Sheila Murphy
Sheila Murphy is a Research Hydrologist for the USGS Water Resources Mission Area.
Sheila Murphy is a research hydrologist who focuses on how disturbances (such as wildfire, floods, hurricanes, land use change) alter watershed response, water quality, and water quantity. Her recent research has evaluated the effects of wildfire on water quality in the western U.S., and the hydrologic and geochemical responses to land cover change and hurricanes in a tropical forest in Puerto Rico.
Science and Products
Filter Total Items: 52
Wildfires: Identification of a new suite of aromatic polycarboxylic acids in ash and surface water
Ash and surface water samples collected after wildfires in four different geographical locations (California, Colorado, Kansas and Alberta) were analyzed. The ash samples were leached with deionized water, and leachates were concentrated by solid phase extraction and analyzed by liquid chromatography/time-of-flight mass spectrometry. In addition, three surface water samples and a lysimeter water s
Authors
Imma Ferrer, E. Michael Thurman, Jerry A. Zweigenbaum, Sheila F. Murphy, Jackson P. Webster, Fernando L. Rosario-Ortiz
Summer runoff generation in foothill catchments of the Colorado Front Range
Climatic shifts, disturbances, and land-use change can alter hydrologic flowpaths, water quality, and water supply to downstream communities. Prior research investigating streamflow generation processes in mountainous areas has largely focused on high-elevation alpine and subalpine catchments; less is known about these processes in lower-elevation foothills and montane catchments. In these lower-e
Authors
Isaac S. Bukoski, Sheila F. Murphy, Andrew L. Birch, Holly R. Barnard
Signatures of hydrologic function across the critical zone observatory network
Despite a multitude of small catchment studies, we lack a deep understanding of how variations in critical zone architecture lead to variations in hydrologic states and fluxes. This study characterizes hydrologic dynamics of 15 catchments of the U.S. Critical Zone Observatory (CZO) network where we hypothesized that our understanding of subsurface structure would illuminate patterns of hydrologic
Authors
Adam N. Wlostowski, Noah P. Molotch, Suzanne P. Anderson, Susan L. Brantley, Jon Chorover, David Dralle, Praveen Kumar, Li Li, Kathleen A. Lohse, John Mallard, Jennifer C. McIntosh, Sheila F. Murphy, Eric Parrish, Mohammad Safeeq, Mark Seyfried, Yuning Shi, Ciaran Harman
Fates and fingerprints of sulfur and carbon following wildfire in economically important croplands of California, U.S.
Sulfur (S) is widely used in agriculture, yet little is known about its fates within upland watersheds, particularly in combination with disturbances like wildfire. Our study examined the effects of land use and wildfire on the biogeochemical “fingerprints,” or the quantity and chemical composition, of S and carbon (C). We conducted our research within the Napa River Watershed, California, U.S., w
Authors
Anna L. Hermes, Brian A. Ebel, Sheila F. Murphy, Eve-Lyn S. Hinckley
Wildfire-driven changes in hydrology mobilize arsenic and metals from legacy mine waste
Wildfires burning in watersheds that have been mined and since revegetated pose unique risks to downstream water supplies. A wildfire near Boulder, Colorado that burned a forested watershed recovering from mining disturbance that occurred 80-160 years ago allowed us to 1) assess arsenic and metal contamination in streams draining the burned area for a five-year period after the wildfire and 2) det
Authors
Sheila F. Murphy, R. Blaine McCleskey, Deborah A. Martin, JoAnn Holloway, Jeffrey H. Writer
Changes in climate and land cover affect seasonal streamflow forecasts in the Rio Grande headwaters
Seasonal streamflow forecast bias, changes in climate, snowpack, and land cover, and the effects of these changes on relations between basin‐wide snowpack, SNOw TELemetry (SNOTEL) station snowpack, and seasonal streamflow were evaluated in the headwaters of the Rio Grande, Colorado. Results indicate that shifts in the seasonality of precipitation and changing climatology are consistent with period
Authors
Colin A. Penn, David W. Clow, Graham A. Sexstone, Sheila F. Murphy
Atmospheric dust deposition varies by season and elevation in the Colorado Front Range, USA
As atmospheric dust deposition continues to increase across the southwestern United States, it has the potential to alter ecosystem productivity and structure by delivering nutrients, base cations, and pollutants to remote mountain sites. Due to the sparse distribution of dust monitoring sites, open questions remain about the spatial and temporal variability of dust fluxes and composition across m
Authors
Ruth C. Heindel, Annie L. Putman, Sheila F. Murphy, Deborah A. Repert, Eve-Lyn S. Hinckley
Inorganic nitrogen wet deposition gradients in the Denver-Boulder metropolitan area and Colorado Front Range – Preliminary implications for Rocky Mountain National Park and interpolated deposition maps
