Geology topics

H. Lee

Publications and source records attributed to H. Lee.

9 recordsLinked to original sources

USGS2019

Proposed attributes of national wildlife health programmes

Wildlife health is important for conservation, healthy ecosystems, sustainable development, and biosecurity. It presents unique challenges for national programme governance and delivery because wildlife health crosses not only jurisdictional responsibilities and authorities but also inherently spans multiple sectors of expertise. The World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) encourages its Members to have wildlife disease monitoring and notification systems. Where national wildlife health surveillance programmes do exist, they vary in scope and size. Evidence-based guidance is lacking on the critical functions and roles needed to meet the OIE’s recommendations and other expectations of a national programme. A literature review and consultation with national wildlife health programme leaders identified five key attributes of national programmes including: (1) being knowledge and science based; (2) fostering cross-nation equivalence and harmonisation; (3) developing partnerships and national coordination; (4) providing leadership and administration of national efforts and (5) capacity development. Proposed core purposes include: (1) establishing and communication of the national wildlife health status; (2) leading national planning; (3) centralising information and expertise; (4) developing national networks leading to harmonisation and collaborations; (5) developing wildlife health workforces and (6) centralising administration and management of national programmes. A national wildlife health programme should aim to identify, effectively communicate, and manage the risk to or from a country’s wildlife populations. It should generate the appropriate knowledge required to improve the effectiveness of wildlife policies and systems, including identifyinhttp://www.oie.int/en/publications-and-documentation/scientific-and-technical-review-free-access/peer-reviewed-papers-for-the-plurithematic-review-2018/g and assessing emerging priorities, thus increasing warning for preparedness and preventive actions.

Scientific and Technical Review↗

USGS2013

User's guide and metadata for WestuRe: U.S. Pacific Coast estuary/watershed data and R tools

Overview There are about 350 estuaries along the U.S. Pacific Coast (U.S. Fish andWildlife 2011). Basic descriptive data for these estuaries, such as their size and watershed area, are important for coastal-scale research and conservation planning. However, this information is spread among many sources, making it difficult to find and standardize. The goal of the WestuRe Project is to provide a framework to: (1) make general descriptive data for estuaries and their watersheds more accessible, and (2) provide tools to make analyzing and visualizing these data easier. The WestuRe download includes data describing U.S. Pacific Coast estuaries and their corresponding watersheds from northern Washington (including the region located along the Strait of Juan de Fuca that goes from Port Townsend to Cape Flattery, 48.383°N) to southern California (Tijuana Estuary, 32.557°N), excluding Puget Sound proper and coastal islands (Fig. 1). The WestuRe data currently include shapefiles of estuary and watershed polygons as well as CSV files summarizing geomorphological and climate data (Fig. 2, Section 2). The WestuRe tools help users extract and view relevant data using the statistical program R and Google Earth (Fig. 3, Section 3). Potential applications of the data include: Describing and comparing estuaries and watersheds at the landscape scale Identifying relationships between estuary/watershed variables Incorporating estuary/watershed attributes in models to predict species and habitat distributions Classifying estuaries according to morphology, climate, and habitat (Lee and Brown 2009)

California, Oregon, Washington↗

USGS2009

Helmand river hydrologic studies using ALOS PALSAR InSAR and ENVISAT altimetry

The Helmand River wetland represents the only fresh-water resource in southern Afghanistan and one of the least mapped water basins in the world. The relatively narrow wetland consists of mostly marshes surrounded by dry lands. In this study, we demonstrate the use of the Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR) Interferometric SAR (InSAR) to detect the changes of the Helmand River wetland water level. InSAR images are combined with the geocentric water level measurements from the retracked high-rate (18-Hz) Environmental Satellite (Envisat) radar altimetry to construct absolute water level changes over the marshes. It is demonstrated that the integration of the altimeter and InSAR can provide spatio-temporal measurements of water level variation over the Helmand River marshes where in situ measurements are absent. ?? Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Marine Geodesy↗

