United States Geological Survey

About: United States Geological Survey is a government organization based out in Reston, Virginia, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Groundwater. The organization has 17899 authors who have published 51097 publications receiving 2479125 citations. The organization is also known as: USGS & US Geological Survey.

The slip history of the 1994 Northridge, California, earthquake determined from strong-motion, teleseismic, GPS, and leveling data

Abstract: We present a rupture model of the Northridge earthquake, determined from the joint inversion of near-source strong ground motion recordings, P and SH teleseismic body waves, Global Positioning System (GPS) displacement vectors, and permanent uplift measured along leveling lines. The fault is defined to strike 122° and dip 40° to the south-southwest. The average rake vector is determined to be 101°, and average slip is 1.3 m; the peak slip reaches about 3 m. Our estimate of the seismic moment is 1.3 ± 0.2 × 10^(26) dyne-cm (potency of 0.4 km3). The rupture area is small relative to the overall aftershock dimensions and is approximately 15 km along strike, nearly 20 km in the dip direction, and there is no indication of slip shallower than about 5 to 6 km. The up-dip, strong-motion velocity waveforms are dominated by large S-wave pulses attributed to source directivity and are comprised of at least 2 to 3 distinct arrivals (a few seconds apart). Stations at southern azimuths indicate two main S-wave arrivals separated longer in time (about 4 to 5 sec). These observations are best modeled with a complex distribution of subevents: The initial S-wave arrival comes from an asperity that begins at the hypocenter and extends up-dip and to the north where a second, larger subevent is centered (about 12 km away). The secondary S arrivals at southern azimuths are best fit with additional energy radiation from another high slip region at a depth of 19 km, 8 km west of the hypocenter. The resolving power of the individual data sets is examined by predicting the geodetic (GPS and leveling) displacements with the dislocation model determined from the waveform data, and vice versa, and also by analyzing how well the teleseismic solution predicts the recorded strong motions. The general features of the geodetic displacements are not well predicted from the model determined independently from the strong-motion data; likewise, the slip model determined from geodetic data does not adequately reproduce the strong-motion characteristics. Whereas a particularly smooth slip pattern is sufficient to satisfy the geodetic data, the strong-motion and teleseismic data require a more heterogeneous slip distribution in order to reproduce the velocity amplitudes and frequency content. Although the teleseismic model can adequately reproduce the overall amplitude and frequency content of the strong-motion velocity recordings, it does a poor job of predicting the geodetic data. Consequently, a robust representation of the slip history and heterogeneity requires a combined analysis of these data sets.

Geomicrobiology of Subglacial Ice Above Lake Vostok, Antarctica

Abstract: Data from ice 3590 meters below Vostok Station indicate that the ice was accreted from liquid water associated with Lake Vostok. Microbes were observed at concentrations ranging from 2.8 × 10 3 to 3.6 × 10 4 cells per milliliter; no biological incorporation of selected organic substrates or bicarbonate was detected. Bacterial 16 S ribosomal DNA genes revealed low diversity in the gene population. The phylotypes were closely related to extant members of the alpha - and beta - Proteobacteria and the Actinomycetes. Extrapolation of the data from accretion ice to Lake Vostok implies that Lake Vostok may support a microbial population, despite more than 10 6 years of isolation from the atmosphere.

Estimating species richness and accumulation by modeling species occurrence and detectability

Abstract: A statistical model is developed for estimating species richness and accumulation by formulating these community-level attributes as functions of model-based estimators of species occurrence while accounting for imperfect detection of individual species. The model requires a sampling protocol wherein repeated observations are made at a collection of sample locations selected to be representative of the community. This temporal replication provides the data needed to resolve the ambiguity between species absence and nondetection when species are unobserved at sample locations. Estimates of species richness and accumulation are computed for two communities, an avian community and a butterfly community. Our model-based estimates suggest that detection failures in many bird species were attributed to low rates of occurrence, as opposed to simply low rates of detection. We estimate that the avian community contains a substantial number of uncommon species and that species richness greatly exceeds the number of species actually observed in the sample. In fact, predictions of species accumulation suggest that even doubling the number of sample locations would not have revealed all of the species in the community. In contrast, our analysis of the butterfly community suggests that many species are relatively common and that the estimated richness of species in the community is nearly equal to the number of species actually detected in the sample. Our predictions of species accumulation suggest that the number of sample locations actually used in the butterfly survey could have been cut in half and the asymptotic richness of species still would have been attained. Our approach of developing occurrence-based summaries of communities while allowing for imperfect detection of species is broadly applicable and should prove useful in the design and analysis of surveys of biodiversity.

Relationships among net primary productivity, nutrients and climate in tropical rain forest: a pan‐tropical analysis

Abstract: Tropical rain forests play a dominant role in global biosphere-atmosphere CO2 exchange. Although climate and nutrient availability regulate net primary production (NPP) and decomposition in all terrestrial ecosystems, the nature and extent of such controls in tropical forests remain poorly resolved. We conducted a meta-analysis of carbon-nutrient-climate relationships in 113 sites across the tropical forest biome. Our analyses showed that mean annual temperature was the strongest predictor of aboveground NPP (ANPP) across all tropical forests, but this relationship was driven by distinct temperature differences between upland and lowland forests. Within lowland forests (< 1000 m), a regression tree analysis revealed that foliar and soil-based measurements of phosphorus (P) were the only variables that explained a significant proportion of the variation in ANPP, although the relationships were weak. However, foliar P, foliar nitrogen (N), litter decomposition rate (k), soil N and soil respiration were all directly related with total surface (0‐10 cm) soil P concentrations. Our analysis provides some evidence that P availability regulates NPP and other ecosystem processes in lowland tropical forests, but more importantly, underscores the need for a series of large-scale nutrient manipulations ‐ especially in lowland forests ‐ to elucidate the most important nutrient interactions and controls.

Can we determine the biological availability of sediment-bound trace elements?

Abstract: It is clear from available data that the susceptibility of biological communities to trace element contamination differs among aquatic environments. One important reason is that the bioavailability of metals in sediments appears to be altered by variations in sediment geochemistry. However, methods for explaining or predicting the effect of sediment geochemistry upon metal bioavailability are poorly developed. Experimental studies demonstrate that ingestion of sediments and uptake from solution may both be important pathways of metal bioaccumulation in deposit/detritus feeding species. Relative importance between the two is geochemistry dependent. Geochemical characteristics of sediments also affect metal concentrations in the tissues of organisms collected from nature, but the specific mechanisms by which these characteristics influence metal bioavailability have not been rigorously demonstrated. Several prerequisites are necessary to better understand the processes that control metal bioavailability from sediments. 1) improved computational or analytical methods for analyzing distribution of metals among components of the sediments; 2) improved computational methods for assessing the influences of metal form in sediments on sediment-water metal exchange; and 3) a better understanding of the processes controlling bioaccumulation of metals from solution and food by metazoan species directly exposed to the sediments. Such capabilities would allow mechanistic explanations essential to the development of practical tools sought for determining sediment quality criteria for metals.