Geology Reports⌕ Search

SEARCH · Geology Reports

Results for “Nature Communications”

Search indexed USGS publications on groundwater, aquifers, geologic maps, mineral resources and earthquakes. Explore source records by subject and place.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources
USGS2023

Mangrove reforestation provides greater blue carbon benefit than afforestation for mitigating global climate change

Significant efforts have been invested to restore mangrove forests worldwide through reforestation and afforestation. However, blue carbon benefit has not been compared between these two silvicultural pathways at the global scale. Here, we integrated results from direct field measurements of over 370 restoration sites around the world to show that mangrove reforestation (reestablishing mangroves where they previously colonized) had a greater carbon storage potential per hectare than afforestation (establishing mangroves where not previously mangrove). Greater carbon accumulation was mainly attributed to favorable intertidal positioning, higher nitrogen availability, and lower salinity at most reforestation sites. Reforestation of all physically feasible areas in the deforested mangrove regions of the world could promote the uptake of 671.5–688.8 Tg CO 2 -eq globally over a 40-year period, 60% more than afforesting the same global area on tidal flats (more marginal sites). Along with avoiding conflicts of habitat conversion, mangrove reforestation should be given priority when designing nature-based solutions for mitigating global climate change.

Nature Communications↗
USGS2023

Climate-driven tradeoffs between landscape connectivity and the maintenance of the coastal carbon sink

Ecosystem connectivity tends to increase the resilience and function of ecosystems responding to stressors. Coastal ecosystems sequester disproportionately large amounts of carbon, but rapid exchange of water, nutrients, and sediment makes them vulnerable to sea level rise and coastal erosion. Individual components of the coastal landscape (i.e., marsh, forest, bay) have contrasting responses to sea level rise, making it difficult to forecast the response of the integrated coastal carbon sink. Here we couple a spatially-explicit geomorphic model with a point-based carbon accumulation model, and show that landscape connectivity, in-situ carbon accumulation rates, and the size of the landscape-scale coastal carbon stock all peak at intermediate sea level rise rates despite divergent responses of individual components. Progressive loss of forest biomass under increasing sea level rise leads to a shift from a system dominated by forest biomass carbon towards one dominated by marsh soil carbon that is maintained by substantial recycling of organic carbon between marshes and bays. These results suggest that climate change strengthens connectivity between adjacent coastal ecosystems, but with tradeoffs that include a shift towards more labile carbon, smaller marsh and forest extents, and the accumulation of carbon in portions of the landscape more vulnerable to sea level rise and erosion.

Nature Communications↗
USGS2023

2019 M7.1 Ridgecrest earthquake slip distribution controlled by fault geometry inherited from Independence dike swarm

Faults often form through reactivation of pre-existing structures, developing geometries and mechanical properties specific to the system’s geologic inheritance. Competition between fault geometry and other factors (e.g., lithology) to control slip at Earth’s surface is an open question that is central to our knowledge of fault processes and seismic hazards. Here we use remote sensing data and field observations to investigate the origin of the 2019 M 7.1 Ridgecrest, California, earthquake rupture geometry and test its impact on the slip distribution observed at Earth’s surface. Common geometries suggest the fault system evolved through reactivation of structures within the surrounding Independence dike swarm (IDS). Mechanical models testing a range of fault geometries and stress fields indicate that the inherited rupture geometry strongly controlled the M 7.1 earthquake slip distribution. These results motivate revisiting the development of other large-magnitude earthquake ruptures (1992 M 7.3 Landers, 1999 M 7.1 Hector Mine) and tectonic provinces within the IDS.

California↗
USGS2023

Migrating mule deer compensate en route for phenological mismatches

Billions of animals migrate to track seasonal pulses in resources. Optimally timing migration is a key strategy, yet the ability of animals to compensate for phenological mismatches en route is largely unknown. Using GPS movement data collected from 72 adult female deer over a 10-year duration, we study a population of mule deer ( Odocoileus hemionus ) in Wyoming that lack reliable cues on their desert winter range, causing them to start migration 70 days ahead to 52 days behind the wave of spring green-up. We show that individual deer arrive at their summer range within an average 6-day window by adjusting movement speed and stopover use. Late migrants move 2.5 times faster and spend 72% less time on stopovers than early migrants, which allows them to catch the green wave. Our findings suggest that ungulates, and potentially other migratory species, possess cognitive abilities to recognize where they are in space and time relative to key resources. Such behavioral capacity may allow migratory taxa to maintain foraging benefits amid rapidly changing phenology.