For the first time in the 40-year history of the National Atmospheric Deposition Program / National Trends Network (NADP/NTN), a unique urban-to-rural transect of wet deposition monitoring stations were operated as part of the NTN in 2017 to quantify reactive inorganic nitrogen wet deposition for adjacent urban and rural, montane regions. The transect of NADP stations (sites) was used to collect
Authors
Gregory A. Wetherbee, Katherine Benedict, Sheila F. Murphy, Emily Elliott
Before the storm: Antecedent conditions as regulators of hydrologic and biogeochemical response to extreme climate events
While the influence of antecedent conditions on watershed function is widely recognized under typical hydrologic regimes, gaps remain in the context of extreme climate events (ECEs). ECEs are those events that far exceed seasonal norms of intensity, duration, or impact upon the physical environment or ecosystem. In this synthesis, we discuss the role of source availability and hydrologic connectiv
Authors
Sara K. McMillan, Henry F. Wilson, Christina L. Tague, Daniel M. Hanes, Shreeram Inamdar, Diana L. Karwan, Terry Loecke, Jonathan Morrison, Sheila F. Murphy, Philippe Vidon
Fire, flood, and drought: Extreme climate events alter flow paths and stream chemistry
Extreme climate events—such as hurricanes, droughts, extreme precipitation, and wildfires—have the potential to alter watershed processes and stream response. Yet due to the destructive and hazardous nature and unpredictability of such events, capturing their hydrochemical signal is challenging. A 5‐year postwildfire study of stream chemistry in the Fourmile Creek watershed, Colorado Front Range,
Authors
Sheila F. Murphy, R. Blaine McCleskey, Deborah A. Martin, Jeffrey H. Writer, Brian A. Ebel
Anthropocene landscape change and the legacy of nineteenth- and twentieth-century mining in the Fourmile Catchment, Colorado Front Range
Human impacts on earth surface processes and materials are fundamental to understanding the proposed Anthropocene epoch. This study examines the magnitude, distribution, and long-term context of nineteenth- and twentieth-century mining in the Fourmile Creek catchment, Colorado, coupling airborne LiDAR topographic analysis with historical documents and field studies of river banks exposed by 2013 f
Authors
David P. Dethier, William B. Ouimet, Sheila F. Murphy, Maneh Kotikian, Will Wicherski, Rachel M. Samuels
A method for quantifying cloud immersion in a tropical mountain forest using time-lapse photography
Quantifying the frequency, duration, and elevation range of fog or cloud immersion is essential to estimate cloud water deposition in water budgets and to understand the ecohydrology of cloud forests. The goal of this study was to develop a low-cost and high spatial-coverage method to detect occurrence of cloud immersion within a mountain cloud forest by using time-lapse photography. Trail cameras
Authors
Maoya Bassiouni, Martha A. Scholl, Angel J. Torres-Sanchez, Sheila F. Murphy
Science and Products
Filter Total Items: 52
Wildfires: Identification of a new suite of aromatic polycarboxylic acids in ash and surface water
Ash and surface water samples collected after wildfires in four different geographical locations (California, Colorado, Kansas and Alberta) were analyzed. The ash samples were leached with deionized water, and leachates were concentrated by solid phase extraction and analyzed by liquid chromatography/time-of-flight mass spectrometry. In addition, three surface water samples and a lysimeter water s
Authors
Imma Ferrer, E. Michael Thurman, Jerry A. Zweigenbaum, Sheila F. Murphy, Jackson P. Webster, Fernando L. Rosario-Ortiz
Summer runoff generation in foothill catchments of the Colorado Front Range
Climatic shifts, disturbances, and land-use change can alter hydrologic flowpaths, water quality, and water supply to downstream communities. Prior research investigating streamflow generation processes in mountainous areas has largely focused on high-elevation alpine and subalpine catchments; less is known about these processes in lower-elevation foothills and montane catchments. In these lower-e
Authors
Isaac S. Bukoski, Sheila F. Murphy, Andrew L. Birch, Holly R. Barnard
Signatures of hydrologic function across the critical zone observatory network
Despite a multitude of small catchment studies, we lack a deep understanding of how variations in critical zone architecture lead to variations in hydrologic states and fluxes. This study characterizes hydrologic dynamics of 15 catchments of the U.S. Critical Zone Observatory (CZO) network where we hypothesized that our understanding of subsurface structure would illuminate patterns of hydrologic
Authors
Adam N. Wlostowski, Noah P. Molotch, Suzanne P. Anderson, Susan L. Brantley, Jon Chorover, David Dralle, Praveen Kumar, Li Li, Kathleen A. Lohse, John Mallard, Jennifer C. McIntosh, Sheila F. Murphy, Eric Parrish, Mohammad Safeeq, Mark Seyfried, Yuning Shi, Ciaran Harman
Fates and fingerprints of sulfur and carbon following wildfire in economically important croplands of California, U.S.
