Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Establishment Of Invasive Black Carp (Mylopharyngodon Piceus) In The Mississippi River Basin: Identifying Sources And Year Classes Contributing To Recruitment, Gregory W. Whitledge, Patrick T. Kroboth, Duane C. Chapman, Quinton E. Phelps, Wes Sleeper, Jennifer Bailey, Jill A. Jenkins

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Black Carp (Mylopharyngodon piceus) was imported to the USA to control aquaculture pond snails. This species has escaped captivity and occurs in parts of the Mississippi River, several tributaries, and floodplain lakes, which is concerning due to potential competition with native fishes and predation on native mussels, many of which are imperiled. However, Black Carp captures have primarily been incidental by commercial fishers, and evidence of reproduction in the wild is limited. The objectives of this study were to assess relative abundance of aquaculture- origin and wild Black Carp using ploidy and otolith stable isotope analysis, identify spatial …

Very High Middle Miocene Surface Productivity On The U.S. Mid-Atlantic Shelf Amid Glacioeustatic Sea Level Variability, Marci M. Robinson, Harry J. Dowsett, Timothy D. Herbert

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

The Miocene Climatic Optimum (MCO) provides important insights into how the climate system operates under elevated temperatures and atmospheric CO₂ levels. Few western North Atlantic paleotemperature or paleoecological records exist from the MCO, despite their importance for understanding both regional and global climate dynamics. Here we present quantitative MCO paleoecological data from the western North Atlantic, specifically from the Baltimore Gas & Electric (BG&E) marine sediment core from southern Maryland, USA. We examine alkenones and planktic foraminifera and document the first sea surface temperature (SST) and productivity estimates for the MCO and the Middle Miocene Climate Transition (MMCT) from …

Discovering Hidden Geothermal Signatures Using Non-Negative Matrix Factorization With Customized K-Means Clustering, V. V. Vesselinov, B. Ahmmed, M. K. Mudunuru, J. D. Pepin, E. R. Burns, D. L. Siler, S. Karra, R. S. Middleton

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Discovery of hidden geothermal resources is challenging. It requires the mining of large datasets with diverse data attributes representing subsurface hydrogeological and geothermal conditions. The commonly used play fairway analysis approach typically incorporates subject-matter expertise to analyze regional data to estimate geothermal characteristics and favorability. We demonstrate an alternative approach based on machine learning (ML) to process a geothermal dataset from southwest New Mexico (SWNM). The study region includes low- and medium-temperature hydrothermal systems. Several of these systems are not well characterized because of insufficient existing data and limited past explorative work. This study discovers hidden patterns and relations in …

Odu’S Storm Recovery Project Gets Boost From Dominion Energy, News @ Odu

News Items

No abstract provided.

Multi-Omics Responses In Tree Swallow (Tachycineta Bicolor) Nestlings From The Maumee Area Of Concern, Maumee River, Ohio, Chi Yen Tseng, Christine M. Custer, Thomas W. Custer, Paul M. Dummer, Natalie Karouna-Renier, Cole W. Matson

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

A multi-omics approach was utilized to identify altered biological responses and functions, and to prioritize contaminants to assess the risks of chemical mixtures in the Maumee Area of Concern (AOC), Maumee River, OH, USA. The Maumee AOC is designated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency as having significant beneficial use impairments, including degradation of fish and wildlife populations, bird or animal deformities or reproduction problems, and loss of fish and wildlife habitat. Tree swallow (Tachycineta bicolor) nestlings were collected at five sites along the Maumee River, which included wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) and industrial land-use sites. Polychlorinated …

Short Warm-Side Wet-Bulb Temperature Distribution Tails Lead To Accelerated Increases In Extreme Threshold Exceedances Under Global Warming, Yianna Sotirios Bekris

Dissertations and Theses

Humid-heat extremes threaten human health and are increasing in frequency with global warming, so elucidating factors affecting their rate of change is critical. This thesis examines the role of historical (1985-2014) wet-bulb temperature distribution tail shape on the probability of wet-bulb temperature extreme threshold exceedances under 2°Celsius global warming. Analysis of global climate models and reanalysis reveals that non-Gaussian wet-bulb temperature distribution tails are common worldwide across extensive, spatially coherent regions. More rapid increases in the number of days exceeding the historical 95th percentile are projected in locations with shorter-than-Gaussian warm-side tails. Of the two primary components of wet-bulb temperature, …

