A geospatial analysis of water-quality threats from orphan wells in principal and secondary aquifers of the United States
Joshua C. Woda, Karl B. Haase, Nicholas J. Gianoutsos, Kalle Jahn, Kristina Marie Gutchess
2025, Science of the Total Environment (976)
Throughout the history of oil and gas production in the United States, millions of wells have been drilled for exploration and energy production. Hundreds of thousands of unplugged wells are no longer actively producing and are currently under orphan status, with no responsible party obligated for plugging. Orphan wells can...
Status of water-level altitudes and long-term and short-term water-level changes in the Chicot and Evangeline (undifferentiated) and Jasper aquifers, greater Houston area, Texas, 2024
Jason K. Ramage, Alexandra C. Adams
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2025-5028
Since the early 1900s, groundwater withdrawn from the primary aquifers that compose the Gulf Coast aquifer system—the Chicot, Evangeline, and Jasper aquifers—has been an important source of water in the greater Houston area, Texas. This report, prepared by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the Harris-Galveston Subsidence District, City...
Bayesian mapping of regionally grouped, sparse, univariate earth science data
Karl J. Ellefsen, Bronwen Wang, Margaret A. Goldman
2025, Techniques and Methods 7-C29
Some earth science data are naturally grouped by region, and it is often desirable to map these data by region. However, if there are only a few samples within each region, then the map should be smoothed in an appropriate way to mitigate the problems that arise from having only...
A partner-driven decision support model to inform the reintroduction of bull trout
Joseph R. Benjamin, Judith Neibauer, Hugh Anthony, Jose Vazquez, Ashley Rawhouser, Jason B. Dunham
2025, PLoS ONE (20)
Assessments of species reintroductions involve a series of complex decisions that include human perspectives and ecological contexts. Here, we present a reintroduction assessment involving bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus) using a structured decision-making process. We approached this assessment by engaging partners representing public utilities, government agencies, and Tribes with shared interests...
Marginalizing time in habitat selection and species distribution models improves inference
Joseph Michael Eisaguirre, Layne G. Adams, Bridget Borg, Heather E. Johnson
2025, Diversity and Distributions (31)
AimRecent methodological advances for studying how animals move and use space with telemetry data have focused on fine-scale, more mechanistic inference. However, in many cases, researchers and managers remain interested in larger scale questions regarding species distribution and habitat use across study areas, landscapes, or seasonal ranges. Point processes offer...
Assessment of undiscovered oil and gas resources in the Lower Cretaceous Hosston and Travis Peak Formations, U.S. Gulf Coast, 2024
Lauri A. Burke, Stanley T. Paxton, Scott A. Kinney, Nicholas J. Gianoutsos, Russell F. Dubiel, Janet K. Pitman, Christopher J. Schenk, Tracey J. Mercier, Phuong A. Le, Heidi M. Leathers-Miller
2025, Fact Sheet 2025-3021
Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean resources of 28 million barrels of oil and 35.8 trillion cubic feet of gas in conventional and continuous accumulations within the Lower Cretaceous Hosston and Travis Peak Formations of the onshore U.S. Gulf Coast region....
No evidence for an active margin-spanning megasplay fault at the Cascadia Subduction Zone
Madeleine C. Lucas, Anna M. Ledeczi, Harold J. Tobin, Suzanne M. Carbotte, Janet Watt, Shuoshuo Han, Brian Boston, D. Jiang
2025, Seismica (2)
It has been previously proposed that a megasplay fault within the Cascadia accretionary wedge, spanning from offshore Vancouver Island to Oregon, has the potential to slip during a future Cascadia subduction zone earthquake. This hypothetical fault has major implications for tsunami size and arrival times and is included in disaster-planning...
Using long-term ecological datasets to unravel the impacts of short-term meteorological disturbances on phytoplankton communities
V. Tran-Khac, J.P. Doubek, Vijay P. Patil, J.D. Stockwell, R. Adrian, C.-W. Change, G. Dur, A. Lewandowska, J.A. Rusak, N. Salmaso, D. Straile, S.J. Thackeray, P. Venail, R. Bhattacharya, J. Brentrup, R. Bruel, H. Feuchtmayr, M.O. Gessner, H-P. Grossart, B.W. Ibelings, S. Jacquet, S. MacIntyre, S.S. Matsuzaki, E. Nodine, P. Nõges, L.G. Rudstam, F. Soulignac, P. Verburg, P. Znachor, T. Zohary, O. Anneville
2025, Freshwater Biology (70)
Extreme meteorological events such as storms are increasing in frequency and intensity, but our knowledge of their impacts on aquatic ecosystems and emergent system properties is limited. Understanding the ecological impacts of storms on the dynamics of primary producers remains a challenge that needs to be addressed to assess...
