Lanius ludovicianus) management is providing open grasslands with scattered trees and shrubs for foraging, nesting, and perching. Loggerhead Shrikes have been reported to use habitats with 20–266 centimeters (cm) vegetation height, greater than or equal to (≥) 10 percent grass cover, 3–48 percent forb cover, 2–25 percent shrub cover, 3–40 percent bare ground, and 11–6
Authors
Lawrence D. Igl, Jill A. Shaffer, Douglas H. Johnson, Marriah L. Sondreal, Christopher M. Goldade, Melvin P. Nenneman, Amy L. Zimmerman, Jason P. Thiele, Betty R. Euliss
Trophic ecology of juvenile lean and siscowet lake charr (Salvelinus namaycush) in Lake Superior: Assessing for potential competition
We investigated the spatial overlap, diet, isotopic niche, and growth of juvenile lean and siscowet lake charr (Salvelinus namaycush) in Lake Superior to address concerns of potential competition with implications to the study of resource polymorphism. Catch data revealed the greatest levels of sympatry in waters from 40 to 60 m. Juvenile lean and siscowet diet changed ontogenetically with Mysis b
Authors
Brandon S. Gerig, Shawn P. Sitar, Will F Otte, Daniel Yule, Heidi K. Swanson, Charles R. Bronte, Dray Carl, Joshua Blankenheim
Prospects of pollinator community surveillance using terrestrial environmental DNA metagenetics
Current pollinator survey methods exhibit bias, require highly-trained practitioners, and are difficult to scale to large sample sizes. High-throughput sequencing of terrestrial eDNA could provide a complementary tool for studying pollinator communities, but eDNA methods have not been extensively evaluated. We conducted metagenetic analysis of whole arthropod community eDNA from 20 flower and seve
Authors
Grace Avalos, Regina Trott, John Ballas, Chia Hua Lin, Clayton D Raines, Deborah D. Iwanowicz, Karen Goodell, Rodney Richardson
Identifying structural priors in a hybrid differentiable model for stream water temperature modeling
Although deep learning models for stream temperature (Ts) have recently shown exceptional accuracy, they have limited interpretability and cannot output untrained variables. With hybrid differentiable models, neural networks (NNs) can be connected to physically based equations (called structural priors) to output intermediate variables such as water source fractions (specifying what portion of wat
Authors
Farshid Rahmani, Alison P. Appling, Dapeng Feng, Kathryn Lawson, Chaopeng Shen
How to handle glacier area change in geodetic mass balance
Innovations in geodesy enable widespread analysis of glacier surface elevation change and geodetic mass balance. However, coincident glacier area data are less widely available, causing inconsistent handling of glacier area change. Here we quantify the bias introduced into meters water equivalent (m w.e.) specific geodetic mass balance results when using a fixed, maximum glacier area, and illustra
Authors
Caitlyn Florentine, Louis C. Sass, Christopher J. McNeil, Emily Baker, Shad O'Neel
Do topographic changes tell us about variability in aeolian sediment transport and dune mobility? Analysis of monthly to decadal surface changes in a partially vegetated and biocrust covered dunefield
Vegetation and biological soil crust (biocrust) cover can have a stabilizing effect on dunes by fixing sediment in-place and increasing surface roughness, thus limiting dune mobility, sediment transport, and erosion. These biological effects influence rates of aeolian activity and thus surficial changes, though variability in wind and sediment supply may obscure these topographic effects. In this
Authors
Joshua Caster, Joel B. Sankey, Temuulen Ts. Sankey, Alan Kasprak, Matthew A. Bowker, Taylor Joyal
Environmental DNA as a tool for better understanding the distribution, abundance, and health of Atlantic and Pacific salmon
The development and application of approaches to detect and quantify environmental DNA (eDNA) have potential to improve our understanding of the distribution, abundance, and health of Atlantic Salmon Salmo salar and Pacific salmon Oncorhynchus spp. Here, we review 61 articles focusing on eDNA applications pertaining to salmon occupying natural habitat and aquaculture facilities in the context of a
Authors
Andrew M. Ramey, Cherie Marie Mckeeman, Eleni Leto Petrou, Damian M. Menning, Ora L. Russ, Andrés López