USGS2009

Geomorphology, stability and mobility of the Currituck slide

Over the last 100,000??years, the U.S. Atlantic continental margin has experienced various types of mass movements some of which are believed to have taken place at times of low sea level. At one of these times of low sea level a significant trigger caused a major submarine mass movement off the coast of Virginia: the Currituck slide which is believed to have taken place between 24 and 50??ka ago. This slide removed a total volume of about 165??km 3 from this section of the continental slope. The departure zone still shows a very clean surface that dips at 4?? and is only covered by a thin veneer of postglacial sediment. Multibeam bathymetric and seismic survey data suggest that this slide took place along three failures surfaces. The morphology of the source area suggests that the sediments were already at least normally consolidated at the time of failure. The slide debris covers an area as much as 55??km wide that extends 180??km from the estimated toe of the original slope. The back analysis of slide initiation indicates that very high pore pressure, a strong earthquake, or both had to be generated to trigger slides on such a low failure plane angle. The shape of the failure plane, the fact that the surface is almost clear of any debris, and the mobility analysis, all support the argument that the slides took place nearly simultaneously. Potential causes for the generation of high pore pressures could be seepage forces from coastal aquifers, delta construction and related pore pressure generation due to the local sediment loading, gas hydrates, and earthquakes. This slide, and its origin, is a spectacular example of the potential threat that submarine mass movements can pose to the US Atlantic coast and underline the need to further assess the potential for the generation of such large slides, like the Grand Banks 1927 landslide of similar volume. ?? 2008 Elsevier B.V.

Marine Geology↗

USGS2008

Predictions for an invaded world: A strategy to predict the distribution of native and non-indigenous species at multiple scales

Habitat models can be used to predict the distributions of marine and estuarine non-indigenous species (NIS) over several spatial scales. At an estuary scale, our goal is to predict the estuaries most likely to be invaded, but at a habitat scale, the goal is to predict the specific locations within an estuary that are most vulnerable to invasion. As an initial step in evaluating several habitat models, model performance for a suite of benthic species with reasonably well-known distributions on the Pacific coast of the US needs to be compared. We discuss the utility of non-parametric multiplicative regression (NPMR) for predicting habitat- and estuary-scale distributions of native and NIS. NPMR incorporates interactions among variables, allows qualitative and categorical variables, and utilizes data on absence as well as presence. Preliminary results indicate that NPMR generally performs well at both spatial scales and that distributions of NIS are predicted as well as those of native species. For most species, latitude was the single best predictor, although similar model performance could be obtained at both spatial scales with combinations of other habitat variables. Errors of commission were more frequent at a habitat scale, with omission and commission errors approximately equal at an estuary scale. ?? 2008 International Council for the Exploration of the Sea. Published by Oxford Journals. All rights reserved.

Conference Paper↗

USGS2005

DEM, tide and velocity over sulzberger ice shelf, West Antarctica

Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets preserve more than 77% of the global fresh water and could raise global sea level by several meters if completely melted. Ocean tides near and under ice shelves shifts the grounding line position significantly and are one of current limitations to study glacier dynamics and mass balance. The Sulzberger ice shelf is an area of ice mass flux change in West Antarctica and has not yet been well studied. In this study, we use repeat-pass synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry data from the ERS-1 and ERS-2 tandem missions for generation of a high-resolution (60-m) Digital Elevation Model (DEM) including tidal deformation detection and ice stream velocity of the Sulzberger Ice Shelf. Other satellite data such as laser altimeter measurements with fine foot-prints (70-m) from NASA's ICESat are used for validation and analyses. The resulting DEM has an accuracy of-0.57??5.88 m and is demonstrated to be useful for grounding line detection and ice mass balance studies. The deformation observed by InSAR is found to be primarily due to ocean tides and atmospheric pressure. The 2-D ice stream velocities computed agree qualitatively with previous methods on part of the Ice Shelf from passive microwave remote-sensing data (i.e., LANDSAT). ?? 2005 IEEE.