Wyoming↗
USGS2023

The potential for coral reef restoration to mitigate coastal flooding as sea levels rise

The ability of reefs to protect coastlines from storm-driven flooding hinges on their capacity to keep pace with sea-level rise. Here, we show how and whether coral restoration could achieve the often-cited goal of reversing the impacts of coral-reef degradation to preserve this essential function. We combined coral-growth measurements and carbonate-budget assessments of reef-accretion potential at Buck Island Reef, U.S. Virgin Islands, with hydrodynamic modeling to quantify future coastal flooding under various coral-restoration, sea-level rise, and storm scenarios. Our results provide guidance on how restoration of Acropora palmata , if successful, could mitigate the most extreme impacts of coastal flooding by reversing projected trajectories of reef erosion and allowing reefs to keep pace with the ~0.5 m of sea-level rise expected by 2100 with moderate carbon-emissions reductions. This highlights the potential long-term benefits of pursuing coral-reef restoration alongside climate-change mitigation to support the persistence of essential coral-reef ecosystem services.

U.S. Virgin Islands, Buck Island Reef National Mon↗
USGS2023

Global assessment of marine plastic exposure for oceanic birds

Plastic pollution is distributed patchily around the world’s oceans. Likewise, marine organisms that are vulnerable to plastic ingestion or entanglement have uneven distributions. Understanding where wildlife encounters plastic is crucial for targeting research and mitigation. Oceanic seabirds, particularly petrels, frequently ingest plastic, are highly threatened, and cover vast distances during foraging and migration. However, the spatial overlap between petrels and plastics is poorly understood. Here we combine marine plastic density estimates with individual movement data for 7137 birds of 77 petrel species to estimate relative exposure risk. We identify high exposure risk areas in the Mediterranean and Black seas, and the northeast Pacific, northwest Pacific, South Atlantic and southwest Indian oceans. Plastic exposure risk varies greatly among species and populations, and between breeding and non-breeding seasons. Exposure risk is disproportionately high for Threatened species. Outside the Mediterranean and Black seas, exposure risk is highest in the high seas and Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) of the USA, Japan, and the UK. Birds generally had higher plastic exposure risk outside the EEZ of the country where they breed. We identify conservation and research priorities, and highlight that international collaboration is key to addressing the impacts of marine plastic on wide-ranging species.

Nature Communications↗
USGS2023

Plant traits poorly predict winner and loser shrub species in a warming tundra biome

Climate change is leading to species redistributions. In the tundra biome, shrubs are generally expanding, but not all tundra shrub species will benefit from warming. Winner and loser species, and the characteristics that may determine success or failure, have not yet been fully identified. Here, we investigate whether past abundance changes, current range sizes and projected range shifts derived from species distribution models are related to plant trait values and intraspecific trait variation. We combined 17,921 trait records with observed past and modelled future distributions from 62 tundra shrub species across three continents. We found that species with greater variation in seed mass and specific leaf area had larger projected range shifts, and projected winner species had greater seed mass values. However, trait values and variation were not consistently related to current and projected ranges, nor to past abundance change. Overall, our findings indicate that abundance change and range shifts will not lead to directional modifications in shrub trait composition, since winner and loser species share relatively similar trait spaces.

Nature Communications↗
USGS2023

An early warning signal for grassland degradation on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

Intense grazing may lead to grassland degradation on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, but it is difficult to predict where this will occur and to quantify it. Based on a process-based ecosystem model, we define a productivity-based stocking rate threshold that induces extreme grassland degradation to assess whether and where the current grazing activity in the region is sustainable. We find that the current stocking rate is below the threshold in ~80% of grassland areas, but in 55% of these grasslands the stocking rate exceeds half the threshold. According to our model projections, positive effects of climate change including elevated CO 2 can partly offset negative effects of grazing across nearly 70% of grasslands on the Plateau, but only in areas below the stocking rate threshold. Our analysis suggests that stocking rate that does not exceed 60% (within 50% to 70%) of the threshold may balance human demands with grassland protection in the face of climate change.

Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau↗
USGS2023

Increasing ocean wave energy observed in Earth’s seismic wavefield since the late 20th century

Ocean waves excite continuous globally observable seismic signals. We use data from 52 globally distributed seismographs to analyze the vertical component primary microseism wavefield at 14–20 s period between the late 1980s and August 2022. This signal is principally composed of Rayleigh waves generated by ocean wave seafloor tractions at less than several hundred meters depth, and is thus a proxy for near-coastal swell activity. Here we show that increasing seismic amplitudes at 3 σ significance occur at 41 (79%) and negative trends occur at 3 σ significance at eight (15%) sites. The greatest absolute increase occurs for the Antarctic Peninsula with respective acceleration amplitude and energy trends ( ± 3 σ ) of 0.037 ± 0.008 nm s −2 y −1 (0.36 ± 0.08% y −1 ) and 4.16 ± 1.07 nm 2 s −2 y −1 (0.58 ± 0.15% y −1 ), where percentage trends are relative to historical medians. The inferred global mean near-coastal ocean wave energy increase rate is 0.27 ± 0.03% y −1 for all data and is 0.35 ± 0.04% y −1 since 1 January 2000. Strongly correlated seismic amplitude station histories occur to beyond 50 ∘ of separation and show regional-to-global associations with El Niño and La Niña events.

