Crustal Imaging and Characterization Team

Technology transfer to the Biological Resources Discipline (BRD) and Water Resources Discipine (WRD)

Task Objectives

The processes that occur throughout the life cycle of mineral resources are fundamentally the same as those that occur in the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere and can be traced by the same stable isotope techniques that have been successfully used in the study of mineral resources. Increasingly, scientists in the USGS Biological Resources Discipline (BRD) in particular are realizing that stable isotopes can be powerful tools in ecological studies and that geochemical tracers can be also be used successfully to support such studies. Such studies offer the unprecedented opportunity to develop the frontier of integrated earth and life science studies particularly with regard to the study of ecosystems.

One of the great opportunities in science today is the integration of earth and life sciences in the studies of ecosystems. The task seeks to transfer stable isotope technology to BRD research and actively develop the scientific infrastructure for the coming generation of integrated earth and life science studies between Geologic Discipline (GD, WRD and BRD scientists.

Statement of Work

A number of studies with scientists in BRD and WRD and their traditional partners will continue.

1. The study of grizzly bears in the Kuskokwim Montains of Alaska with FWS scientists will be completed and a report written.
2. A study the quantify the role of anadromous salmon in the diets of wolves in Denali with be completed and a report written with BRD scientists.
3. A study of the Great Basin late-Quaternary hydrologic variablility to North Alantic climate oscillations will be written with WRD scientist Larry Benson.
4. A GD Venture Captial study of the origin bats that have been killed by wind turbines will begin with BRD scientists.
5. A study with Charlie Alpers, WRD, on the cycling of mercury and sulfur in wetlands in California will begin.
6. A paper on tracing nutrients from source to fate in prairie wetlands wil be written with Glenn Guntenspergen, BRD.
7. Work will continue on a paper with Glenn Guntenspergen, BRD, of the effects of landscape level processes and climate on the cycling of sulfur in pairie wetlands.
8. Work wil coninue on a study using records in freshwater mussel shells to reconstruct historical salmon run and climate variability in Alaska with a student at the University of Alaska.

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