Conference Paper↗

USGS2003

Headless submarine canyons and fluid flow on the toe of the Cascadia accretionary complex

Headless submarine canyons with steep headwalls and shallowly sloping floors occur on both the second and third landward vergent anticlines on the toe of the Cascadia accretionary complex off central Oregon (45 °N, 125° 30′W). In September 1993, we carried out a series of nine deep tow camera sled runs and nine ALVIN dives to examine the relationship between fluid venting, structure and canyon formation. We studied four canyons on the second and third landward vergent anticlines, as well as the apparently unfailed intercanyon regions along strike. All evidence of fluid expulsion is associated with the canyons; we found no evidence of fluid flow between canyons. Even though all fluid seeps are related to canyons, we did not find seeps in all canyons, and the location of the seeps within the canyons differed. On the landward facing limb of the second landward vergent anticline a robust cold seep community occurs at the canyon’s inflection point. This seep is characterized by chemosynthetic vent clams, tube worms and extensive authigenic carbonate. Fluids for this seep may utilize high-permeability flow paths either parallel to bedding within the second thrust ridge or along the underlying thrust fault before leaking into the overriding section. Two seaward facing canyons on the third anticlinal ridge have vent clam communities near the canyon mouths at approximately the intersection between the anticlinal ridge and the adjacent forearc basin. No seeps were found along strike at the intersection of the slope basin and anticlinal ridge. We infer that the lack of seepage along strike and the presence of seeps in canyons may be related to fluid flow below the forearc basin/slope unconformity (overpressured by the impinging thrust fault to the west?) directed toward canyons at the surface.

Basin Research↗

USGS2003

Slope basins, headless canyons, and submarine palaeoseismology of the Cascadia accretionary complex

A combination of geomorphological, seismic reflection and geotechnical data constrains this study of sediment erosion and deposition at the toe of the Cascadia accretionary prism. We conducted a series of ALVIN dives in a region south of Astoria Canyon to examine the interrelationship of fluid flow and slope failure in a series of headless submarine canyons. Elevated head gradients at the inflection point of canyons have been inferred to assist in localized failures that feed sediment into a closed slope basin. Measured head gradients are an order of magnitude too low to cause seepage-induced slope failure alone; we therefore propose transient slope failure mechanisms. Intercanyon slopes are uniformly unscarred and smooth, although consolidation tests indicate that up to several metres of material may have been removed. A sheet-like failure would remove sediment uniformly, preserving the observed smooth intercanyon slope. Earthquake-induced liquefaction is a likely trigger for this type of sheet failure as the slope is too steep and short for sediment flow to organize itself into channels. Bathymetric and seismic reflection data suggest sediment in a trench slope basin between the second and third ridges from the prism’s deformation is derived locally. A comparison of the amounts of material removed from the slopes and that in the basin shows that the amount of material removed from the slopes may slightly exceed the amount of material in the basin, implying that a small amount of sediment has escaped the basin, perhaps when the second ridge was too low to form a sufficient dam, or through a gap in the second ridge to the south. Regardless, almost 80% of the material shed off the slopes around the basin is deposited locally, whereas the remaining 20% is redeposited on the incoming section and will be re-accreted.

Oregon↗

USGS2001

1D numerical model of muddy subaqueous and subaerial debris flows

A 1D numerical model of the downslope flow and deposition of muddy subaerial and subaqueous debris flows is presented. The model incorporates the Herschel-Bulkley and bilinear rheologies of viscoplastic fluid. The more familiar Bingham model is integrated into the Herschel-Bulkley rheological model. The conservation equations of mass and momentum of single-phase laminar debris flow are layer-integrated using the slender flow approximation. They are then expressed in a Lagrangian framework and solved numerically using an explicit finite difference scheme. Starting from a given initial shape, a debris flow is allowed to collapse and propagate over a specified topography. Comparison between the model predictions and laboratory experiments shows reasonable agreement. The model is used to study the effect of the ambient fluid density, initial shape of the failed mass, and rheological model on the simulated propagation of the front and runout characteristics of muddy debris flows. It is found that initial failure shape influence the front velocity but has little bearing on the final deposit shape. In the Bingham model, the excess of shear stress above the yield strength is proportional to the strain rate to the first power. This exponent is free to vary in the Herschel-Bulkley model. When it is set at a value lower than unity, the resulting final deposits are thicker and shorter than in the case of the Bingham rheology. The final deposit resulting from the bilinear model is longer and thinner than that from the Bingham model due to the fact that the debris flow is allowed to act as a Newtonian fluid at low shear rate in the bilinear model.

Journal of Hydraulic Engineering↗