Nature Communications↗
USGS2024

Polar bear energetic and behavioral strategies on land with implications for surviving the ice-free period

Declining Arctic sea ice is increasing polar bear land use. Polar bears on land are thought to minimize activity to conserve energy. Here, we measure the daily energy expenditure (DEE), diet, behavior, movement, and body composition changes of 20 different polar bears on land over 19–23 days from August to September (2019–2022) in Manitoba, Canada. Polar bears on land exhibited a 5.2-fold range in DEE and 19-fold range in activity, from hibernation-like DEEs to levels approaching active bears on the sea ice, including three individuals that made energetically demanding swims totaling 54–175 km. Bears consumed berries, vegetation, birds, bones, antlers, seal, and beluga. Beyond compensating for elevated DEE, there was little benefit from terrestrial foraging toward prolonging the predicted time to starvation, as 19 of 20 bears lost mass (0.4–1.7 kg•day −1 ). Although polar bears on land exhibit remarkable behavioral plasticity, our findings reinforce the risk of starvation, particularly in subadults, with forecasted increases in the onshore period.

Manitoba↗
USGS2024

Nanoscale silicate melt textures determine volcanic ash surface chemistry

Explosive volcanic eruptions produce vast quantities of silicate ash, whose surfaces are subsequently altered during atmospheric transit. These altered surfaces mediate environmental interactions, including atmospheric ice nucleation, and toxic effects in biota. A lack of knowledge of the initial, pre-altered ash surface has required previous studies to assume that the ash surface composition created during magmatic fragmentation is equivalent to the bulk particle assemblage. Here we examine ash particles generated by controlled fragmentation of andesite and find that fragmentation generates ash particles with substantial differences in surface chemistry. We attribute this disparity to observations of nanoscale melt heterogeneities, in which Fe-rich nanophases in the magmatic melt deflect and blunt fractures, thereby focusing fracture propagation within aureoles of single-phase melt formed during diffusion-limited growth of crystals. In this manner, we argue that commonly observed pre-eruptive microtextures caused by disequilibrium crystallisation and/or melt unmixing can modify fracture propagation and generate primary discrepancies in ash surface chemistry, an essential consideration for understanding the cascading consequences of reactive ash surfaces in various environments.

Nature Communications↗
USGS2024

Scattered tree death contributes to substantial forest loss in California

In recent years, large-scale tree mortality events linked to global change have occurred around the world. Current forest monitoring methods are crucial for identifying mortality hotspots, but systematic assessments of isolated or scattered dead trees over large areas are needed to reduce uncertainty on the actual extent of tree mortality. Here, we mapped individual dead trees in California using sub-meter resolution aerial photographs from 2020 and deep learning-based dead tree detection. We identified 91.4 million dead trees over 27.8 million hectares of vegetated areas (16.7-24.7% underestimation bias when compared to field data). Among these, a total of 19.5 million dead trees appeared isolated, and 60% of all dead trees occurred in small groups ( ≤ 3 dead trees within a 30 × 30 m grid), which is largely undetected by other state-level monitoring methods. The widespread mortality of individual trees impacts the carbon budget and sequestration capacity of California forests and can be considered a threat to forest health and a fuel source for future wildfires.

California↗
USGS2024

The influence of anthropogenic regulation and evaporite dissolution on earthquake-triggered ground failure

Remote sensing observations of Searles Lake following the 2019 moment magnitude 7.1 Ridgecrest, California, earthquake reveal an area where surface ejecta is arranged in a repeating hexagonal pattern that is collocated with a solution-mining operation. By analyzing geologic and geotechnical data, here we show that the hexagonal surface ejecta is likely not a result of liquefaction. Instead, we propose dissolution cavity collapse (DCC) as an alternative driving mechanism. We support this theory with pre-event Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar data, which reveals differential subsidence patterns and the creation of subsurface void space. We also find that DCC is likely triggered at a lower shaking threshold than classical liquefaction. This and other unknown mechanisms can masquerade as liquefaction, introducing bias into liquefaction prediction models that rely on liquefaction inventories. This paper also highlights the opportunities and drawbacks of using remote sensing data to disentangle the complex factors that influence earthquake-triggered ground failure.