Coastalimagelib: An Open- Source Python Package For Creating Common Coastal Image Products, Maile P. Mccann, Dylan L. Anderson, Christopher R. Sherwood, Brittany Bruder, A. Spicer Bak, Katherine L. Brodie

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

CoastalImageLib is a Python library that produces common coastal image products intended for quantitative analysis of coastal environments. This library contains functions to georectify and merge multiple oblique camera views, produce statistical image products for a given set of images, and create subsampled pixel instruments for use in bathymetric inversion, surface current estimation, run-up calculations, and other quantitative analyses. This package intends to be an open-source broadly generalizable front end to future coastal imaging applications, ultimately expanding user accessibility to optical remote sensing of coastal environments. This package was developed and tested on data collected from the Argus Tower, a …

A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis Of The Direct Effects Of Nutrients On Corals, Eileen M. Nalley, Lillian J. Tuttle, Emily E. Conklin, Alexandria L. Barkman, Devynn M. Wulstein, Madeline C. Schmidbauer, Megan J. Donahue

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Chronic exposure of coral reefs to elevated nutrient conditions can modify the performance of the coral holobiont and shift the competitive interactions of reef organisms. Many studies have nowquantified the links between nutrients and coral performance, but fewhave translated these studies to directly address coastal water quality standards. To address this management need, we conducted a systematic review of peer-reviewed studies, public reports, and gray literature that examined the impacts of dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN: nitrate, nitrite, and ammonium) and dissolved inorganic phosphorus (DIP: phosphate) on scleractinian corals. The systematic review resulted in 47 studies with comparable data on coral …

Transcriptome Signatures Of Wastewater Effluent Exposure In Larval Zebrafish Vary With Seasonal Mixture Composition In An Effluent-Dominated Stream, Emma B. Meade, Luke R. Iwanowicz, Nicklaus Neureuther, Gregory H. Lefevre, Dana W. Kolpin, Hui Zhi, Shannon M. Meppelink, Rachael F. Lane, Angela Schmoldt, Aurash Mohaimani, Olaf Mueller, Rebecca D. Klaper

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluent-dominated streams provide critical habitat for aquatic and terrestrial organisms but also continually expose them to complex mixtures of pharmaceuticals that can potentially impair growth, behavior, and reproduction. Currently, few biomarkers are available that relate to pharmaceutical-specific mechanisms of action. In the experiment reported in this paper, zebrafish (Danio rerio) embryos at two developmental stages were exposed to water samples from three sampling sites (0.1 km upstream of the outfall, at the effluent outfall, and 0.1 km below the outfall) during base-flow conditions from two months (January and May) of a temperate-region effluent-dominated stream …

Sinistral Shear During Middle Jurassic Emplacement Of The Matancilla Plutonic Complex In Northern Chile (25.4◦ S) As Evidence Of Oblique Plate Convergence During The Early Andean Orogeny, S.P. Mavor, J.S. Singleton, G. Heuser, R Gomila, N.M. Seymour, S. Williams, G. Arancibia

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

component of oblique subduction into an intra-arc shear zone. We document a shear zone at latitude 25.4^◦ S near Taltal, Chile that was associated with intrusion of the Matancilla Plutonic Complex at ~169 Ma to evaluate intra-arc deformation and possible tectonic plate configurations during this time period. Polyphase folding of Paleozoic metasedimentary rocks is overprinted by mylonitic fabrics that are most extensive in a zone up to 1.4 km wide in the thermal aureole of the granodioritic Matancilla pluton, where contact metamorphic andalusite porphyroblasts are synkinematic with fabric development. Mylonite in metasedimentary rocks is overprinted by a ~130 Ma …

Sinistral Shear During Middle Jurassic Emplacement Of The Matancilla Plutonic Complex In Northern Chile (25.4◦ S) As Evidence Of Oblique Plate Convergence During The Early Andean Orogeny, S. P. Mavor, J. S. Singleton, G. Heuser, R. Gomila, N. M. Seymour, S. Williams, G. Arancibia

