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Research about Michigan

Source-linked reports with geographic coverage including Michigan.

At least 415 records · Page 23Linked to original sources

Relations between habitat variability and population dynamics of bass in the Huron River, Michigan

One of the assumption of the Instream Flow Incremental Methodology (IFIM) is that the dynamics of fish populations are directly or indirectly related to habitat availability. Because this assumption has not been successfully tested in coolwater streams, questions arise regarding the validity of the methodology in such streams. The purpose of our study was to determine whether relations existed between habitat availability and population dynamics of smallmouth bass ( Micropterus dolomieu ) and rock bass ( Ambloplites rupestris ) in a 16-km reach of the Huron River in southeastern Michigan. Both species exhibited strong to moderate carryover of year classes from age 0 through age 2, indicating that adult populations were related to factors affecting recruitment. Year-class strength and subsequent numbers of yearling bass were related to the availability of young-of-year habitat during the first growing season for a cohort. Number of age-0, age-1, and adult smallmouth bass were related to the average length at age 0 for the cohort. Length at age 0 was associated with young-of-year habitat and thermal regime during the first growing season. Rock bass populations exhibited similar associations among age classes and habitat variables. Compared to smallmouth bass, the number of age-2 rock bass was associated more closely with their length at age 0 than with year-class strength. Length at age 0 and year-class strength of rock bass were associated with the same habitat variables as those related to age-0 smallmouth bass. We hypothesize that an energetic mechanism linked thermal regime to length at age 0 and that increased growth resulted in higher survival rates from age 0 to age 1. We also postulate that young-of-year habitat provided protection from predators, higher production of food resources, and increased foraging efficiency. We conclude that the IFIM is a valid methodology for instream flow investigations of coolwater streams. The results for our study support the contention that the dynamics of bass populations are directly or indirectly related to habitat availability in coolwater streams. Our study also revealed several implications related to the operational application of the IFIM in coolwater streams: 1. Greater emphasis should be placed on the alleviation of habitat impacts to early life history phases of bass. 2. Effects of the thermal regime are important in some coolwater streams even if temperatures remain within nonlethal limits. Degree-day analyses should be routinely included in study plans for applications of the IFIM in coolwater streams. 3. The smallest amount of habitat occurring within or across years is not necessarily the most significant event affecting population dynamics. The timing of extreme events can be as important as their magnitude. 4. Population-related habitat limitations were associated with high flows more often than with low flows (although both occurred). Negotiations that focus only on minimum flows may preclude viable water management options and ignore significant biological events. This finding is particularly relevant to negotiations involving hydrospeaking operations. 5. IFIM users are advised to consider the use of binary criteria in place of conventional suitability index curves in microhabitat simulations. Criteria defining the optimal ranges of variables are preferable to broader rangers, and criteria that simply define suitable conditions should be avoided entirely.

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Ground-water data for Michigan 1990

Water levels, locations, depths, and aquifers tapped are given for 107 observation wells. Tabulated data include a listing of ground-water reports in Michigan, extremes of water levels for calendar year 1990 and for the period of record, pumpage of most major ground-water users in the State, and a map showing previous collected water-quality data from selected wells. In 1990, the two largest municipal users of ground water were Lansing and Kalamazoo. Lansing pumped 7.2 billion gallons from the Saginaw Formation and glacial deposits; Kalamazoo pumped 7.0 billion gallons from glacial deposits only.

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Oxygen-isotope, X-ray-diffraction and scanning-electron-microscope examinations of authigenic-layer-silicate minerals from Mississippian and Pennsylvanian sandstones in the Michigan Basin

Oxygen-isotope compositions of authigenic-layer silicates (<2-micrometer fraction) extracted from Mississippian and Pennsylvanian sandstones in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan were determined. Petrographic and scanning-electron-microscope examinations, and X-ray diffractograms show that chlorite and kaolinite are the most common authigenic-layer silicates in Mississippian sandstones. The range of oxygen-isotope compositions of chlorite and kaolinite are +10.3 to +11.9 and +12.9 to +19.3 pars per thousand (per mil) (relative to Standard Mean Ocean Water), respectively. Kaolinite is the only authigenic-isotopic compositions of kaolinite range from +16.8 to +19.0 per mil.

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Water resources data, Michigan, water year 1992

Water resources data for the 1992 water year for Michigan consists of records of stage, discharge, and water quality of streams; stage and contents of lakes and reservoirs; and ground water levels. This report contains discharge records for 145 streamflow-gaging stations; stage only records for 1 river-gaging station and 8 lake-gaging stations; stage and contents for 4 lakes and reservoirs; water-quality records for 22 streamflow-gaging stations; water-level records for 43 ground-water wells. Also included are 33 crest-stage partial-record stations and 6 low-flow partial-record stations. Additional water data were collected at various sites not involved in the systematic data-collection program. Miscellaneous data were collected at 84 measuring sites and 20 water-quality sampling sites. These data represent that part of the National Water Data System collected by the U.S. Geological Survey and cooperating State, local, and Federal agencies in Michigan.