California↗
USGS2024

Biodiversity loss reduces global terrestrial carbon storage

Natural ecosystems store large amounts of carbon globally, as organisms absorb carbon from the atmosphere to build large, long-lasting, or slow-decaying structures such as tree bark or root systems. An ecosystem’s carbon sequestration potential is tightly linked to its biological diversity. Yet when considering future projections, many carbon sequestration models fail to account for the role biodiversity plays in carbon storage. Here, we assess the consequences of plant biodiversity loss for carbon storage under multiple climate and land-use change scenarios. We link a macroecological model projecting changes in vascular plant richness under different scenarios with empirical data on relationships between biodiversity and biomass. We find that biodiversity declines from climate and land use change could lead to a global loss of between 7.44-103.14 PgC (global sustainability scenario) and 10.87-145.95 PgC (fossil-fueled development scenario). This indicates a self-reinforcing feedback loop, where higher levels of climate change lead to greater biodiversity loss, which in turn leads to greater carbon emissions and ultimately more climate change. Conversely, biodiversity conservation and restoration can help achieve climate change mitigation goals.

Nature Communications↗
USGS2024

Accelerating glacier volume loss on Juneau Icefield driven by hypsometry and melt-accelerating feedbacks

Globally, glaciers and icefields contribute significantly to sea level rise. Here we show that ice loss from Juneau Icefield, a plateau icefield in Alaska, accelerated after 2005 AD. Rates of area shrinkage were 5 times faster from 2015–2019 than from 1979–1990. Glacier volume loss remained fairly consistent (0.65–1.01 km 3 a −1 ) from 1770–1979 AD, rising to 3.08–3.72 km 3 a −1 from 1979–2010, and then doubling after 2010 AD, reaching 5.91 ± 0.80 km 3 a −1 (2010–2020). Thinning has become pervasive across the icefield plateau since 2005, accompanied by glacier recession and fragmentation. Rising equilibrium line altitudes and increasing ablation across the plateau has driven a series of hypsometrically controlled melt-accelerating feedbacks and resulted in the observed acceleration in mass loss. As glacier thinning on the plateau continues, a mass balance-elevation feedback is likely to inhibit future glacier regrowth, potentially pushing glaciers beyond a dynamic tipping point.

Alaska↗
USGS2024

Relatively stable pressure effects and time-increasing thermal contraction control Heber geothermal field deformation

Due to geological complexities and observational gaps, it is challenging to identify the governing physical processes of geothermal field deformation including ground subsidence and earthquakes. In the west and east regions of the Heber Geothermal Field (HGF), decade-long subsidence was occurring despite injection of heat-depleted brines, along with transient reversals between uplift and subsidence. These observed phenomena contradict current knowledge that injection leads to surface uplift. Here we show that high-yield production wells at the HGF center siphon fluid from surrounding regions, which can cause subsidence at low-rate injection locations. Moreover, the thermal contraction effect by cooling increases with time and eventually overwhelms the pressure effects of pressure fluctuation and poroelastic responses, which keep relatively stable during geothermal operations. The observed subsidence anomalies result from the siphoning effect and thermal contraction. We further demonstrate that thermal contraction dominates long-term trends of surface displacement and seismicity growth, while pressure effects drive near-instantaneous changes.

California↗
USGS2024

Upland Yedoma taliks are an unpredicted source of atmospheric methane

Landscape drying associated with permafrost thaw is expected to enhance microbial methane oxidation in arctic soils. Here we show that ice-rich, Yedoma permafrost deposits, comprising a disproportionately large fraction of pan-arctic soil carbon, present an alternate trajectory. Field and laboratory observations indicate that talik (perennially thawed soils in permafrost) development in unsaturated Yedoma uplands leads to unexpectedly large methane emissions (35–78 mg m −2 d −1 summer, 150–180 mg m −2 d −1 winter). Upland Yedoma talik emissions were nearly three times higher annually than northern-wetland emissions on an areal basis. Approximately 70% emissions occurred in winter, when surface-soil freezing abated methanotrophy, enhancing methane escape from the talik. Remote sensing and numerical modeling indicate the potential for widespread upland talik formation across the pan-arctic Yedoma domain during the 21 st and 22 nd centuries. Contrary to current climate model predictions, these findings imply a positive and much larger permafrost-methane-climate feedback for upland Yedoma.

Alaska, Siberia↗
USGS2024

One Health collaboration is more effective than single-sector actions at mitigating SARS-CoV-2 in deer

One Health aims to achieve optimal health outcomes for people, animals, plants, and shared environments. We describe a multisector effort to understand and mitigate SARS-CoV-2 transmission risk to humans via the spread among and between captive and wild white-tailed deer. We first framed a One Health problem with three governance sectors that manage captive deer, wild deer populations, and public health. The problem framing included identifying fundamental objectives, causal chains for transmission, and management actions. We then developed a dynamic model that linked deer herds and simulated SARS-CoV-2. Next, we evaluated management alternatives for their ability to reduce SARS-CoV-2 spread in white-tailed deer. We found that single-sector alternatives reduced transmission, but that the best-performing alternative required collaborative actions among wildlife management, agricultural management, and public health agencies. Here, we show quantitative support that One Health actions outperform single-sector responses, but may depend on coordination to track changes in this evolving system.

Nature Communications↗