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Arc magmatism in a continental subduction zone facilitates rheological weakening of the rigid upper plate, and can accommodate the partitioned trench-parallel component of oblique subduction into an intra-arc shear zone. We document a shear zone at latitude 25.4^◦ S near Taltal, Chile that was associated with intrusion of the Matancilla Plutonic Complex at ~169 Ma to evaluate intra-arc deformation and possible tectonic plate configurations during this time period. Polyphase folding of Paleozoic metasedimentary rocks is overprinted by mylonitic fabrics that are most extensive in a zone up to 1.4 km wide in the thermal aureole of the granodioritic Matancilla …

Kinetic Modeling Of Ionospheric Outflows Observed By The Visions-1 Sounding Rocket, Robert M. Albarran Ii

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Plasma escape from the high-latitude ionosphere (ion outflow) serves as a significant source of heavy plasma to magnetospheric plasma sheet and ring current regions. Outflows alter mass density and reconnection rates, hence global responses of the magnetosphere. The VISIONS-1 (VISualizing Ion Outflow via Neutral atom imaging during a Substorm) sounding rocket was launched on Feb. 7, 2013 at 8:21 UTC from Poker Flat, Alaska, into an auroral substorm with the objective of identifying the drivers and dynamics of nightside ion outflow at altitudes where it is initiated, below 1000 km. Energetic ion data from the VISIONS-1 polar cap boundary crossing …

Discovering Hidden Geothermal Signatures Using Non-Negative Matrix Factorization With Customized K-Means Clustering, V.V. Vesselinov, B. Ahmmed, M.K. Mudunuru, J.D. Pepin, E.R. Burns, D.L. Siler, S. Karra, R.S. Middleton

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Discovery of hidden geothermal resources is challenging. It requires the mining of large datasets with diverse data attributes representing subsurface hydrogeological and geothermal conditions. The commonly used play fairway analysis approach typically incorporates subject-matter expertise to analyze regional data to estimate geothermal characteristics and favorability. We demonstrate an alternative approach based on machine learning (ML) to process a geothermal dataset from southwest New Mexico (SWNM). The study region includes low- and medium-temperature hydrothermal systems. Several of these systems are not well characterized because of insufficient existing data and limited past explorative work. This study discovers hidden patterns and relations in …

Enrofloxacin And Sulfamethoxazole Sorption On Carbonized Leonardite: Kinetics, Isotherms, Influential Effects, And Antibacterial Activity Toward S. Aureus Atcc 25923, Chanat Chokejaroenrat, Chainarong Sakulthaew, Khomson Satchasataporn, Daniel D. Snow, Tarik E. Ali, Mohammed A. Assiri, Apichon Watcharenwong, Saksit Imman, Nopparat Suriyachai, Torpong Kreetachat

Nebraska Water Center: Faculty Publications

Excessive antibiotic use in veterinary applications has resulted in water contamination and potentially poses a serious threat to aquatic environments and human health. The objective of the current study was to quantify carbonized leonardite (cLND) adsorption capabilities to remove sulfamethoxazole (SMX)- and enrofloxacin (ENR)-contaminated water and to determine the microbial activity of ENR residuals on cLND following adsorption. The cLND samples prepared at 450^oC and 850^oC (cLND450 and cLND550, respectively) were evaluated for structural and physical characteristics and adsorption capabilities based on adsorption kinetics and isotherm studies. The low pyrolysis temperature of cLND resulted in a …

Odu Economist Outlines Costs Resulting From Unchecked Sea Level Rise, Brendan O'Hallarn

News Items

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Estradiol-17Β On The Sex Reversal, Survival, And Growth Of Green Sunfish Lepomis Cyanellus, Chad N. Teal, Daniel J. Schill, Susan B. Fogelson, Colby M. Roberts, Kevin Fitzsimmons, Javan M. Bauder, William T. Stewart, Scott A. Bonar

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

The feminization of green sunfish Lepomis cyanellus could expand their utility as a game fish or aquacultured species by preventing overcrowding and precocious reproduction in stocked systems. Feminization of green sunfish could also help elucidate information on their sex determination system. We report the feminization of green sunfish cohorts via oral administration of estradiol-17β (E2) during early development. A low-dose (100 E2 mg per kg of diet) and a high-dose (150 E2 mg per kg of diet) experimental E2 treatment were fed to juvenile green sunfish from 30 to 90 days post-hatch. Fish were subsequently evaluated for any treatment effect …

A Review On Natural Gamma Radiation Dose Levels And Its Health Effects, Shankramma K, Kamsali Nagaraja, Sathish L A, Charan Kumar K

