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Publications

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Geochemistry, petrologic evolution, and ore deposits of the Miocene Bodie Hills Volcanic Field, California and Nevada

The southern segment of the ancestral Cascades magmatic arc includes numerous volcanic fields; among these, the Bodie Hills volcanic field (BHVF), astride the California-Nevada border north of Mono Lake, is one of the largest (>700 km2) and most well studied. Episodic magmatism in the BHVF spanned about 9 million years between about 15 and 6 Ma; magmatic output was greatest between ca...
Authors
Edward A. du Bray, David A. John, Brian L. Cousens, Leslie A. Hayden, Peter Vikre

Soil data for a vegetation gradient located at Bonanza Creek Long Term Ecological Research Site, interior Alaska

Boreal soils play an important role in the global carbon cycle owing to the large amount of carbon stored within this northern region. To understand how carbon and nitrogen storage varied among different ecosystems, a vegetation gradient was established in the Bonanza Creek Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) site, located in interior Alaska. The ecosystems represented are a black...
Authors
Kristen L. Manies, Jennifer W. Harden, Christopher C. Fuller, Xiaomei Xu, John P. McGeehin

Operational thermal remote sensing and lava flow monitoring at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory

Hawaiian volcanoes are highly accessible and well monitored by ground instruments. Nevertheless, observational gaps remain and thermal satellite imagery has proven useful in Hawai‘i for providing synoptic views of activity during intervals between field visits. Here we describe the beginning of a thermal remote sensing programme at the US Geological Survey Hawaiian Volcano Observatory...
Authors
Matthew R. Patrick, James P. Kauahikaua, Tim R. Orr, Ashley Gerard Davies, Michael S. Ramsey

U.S. Geological Survey Volcano Hazards Program—Assess, forecast, prepare, engage

At least 170 volcanoes in 12 States and 2 territories have erupted in the past 12,000 years and have the potential to erupt again. Consequences of eruptions from U.S. volcanoes can extend far beyond the volcano’s immediate area. Many aspects of our daily life are vulnerable to volcano hazards, including air travel, regional power generation and transmission infrastructure, interstate...
Authors
Wendy K. Stovall, Aleeza Wilkins, Charlie Mandeville, Carolyn L. Driedger

Eruptive history of Mammoth Mountain and its mafic periphery, California

This report and accompanying geologic map portray the eruptive history of Mammoth Mountain and a surrounding array of contemporaneous volcanic units that erupted in its near periphery. The moderately alkaline Mammoth eruptive suite, basaltic to rhyodacitic, represents a discrete new magmatic system, less than 250,000 years old, that followed decline of the subalkaline rhyolitic system...
Authors
Edward Hildreth, Judy Fierstein

Extraordinary sediment delivery and rapid geomorphic response following the 2008–2009 eruption of Chaitén Volcano, Chile

The 10 day explosive phase of the 2008–2009 eruption of Chaitén volcano, Chile, draped adjacent watersheds with a few cm to >1 m of tephra. Subsequent lava-dome collapses generated pyroclastic flows that delivered additional sediment. During the waning phase of explosive activity, modest rainfall triggered an extraordinary sediment flush which swiftly aggraded multiple channels by many...
Authors
Jon J. Major, Daniel Bertin, Thomas C. Pierson, Álvaro Amigo, Andres Iroume, Hector Ulloa, Jonathan M. Castro

Slab melting and magma formation beneath the southern Cascade arc

The processes that drive magma formation beneath the Cascade arc and other warm-slab subduction zones have been debated because young oceanic crust is predicted to largely dehydrate beneath the forearc during subduction. In addition, geochemical variability along strike in the Cascades has led to contrasting interpretations about the role of volatiles in magma generation. Here, we focus...
Authors
Kristina J. Walowski, Paul J. Wallace, Michael A. Clynne, D.J. Rasmussen, D. Weis

Detection and quantification of hydrocarbons in sediments

A new technology developed by the US Geological Survey now allows for fast, direct detection of hydrocarbon plumes both in rivers and drifting in the deep ocean. Recent experiments show that the method can also detect and quantify hydrocarbons buried in river sediments and estuaries. This approach uses a variant of induced polarization, a surface-sensitive physical property of certain...
Authors
Jeff Wynn, Mike Williamson, Jeff Frank

Potential carbon emissions dominated by carbon dioxide from thawed permafrost soils

Increasing temperatures in northern high latitudes are causing permafrost to thaw, making large amounts of previously frozen organic matter vulnerable to microbial decomposition. Permafrost thaw also creates a fragmented landscape of drier and wetter soil conditions that determine the amount and form (carbon dioxide (CO2), or methane (CH4)) of carbon (C) released to the atmosphere. The...
Authors
Christina Schadel, Martin K.-F. Bader, Edward A.G. Schuur, Christina Biasi, Rosvel Bracho, Petr Čapek, Sarah De Baets, Kateřina Diáková, Jessica G. Ernakovich, Cristian Estop-Aragones, David W. Graham, Iain P. Hartley, Colleen M. Iversen, Evan S. Kane, Christian Knoblauch, Massimo Lupascu, Pertti J. Martikainen, Susan M. Natali, Richard J. Norby, Jonathan A. O’Donnell, Taniya Roy Chowdhury, Hana Šantrůčková, Gaius R. Shaver, Victoria L. Sloan, Claire C. Treat, Merritt R. Turetsky, Mark P. Waldrop, Kimberly Wickland

A large refined catalog of earthquake relocations and focal mechanisms for the Island of Hawai'i and its seismotectonic implications

We present high-quality focal mechanisms based on a refined earthquake location catalog for the Island of Hawai'i, focusing on Mauna Loa and Kīlauea volcanoes. The relocation catalog is based on first-arrival times and waveform data of both compressional and shear waves for about 180,000 events on and near the Island of Hawai'i between 1986 and 2009 recorded by the seismic stations at...
Authors
Guoqing (Gary) Lin, Paul G. Okubo

The 2014 annual report for the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory

Introduction This report summarizes team activities and findings of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory during the year 2014 in geology, geodesy, seismicity, and gas geochemistry. The eruption of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō continued into its 32nd year with flows active to the northeast of the vent. One of them, the June 27th lava flow, named for the date in 2014 that the flow started, advanced far and fast...
Authors
James P. Kauahikaua, Tim R. Orr, Matt Patrick, Weston A. Thelen, Matthew Alexander Burgess, Asta Miklius, Michael P. Poland, Kyle R. Anderson, Loren Antolik, Tamar Elias, Jeff Sutton, Christoph Kern, Cindy Werner

Late Pleistocene and Holocene tephrostratigraphy of interior Alaska and Yukon: Key beds and chronologies over the past 30,000 years

The Aleutian Arc-Alaska Peninsula and Wrangell volcanic field are the main source areas for tephra deposits found across Alaska and northern Canada, and increasingly, tephra from these eruptions have been found further afield in North America, Greenland, and Europe. However, there have been no broad scale reviews of the Late Pleistocene and Holocene tephrostratigraphy for this region...
Authors
Lauren J. Davies, Britta J.L. Jensen, Duane G. Froese, Kristi L. Wallace
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