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Municipal ground-water development and withdrawals in the central Lower Peninsula of Michigan, 1870-1987

Municipal water-supply systems in the central Lower Peninsula of Michigan were categorized into four regions on the basis of source of water for 1987. These categories included water systems that obtained water from aquifers in glacial drift, bedrock, or both, as well as those that obtained water from surface-water sources. Data on ground-water development were collected for 182 municipal water-supply systems for the period 1870-1987. Of the 182 systems, 135 used ground water for supply. Wells in glacial-drift aquifers supplied water for 60 municipalities; wells in bedrock aquifers supplied 58 municipalities. Combinations of wells in bedrock and glacial-drift aquifers supplied 17 municipalities. Surface-water sources supplied 45 municipalities; two municipalities used surface water and ground water. Of the 182 municipal systems, withdrawal data were available for only 145. Withdrawal data were collected for the period 1903-1985. Analysis of annual ground-water withdrawal data for the 145 municipal water-supply systems indicates that average annual per capita municipal ground-water withdrawal ranged from 60 gallons per day per person in 1915 to 166 gallons per day per person in 1973. The maximum reported groundwater withdrawal for the area was 103 million gallons per day in 1979. Records from most municipalities include long periods for which no ground-water withdrawal data are available. The average annual per capita data among the municipalities varies over the period of record because of incomplete reporting of pumping rates, unusually high pumping rates, short-term economic changes, and other changes not associated with local population changes.

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Water resources data, Michigan, water year 1991

Water resources data for the 1991 water year for Michigan consists of records of stage, discharge, and water quality of streams; stage and contents of lakes and reservoirs; and water levels and water temperature of ground water. This report contains discharge records for 146 streamflow-gaging stations; stage only records for 1 river-gaging station and 13 lake-gaging stations; stage and contents for 5 lakes and reservoirs; water-quality records for 23 streamflow-gaging stations; water-level records for 51 ground-water wells; and water temperature records for 4 ground-water wells. Also included are 48 crest-stage partial-record stations and 8 low-flow partial-record stations. Additional water data were collected at various sites not involved in the systematic data-collection program. Miscellaneous data were collected at 98 measuring sites and 13 water-quality sampling sites. These data represent that part of the National Water Data System collected by the U.S. Geological Survey and cooperating State, local, and Federal agencies in Michigan.

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Statistical models for estimating daily streamflow in Michigan

Statistical models for estimating daily streamflow were analyzed for 25 pairs of streamflow-gaging stations in Michigan. Stations were paired by randomly choosing a station operated in 1989 at which 10 or more years of continuous flow data had been collected and at which flow is virtually unregulated; a nearby station was chosen where flow characteristics are similar. Streamflow data from the 25 randomly selected stations were used as the response variables; streamflow data at the nearby stations were used to generate a set of explanatory variables. Ordinary-least squares regression (OLSR) equations, autoregressive integrated moving-average (ARIMA) equations, and transfer function-noise (TFN) equations were developed to estimate the log transform of flow for the 25 randomly selected stations. The precision of each type of equation was evaluated on the basis of the standard deviation of the estimation errors. OLSR equations produce one set of estimation errors; ARIMA and TFN models each produce l sets of estimation errors corresponding to the forecast lead. The lead- l forecast is the estimate of flow l days ahead of the most recent streamflow used as a response variable in the estimation. In this analysis, the standard deviation of lead l ARIMA and TFN forecast errors were generally lower than the standard deviation of OLSR errors for l < 2 days and l < 9 days, respectively. Composite estimates were computed as a weighted average of forecasts based on TFN equations and backcasts (forecasts of the reverse-ordered series) based on ARIMA equations. The standard deviation of composite errors varied throughout the length of the estimation interval and generally was at maximum near the center of the interval. For comparison with OLSR errors, the mean standard deviation of composite errors were computed for intervals of length 1 to 40 days. The mean standard deviation of length- l composite errors were generally less than the standard deviation of the OLSR errors for l < 32 days. In addition, the composite estimates ensure a gradual transition between periods of estimated and measured flows. Model performance among stations of differing model error magnitudes were compared by computing ratios of the mean standard deviation of the length l composite errors to the standard deviation of OLSR errors. The mean error ratio for the set of 25 selected stations was less than 1 for intervals l < 32 days. Considering the frequency characteristics of the length of intervals of estimated record in Michigan, the effective mean error ratio for intervals < 30 days was 0.52. Thus, for intervals of estimation of 1 month or less, the error of the composite estimate is substantially lower than error of the OLSR estimate.