International Journal of Health and Allied Sciences

Exposure to the natural background gamma radiations in both indoor and outdoor environments is inevitable. The long-term exposure to such radiations could result in lung cancer (sometimes leukaemia, CNS tumours); and hence it must be constantly monitored. In this paper, an attempt is made to review the background natural gamma radiation doses reported at various locations for the south Indian environment and it was found that the gamma levels in coastal regions were relatively higher than those in sub continental locations but in most of the locations the annual effective dose rate was within the permissible limits as per UNSCEAR

Climate Change Alters Aging Patterns Of Reservoir Aquatic Habitats, Leandro E. Miranda, Nicky M. Faucheux

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Two slow-moving developments are threatening reservoir aquatic habitats globally: aging and climate change. These events are projected to transform reservoir aquatic habitats in various and often unpredictable ways. Aging affects in-lake habitats directly, whereas climate change affects both in-lake and off-lake conditions. Climate change is expected to accelerate and, in some instances, possibly decelerate aging. Aging can be indexed as functional age, an index that signals the position of a reservoir along its lifespan relying on inlake descriptors of aquatic habitat. Using existing habitat datasets and climate projections, we developed semi-quantitative predictions about the effect of climate change on reservoir …

Toward Informatics-Enabled Preparedness For Natural Hazards To Minimize Health Impacts Of Climate Change, Jimmy Phuong, Naomi O. Riches, Luca Calzoni, Gora Datta, Deborah Duran, Asiyah Yu Lin, Ramesh P. Singh, Anthony E. Solomonides, Noreen Y. Whysel, Ramakanth Kavuluru

Publications and Research

Natural hazards (NHs) associated with climate change have been increasing in frequency and intensity. These acute events impact humans both directly and through their effects on social and environmental determinants of health. Rather than relying on a fully reactive incident response disposition, it is crucial to ramp up preparedness initiatives for worsening case scenarios. In this perspective, we review the landscape of NH effects for human health and explore the potential of health informatics to address associated challenges, specifically from a preparedness angle. We outline important components in a health informatics agenda for hazard preparedness involving hazard-disease associations, social determinants …

Norfolk, Virginia Federal Flood Risk Management Study, Jian Shen, Rico Wang, Mac Sisson

Reports

The City of Norfolk and Norfolk District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), are partnering to conduct a Coastal Storm Risk Management Study (CSRM) study to determine the Federal interest and feasibility of alternatives to mitigate coastal flooding risk in the City. The CSRM is in the Feasibility Study (FS) phase in which alternatives are proposed and developed to conceptual/preliminary design level, benefit/cost analyses are conducted, and environmental studies are completed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The magnitude of the feasibility study will require an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).

A component of the FS/EIS is the …

Sediment Source Fingerprinting As An Aid To Large-Scale Landscape Conservation And Restoration: A Review For The Mississippi River Basin, Zhen Xu, Patrick Belmont, Janice Brahney, Allen C. Gellis

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Reliable quantitative information on sediment sources to rivers is critical to mitigate contamination and target conservation and restoration actions. However, for large-scale river basins, determination of the relative importance of sediment sources is complicated by spatiotemporal variability in erosional processes and sediment sources, heterogeneity in sediment transport and deposition, and a paucity of sediment monitoring data. Sediment source fingerprinting is an increasingly adopted field-based technique that identifies the nature and relative source contribution of sediment transported in waterways. Notably, sediment source fingerprinting provides information that is independent of other field, modeling, or remotely sensed techniques. However, the diversity in sampling, …

Ionospheric Feedback And Ulf Quarter-Waves, Anatoly Streltsov, Evgeny V. Mishin

Publications

This paper presents results from the numerical investigation of nonlinear feedback interactions between ULF field-aligned currents (FACs) and the ionospheric plasma in the global magnetospheric resonator with a non-symmetrical distribution of the plasma density in the conjugate hemispheres. The density asymmetry is enhanced by the introduction of the ionospheric valley in the hemisphere where the plasma density is already lower. The main result from this study is that in the non-symmetrical resonator, the ionospheric feedback mechanism, driven by the electric field with the maximum amplitude of 50 mV/m, develops nonlinear, intense, small-scale upward currents with a characteristic quarter-wavelength structure along …