Failure to meet the exchangeability assumption in Bayesian multispecies occupancy models: Implications for study design
Gavin G. Cotterill, Douglas A. Keinath, Tabitha A. Graves
2025, Preprint, BioRxiv
Bayesian hierarchical models are ubiquitous in ecology. Random effect model structures are often employed that treat individual effects as deviations from larger population-level effects. In this way individuals are assumed to be "exchangeable" samples. Ecologists may address this exchangeability assumption intuitively, but might in certain modeling contexts ignore it altogether,...
Methodology for defining and compiling abandoned and active hydrocarbon well inventories
Brian A. Varela, Marc L. Buursink
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2025-5030
Hydrocarbon wells are not active forever; when they become permanently disused (abandoned), well infrastructure must be remediated or repurposed. Knowing which wells are abandoned is the initial and often complicated step in taking responsibility for well infrastructure. Each State creates laws and regulates hydrocarbon operations, which includes well abandonment. The...
Rhenium-osmium and oxygen isotope homogeneity during the 2022 Mauna Loa eruption and implications for basaltic magma storage
Emily A. Rhoads, Anton Kutyrev, Ilya N. Bindeman, Kendra J. Lynn, Frank A. Trusdell, Drew T. Downs, Hunter R. Edwards, Geoffrey W. Cook, James M.D. Day
2025, Bulletin of Volcanology (87)
Mauna Loa is one of the largest and most active volcanoes on Earth. The most recent eruption of Mauna Loa started on 27 November 2022, lasted for 13 days, and was preceded by the longest repose time of 38 years in its modern history. In this contribution, new trace- and highly siderophile-element...
Inferring snowpack contributions and the mean elevation of source water to streamflow in the Willamette River, Oregon using water stable isotopes
J. Renée Brooks, Henry M. Johnson, Keira R. Johnson, Steven P. Cline, Randy Comeleo, WIlliam Rugh, Lisandra Trine
2025, Hydrological Processes (39)
Snowpacks are an important water source for mountainous rivers, worldwide. The timing and volume of streamflow in systems reliant on snowmelt can be affected by changes in snow accumulation and melt time. In the Cascade Range (western USA), seasonal snowpacks are predicted to decrease by over 50% within the next...
Geomorphological evidence of near-surface ice at candidate landing sites in northern Amazonis Planitia, Mars
Erica Luzzi, Jennifer L. Heldmann, Kaj E. Williams, Giacomo Nodjoumi, Ariel Deutsch, Alexander Sehlke
2025, JGR Planets (130)
This work presents geomorphological analyses of an area at the boundary between Arcadia Planitia and northern Amazonis Planitia, situated in the northern mid-latitudes of Mars. Recent studies have indicated the presence of substantial volumes of near-surface excess ice in Arcadia Planitia, making this region a promising candidate for future human...
One-hundred fundamental, open questions to integrate methodological approaches in lake ice research
Joshua Culpepper, Sapna Sharma, Grant Gunn, Madeline Magee, Michael Frederick Meyer, Eric Anderson, Christoper D. Arp, Sarah Cooley, Wayana Dolan, Hilary Dugan, Claude R. Duguay, Benjamin C. Jones, Georgiy Kirillin, Robert Ladwig, Matti Lepparanta, Di Long, John J. Magnuson, Tamlin Pavelsky, Sebastiano Piccolroaz, Dale M. Robertson, Bethel Steele, Manu Tom, Gesa A. Weyhenmeyer, R. Iesytn Woolway, Marguerite A. Xenopoulos, Xiao Yang
2025, Water Resources Research (616)
The rate of technological innovation within aquatic sciences outpaces the collective ability of individual scientists within the field to make appropriate use of those technologies. The process of in situ lake sampling remains the primary choice to comprehensively understand an aquatic ecosystem at local scales; however, the impact of climate change on lakes necessitates...
Occurrence of pesticides in Oregon coastal waters
Bria Bleil, Elise F. Granek, Michelle Hladik
2025, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry
Pesticides are used globally for a wide range of applications including agricultural, forestry, roadsides, freshwater systems, and personal use. While pesticides have ensured efficient crop production, they are frequently transported away from application sites and are found in almost all terrestrial and aquatic environments. Pesticides are frequently detected in watersheds...
Introduction to the special section on improving measurements of earthquake source parameters
Annemarie S. Baltay Sundstrom, Rachel E. Abercrombie, Adrien Oth, Takahiko Uchide
2025, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America
Earthquake source parameters such as magnitude, seismic moment, source dimension, stress drop, and radiated energy are fundamental to understanding earthquake physics, and are also key ingredients in earthquake ground‐motion modeling, rupture simulation, and statistical seismology. However, the uncertainties in these parameters estimated from the radiated seismic wavefield are large due...