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Geology of Keweenawan Supergroup Rocks near the Porcupine Mountains, Ontonagon and Gogebic Counties, Michigan

This field trip examines the geology of rocks of the Keweenawan Supergroup (1 .1 Ga) and related intrusive rocks of the Midcontinent rift system (MRS) in the western part of the northern peninsula of Michigan. The combination of stops includes all formations of the Keweenawan Supergroup in this region. Examination of all described localities requires more than a single day and participants are encouraged to use this guidebook on their own to supplement the localities that will be visited on our one-day trip. Because of uncertainties of weather, road conditions, and remaining snow pack in early May in this region of very heavy snowfall, the stops that we will visitwill not be known until the date of the trip. Stops are numbered in stratigraphic order, from oldest to youngest, not in the order in which they will be visited.

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Upper Devonian biostratigraphy of Michigan Basin

The Late Devonian Michigan Basin was floored by the Middle and Upper Devonian Squaw Bay Limestone, which was deposited during the downwarping that produced the basin within a former Middle Devonian carbonate platform. The Squaw Bay comprises three beds, each having a different conodont fauna. The two upper beds, deposited during the transitans Zone, have different conodont biofacies that reflect this deepening. The basin was largely filled by the deep-water, anaerobic to dysaerobic, organic-rich, black Antrim Shale, which has a facies relationship with the prodeltaic, greenish gray Ellsworth Shale that prograded into the basin from the west. The Upper Devonian (Frasnian to Famennian) Antrim Shale is divided into four members, from base to top: the Norwood, Paxton, Lachine, and upper members. These members are more or less precisely dated by conodonts. The Norwood was deposited during the transitans Zone to Ancyrognathus triangularis Zone, and the Paxton was deposited from that zone probably through the linguiformis Zone at the end of the Frasnian. The overlying Lachine was deposited during the early Famennian and has yielded faunas of the Upper crepida and Lower rhomboidea Zones. Only the lower part of the upper member is exposed, and near Norwood, Michigan, it yielded conodonts of the Lower marginifera Zone. The widespread Famennian floating plant Protosalvinia (Foerstia) has not yet been found in outcrops of the Antrim, and should not be expected to occur except in the upper member or highest part of the Lachine Member. Its range in terms of conodont zones is from the Upper trachytera Zone through the Lower expansa Zone and possibly into the Middle expansa Zone. One known subsurface occurrence might be datable as rhomboidea or Lower marginifera Zone, depending on gamma ray correlations to outcrops. Black shale deposition ended when the Late Devonian mud delta of the Bedford Shale prograded across the Michigan Basin from the east and then retreated as the regressive Berea Sandstone was being deposited during the major eustatic sea-level fall that ended the Devonian. The Bedford was deposited during the Upper expansa to Lower praesulcata Zones, and the Berea was deposited during the Middle to Upper praesulcata Zones. Both formations contain the spore Retispora lepidophyta, which is a global indicator of latest Devonian age.

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Late Devonian history of Michigan basin

The Upper Devonian sequence in the Michigan Basin is a westward extension of coeval cyclical facies of the Catskill deltaic complex in the Appalachian basin. Both basins and the intervening Findlay arch express the tectonic and sedimentational effects of foreland compression and isostatic compensation produced by the Acadian orogeny. The Late Devonian Michigan Basin formed as one of several local deeps within the long Eastern Interior seaway that separated the North American craton, backboned by the Transcontinental arch, on the west from the Old Red continent, Avalon terrane (microplate), and possibly northwest Africa on the east. Basin development began in the late Middle Devonian (late Givetian varcus Zone) with subsidence of a shallow-water carbonate platform formed by rocks of the Traverse Group. Subsidence was contemporaneous with Taghanic onlap of the North American craton. During subsidence, a thin transitional sequence of increasingly deeper water limestones separated by hardgrounds was deposited in the incipient Michigan Basin during the latest Givetian to earliest Frasnian disparilis to falsiovalis Zones. Deposition of this sequence culminated during the early Frasnian transitans Zone with a calcareous mudstone bed at the top of the Squaw Bay Limestone. Subsidence was followed by a 12-m.y.-long Late Devonian episode of slow, hemipelagic, basinal sedimentation of organic black muds that formed the Antrim Shale, interrupted basinwide only by deposition of its prodeltaic Paxton Member. Westward, the basinal Antrim black muds intertongued with greenish gray, deltaic and prodeltaic muds of an eastward-prograding delta platform formed by the Ellsworth Shale. Basinal black shale deposition ceased in latest Devonian (late Famennian Lower praesulcata Zone) time, when the Bedford deltaic complex prograded westward, completely filling the Antrim Basin and even covering part of the older Ellsworth deltaic complex on the west. As sea level was lowered eustatically near the end of the Devonian, the regressive Berea Sandstone terminated deltaic deposition. After an Early Mississippian erosional episode, widespread deposition of the unconformably overlying Lower Mississippian Sunbury Shale began during the next transgression, associated with a major eustatic rise in the Lower crenulata Zone.