Vibration Control Of Submerged Floating Tunnel In Waves And Earthquakes Through Tuned Mass Damper, Chungkuk Jin, Sung-Jae Kim, Moohyun Kim

Ocean Engineering and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

In this study, a passive Tuned Mass Damper (TMD) is investigated to dampen resonant motions of a Submerged Floating Tunnel (SFT) in waves and earthquakes. TMD is adopted to control resonant lateral motion. A time-domain dynamics simulation model that considers the elasticity of the tunnel and mooring lines is first established, which is based on the lumped mass method and Morison equation, and the SFT-TMD interaction is considered through springs and dampers. Next, by using the Harmony Search (HS) algorithm, TMD's spring and damping coefficients are optimized; the dynamics simulations under white noise seismic excitations are continuously carried out with …

Water-Level And Recoverable Water In Storage Changes, High Plains Aquifer, Predevelopment To 2017 And 2015–17, Virginia L. Mcguire, Kellan R. Strauch

United States Geological Survey: Water Reports and Publications

Document abstract

The High Plains aquifer underlies 111.8 million acres (about 175,000 square miles) in parts of eight States—Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming. Water-level declines began in parts of the High Plains aquifer soon after the beginning of substantial groundwater irrigation (about 1950). This report presents water-level changes and change in recoverable water in storage in the High Plains aquifer from predevelopment (about 1950) to 2017 and from 2015 to 2017.

Water-level changes from predevelopment to 2017, by well, ranged from a rise of 84 feet to a decline of 262 feet; the range …

Sea Level Rise Estimation On The Pacific Coast From Southern California To Vancouver Island, Xiaoxing He, Jean-Philippe Montillet, Rui Fernandes, Timothy I. Melbourne, Weiping Jiang, Zhengkai Huang

Geological Sciences Faculty Scholarship

Previous studies have estimated the sea level rise (SLR) at various locations on the west coast of the USA and Vancouver Island in Canada. Here, we construct an entire SLR profile from Vancouver Island in the Pacific Northwest to San Diego in Southern California. First, we process global navigation satellite system (GNSS) measurements at 405 stations blanketing the whole coast to generate a profile of vertical land motion (VLM) known to bias century-long tide gauge (TG) measurements recording relative SLR (RSLR). We are then able to estimate the absolute SLR (ASLR) by correcting the SLR with the VLM. Our study …

Utilizing Nasa/Ames Global Circulation Model To Locate Low-Level Jets On Mars, Sydney Rau

Summer Community of Scholars Posters (RCEU and HCR Combined Programs)

No abstract provided.

Design And Implementation Of An Airborne Particulate-Matter Sensor, Leonard Hochmuth, Todd Mckinney

Summer Community of Scholars Posters (RCEU and HCR Combined Programs)

No abstract provided.

2022 September - Tennessee Monthly Climate Report, Tennessee Climate Office, East Tennessee State University

Tennessee Climate Office Monthly Report

No abstract provided.

A Demonstration Of A Simple Methodology Of Flood Prediction For A Coastal City Under Threat Of Sea Level Rise: The Case Of Norfolk, Va, Usa, Tal Ezer

CCPO Publications

Many coastal cities around the world are at risk of increased flooding due to sea level rise (SLR), so here a simple flood prediction method is demonstrated for one city at risk, Norfolk, VA, on the U.S. East Coast. The probability of future flooding is estimated by extending observed hourly water level for 1927–2021 into hourly estimates until 2100. Unlike most other flood prediction methods, the approach here does not use any predetermined probability distribution function of extreme events, and instead a random sampling of past data represents tides and storm surges. The probability of flooding for 3 different flood …

The Global Climate Change Knowledge And Practices Of 4-H And Extension Youth Educators, Roberta H. Hunter, Hui-Hui Wang, Bryanna J. Nelson, Devarati Bhattacharya

Journal of International Agricultural and Extension Education

4-H and Extension educators who work with youth are uniquely positioned to help them meaningfully learn about global climate change (GCC) in a way that connects to their everyday lives and interests. Yet we don’t have a baseline understanding of these educators’ knowledge of GCC or how they teach about it. This paper presents brief findings of a study intended to fill that gap in knowledge. Educators from six states responded to an online survey in 2020. GCC knowledge varied by topic and by educator instructional focus, with STEM and Civic Engagement educators scoring highest. Questions about greenhouse gasses and …