Gillnet sampling methods for monitoring status and trends of Clear Lake Hitch in Clear Lake, Lake County, California
Frederick Feyrer, Matthew J. Young, Brock Huntsman, Veronica Violette, Justin K. Clause, Jordan Buxton, Danielle Palm, Marissa L. Wulff, Jeff Gronemyer, Luis Santana
2025, Open-File Report 2025-1018
The Clear Lake Hitch (Lavinia exilicauda chi) is a minnow endemic to Clear Lake, Lake County, California. This species is listed as a threatened species under the California Endangered Species Act and has been petitioned for listing under the United States Endangered Species Act. In 2017, the U.S. Geological Survey,...
Utility of a swath laser rangefinder for characterizing mass movement flow depth and landslide initiation
Maciej Obryk, Emily Christina Bedinger, Alexandra M. Iezzi, Emily H Bryant, Kate E. Allstadt, David L. George, Benjamin B. Mirus
2025, Landslides
Mass movements such as debris flows and landslides are some of the deadliest and most destructive natural hazards occurring mostly in alpine and volcanic settings. With ever-growing populations located downslope from known debris flow channels, early warning systems can help prevent loss of life. Geophysical and technological advances have improved...
An early Holocene wet period in the southwestern United States
Kathleen B. Springer, Adam M. Hudson, Jeffrey S. Pigati, Katharine W. Huntington, Andrew J. Schauer
2025, Geology
Multiple generations of spring-fed streams traversed ∼800 km2 of the Las Vegas Valley in southern Nevada between ca. 10.9 ka and 8.5 ka, depositing an extensive tufa network. The scale of this network and diversity of tufa morphologies is novel in North America and offers an opportunity to obtain quantitative paleoclimate...
Sources and risk factors for nitrate, pathogens, and fecal contamination of private wells in rural southwestern Wisconsin, USA
Joel P. Stokdyk, Aaron Firnstahl, Kenneth R. Bradbury, Maureen A. Muldoon, Burney A Kieke, Mark A. Borchardt
2025, Water Research (275)
Household well water can be degraded by contaminants from the land's surface, but private well owners lack means to protect the source water from neighboring disturbances. Rural residents of southwestern Wisconsin, USA, rely on private well water, and the combination of land use and fractured carbonate bedrock makes groundwater vulnerable...
Nonstationary flood frequency analysis using regression in the north-central United States
Sara B. Levin
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2025-5034
Traditional flood frequency methods assume that the statistical properties of peak streamflow do not change with time and may not be appropriate for many areas in the north-central United States. This study examines a nonstationary flood frequency analysis method that uses ordinary least squares linear regression to estimate flood magnitudes...
The crystalline silica respiratory hazard from rhyolitic lava dome eruptions in New Zealand's Taupo Volcanic Zone: A case study from the 1315 CE Kaharoa eruption
Claire J. Horwell, Helen M. Emerson, Paul Ashwell, David Damby, Steve Self, Claire Nattrass, Rebecca J. Carey, Bruce F. Houghton
2025, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research (461)
The rhyolitic Kaharoa 1315 CE eruption was a complex, long-lived event from Tarawera volcano, New Zealand. Explosive phases were followed by around 5 years of lava dome extrusion and collapse which produced block-and-ash flows (BAF). Lava domes generate crystalline silica in the form of cristobalite, and rhyolitic magmas often contain quartz...
Status and trends of the Lake Huron prey fish community, 1976-2024
Darryl W. Hondorp, Robin L. DeBruyne, Cory Brant, Peter C. Esselman, Timothy P. O'Brien
2025, Report
The U. S. Geological Survey-Great Lakes Science Center has monitored annual changes in the offshore (depth > 9m) prey fish community of Lake Huron since 1973. Monitoring of prey fish populations in Lake Huron is based on a bottom trawl survey that targets demersal species (i.e., those predominantly or intermittently...
Airborne geophysical analysis to decipher salinization for coastal Louisiana
Michael Attia, Frank T.-C. Tsai, Shuo Yang, Burke J. Minsley, Wade H. Kress
2025, Water Research (271)
Coastal Louisiana is known for saltwater intrusion that threatens wetlands, aquifers, and rivers. However, the extent of saltwater intrusion is not well understood. This study develops an innovative framework with airborne electromagnetic (AEM) data to map chloride concentration distributions for wetlands in the Mississippi River deltaic plain and Chenier plain...
U.S. Geological Survey Colorado River Basin science and technology collaboration meetings on drought (2021)—Synthesis of findings
Adrian Pierre-Frederic Monroe, Jason S. Alexander, Eric D. Anderson, Patrick J. Anderson, William J. Andrews, Jessica M. Driscoll, Rebecca J. Frus, Joseph A. Hevesi, Daniel K. Jones, Kathryn A. Thomas, Anne C. Tillery, Alicia Torregrosa, Katharine G. Dahm
2025, Circular 1551
Ongoing, prolonged, and severe drought and water overuse during the first two decades of the 21st century have reduced water supplies of the Colorado River Basin, with effects cascading to ecosystems and human communities throughout the basin. In June and July 2021, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Colorado River Basin...