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Growth and overwinter survival of the Asiatic clam, Corbicula fluminea, in the St. Clair River, Michigan

We report the discovery in April 1986 of the first population of Asiatic clam, Corbicula fluminea, known to occupy a lotic environment in the Laurentian Great Lakes system. This population occupied a 3.8 km long sandy shoal in the discharge plume of a steam-electric power plant on the St. Clair River (Michigan), the outflow of Lake Huron. Samples collected April 1986 to April 1987 revealed the growth of one-year-old Corbicula (1985 cohort) began after mid-May and ended by mid-November, while water temperatures were higher than 9&deg;C. Maximum growth (0.78 mm wk -1 ) occurred between mid-August and mid-September, while water temperatures were about 16-23&deg;C. We recorded a substantial overwinter mortality of the 1986 cohort, but not the 1985 cohort; this was particularly evident at sampling locations more remote from the heated discharge of the power plant, suggesting low water temperature wast the major mortality agent. The available information suggests low water temperature in the St. Clair River may limit the success of Corbicula in the river, including portions of populations inhabiting thermal plumes, by reducing growth, delaying the onset of sexual maturity and reproduction, and causing heavy overwinter mortality in the first year of life.

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Distribution and abundance of caddisflies (Trichoptera) in the St. Clair-Detroit River system

Abundance and distribution patterns of the caddisflies of the St. Clair-Detroit River system were investigated in 1983&ndash;84. Collections of both adults and larvae yielded 70 species representing 34 genera and 12 families. Leptoceridae and Hydroptilidae were the most common families and Ceraclea the most common genus in number of species. This study adds 21 species to the Michigan record. The hydropsychids Cheumatopsyche (81, 63, 105 m &minus;2 ; log-transformed values for mean and lower and upper 95% C.L.) and Hydropsyche (70, 57, 87 m &minus;2 ) were the most abundant genera collected as larvae in the St. Clair and Detroit rivers, while Oecetis (41, 35, 47 m &minus;2 ) was the most abundant in Lake St. Clair. Larval densities of caddisflies in the Detroit River were about twice those in the St. Clair River, but the number of genera collected in each river was about equal (22 vs. 23). Larval abundances were higher in October than May because most genera had substantial overwinter population declines. Low densities and species richness in some areas of the St. Clair-Detroit River system may reflect in part continued water quality problems, but community structure has markedly improved and representation of pollution-sensitive organisms has increased over a 12&ndash;15 year period.

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Acoustic measures of the abundance and size of pelagic planktivores in Lake Michigan

Based on acoustic data taken at night and vertically stratified by bottom depth (3&ndash;110 m only), the total number (&plusmn; 95% Cl) of pelagic fishes in Lake Michigan was 43.4 &plusmn; 10.1 x 10 9 or 226.0 &plusmn; 55.2 kt in spring (mean density 0.7&ndash;3.8 fish&middot;m -2 or 1.6&ndash;12.8 ga&middot;m -2 ) and 115.8 &plusmn; 18.3 x 109 or 313.2 &plusmn; 74.3 kt in late summer, 1987 (mean density 1.1&ndash;7.0 fish&middot;m -2 or 3.0&ndash;13.2 g&middot;m -2 ); approximately 30% of this increase in numbers (35% of biomass) occurred within Green Bay. Abundance estimates from horizontally stratified (by water column depth) data were within 9-11% of vertically stratified estimates during spring but over 20% higher during summer. By extrapolation to all water depths, we estimated total pelagic biomass as 274.6 kt for spring and 410.8 kt for summer. During both seasons, smaller fishes were nearer to the surface and nearer shore than larger individuals, and acoustic measures of size approximated the sizes of fishes caught in trawls. Bioenergetic model simulations suggest that 60% of the available production of alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus) was either consumed by stocked salmonines (52.9%) or commercially harvested (7.1%) in 1987. Underwater acoustics proved a valuable tool for lakewide assessments of fish abundances in the Great Lakes.

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