Sulfur (S) is widely used in agriculture, yet little is known about its fates within upland watersheds, particularly in combination with disturbances like wildfire. Our study examined the effects of land use and wildfire on the biogeochemical “fingerprints,” or the quantity and chemical composition, of S and carbon (C). We conducted our research within the Napa River Watershed, California, U.S., w
Authors
Anna L. Hermes, Brian A. Ebel, Sheila F. Murphy, Eve-Lyn S. Hinckley
Wildfire-driven changes in hydrology mobilize arsenic and metals from legacy mine waste
Wildfires burning in watersheds that have been mined and since revegetated pose unique risks to downstream water supplies. A wildfire near Boulder, Colorado that burned a forested watershed recovering from mining disturbance that occurred 80-160 years ago allowed us to 1) assess arsenic and metal contamination in streams draining the burned area for a five-year period after the wildfire and 2) det
Authors
Sheila F. Murphy, R. Blaine McCleskey, Deborah A. Martin, JoAnn Holloway, Jeffrey H. Writer
Changes in climate and land cover affect seasonal streamflow forecasts in the Rio Grande headwaters
Seasonal streamflow forecast bias, changes in climate, snowpack, and land cover, and the effects of these changes on relations between basin‐wide snowpack, SNOw TELemetry (SNOTEL) station snowpack, and seasonal streamflow were evaluated in the headwaters of the Rio Grande, Colorado. Results indicate that shifts in the seasonality of precipitation and changing climatology are consistent with period
Authors
Colin A. Penn, David W. Clow, Graham A. Sexstone, Sheila F. Murphy
Atmospheric dust deposition varies by season and elevation in the Colorado Front Range, USA
As atmospheric dust deposition continues to increase across the southwestern United States, it has the potential to alter ecosystem productivity and structure by delivering nutrients, base cations, and pollutants to remote mountain sites. Due to the sparse distribution of dust monitoring sites, open questions remain about the spatial and temporal variability of dust fluxes and composition across m
Authors
Ruth C. Heindel, Annie L. Putman, Sheila F. Murphy, Deborah A. Repert, Eve-Lyn S. Hinckley
Inorganic nitrogen wet deposition gradients in the Denver-Boulder metropolitan area and Colorado Front Range – Preliminary implications for Rocky Mountain National Park and interpolated deposition maps
For the first time in the 40-year history of the National Atmospheric Deposition Program / National Trends Network (NADP/NTN), a unique urban-to-rural transect of wet deposition monitoring stations were operated as part of the NTN in 2017 to quantify reactive inorganic nitrogen wet deposition for adjacent urban and rural, montane regions. The transect of NADP stations (sites) was used to collect
Authors
Gregory A. Wetherbee, Katherine Benedict, Sheila F. Murphy, Emily Elliott
Before the storm: Antecedent conditions as regulators of hydrologic and biogeochemical response to extreme climate events
While the influence of antecedent conditions on watershed function is widely recognized under typical hydrologic regimes, gaps remain in the context of extreme climate events (ECEs). ECEs are those events that far exceed seasonal norms of intensity, duration, or impact upon the physical environment or ecosystem. In this synthesis, we discuss the role of source availability and hydrologic connectiv
Authors
Sara K. McMillan, Henry F. Wilson, Christina L. Tague, Daniel M. Hanes, Shreeram Inamdar, Diana L. Karwan, Terry Loecke, Jonathan Morrison, Sheila F. Murphy, Philippe Vidon
Fire, flood, and drought: Extreme climate events alter flow paths and stream chemistry
Extreme climate events—such as hurricanes, droughts, extreme precipitation, and wildfires—have the potential to alter watershed processes and stream response. Yet due to the destructive and hazardous nature and unpredictability of such events, capturing their hydrochemical signal is challenging. A 5‐year postwildfire study of stream chemistry in the Fourmile Creek watershed, Colorado Front Range,
Authors
Sheila F. Murphy, R. Blaine McCleskey, Deborah A. Martin, Jeffrey H. Writer, Brian A. Ebel
Anthropocene landscape change and the legacy of nineteenth- and twentieth-century mining in the Fourmile Catchment, Colorado Front Range
Human impacts on earth surface processes and materials are fundamental to understanding the proposed Anthropocene epoch. This study examines the magnitude, distribution, and long-term context of nineteenth- and twentieth-century mining in the Fourmile Creek catchment, Colorado, coupling airborne LiDAR topographic analysis with historical documents and field studies of river banks exposed by 2013 f
Authors
David P. Dethier, William B. Ouimet, Sheila F. Murphy, Maneh Kotikian, Will Wicherski, Rachel M. Samuels
A method for quantifying cloud immersion in a tropical mountain forest using time-lapse photography
Quantifying the frequency, duration, and elevation range of fog or cloud immersion is essential to estimate cloud water deposition in water budgets and to understand the ecohydrology of cloud forests. The goal of this study was to develop a low-cost and high spatial-coverage method to detect occurrence of cloud immersion within a mountain cloud forest by using time-lapse photography. Trail cameras
Authors
Maoya Bassiouni, Martha A. Scholl, Angel J. Torres-Sanchez, Sheila F. Murphy