Geology topics

Research about Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota

Source-linked reports with geographic coverage including Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

USGS2024

The impact of future changes in climate on breeding waterfowl pairs in the US Prairie Pothole Region

Millions of small (< 10 ha) waterbodies embedded in grassland and agroecosystems in midcontinental North America provide breeding habitat to an estimated 50–80% of North America’s migratory ducks. Tens of millions of dollars are invested annually to conserve and enhance upland and wetland habitats for breeding ducks by prioritizing locations predicted to have high densities of breeding pairs under average precipitation conditions. An implicit assumption of this approach is that the distribution of breeding habitat remains relatively static. Climate change is an identified risk to this strategy. To assess this assumption and plan for potential forthcoming conditions, we estimated changes in potential breeding duck pairs under different climate scenarios by combining results of 1) a mechanistic hydrology model that simulates ecosystem processes for a subset of wetlands distributed across the U.S. Prairie Pothole Region (USPPR); 2) four downscaled climate model projections at mid- and late-century time horizons; and 3) U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service multi-decadal datasets and predictive breeding waterfowl pair statistical models. We conducted virtual and in-person informational sessions with partners to inform them on the best practices of using downscaled global circulation models and approaches for climate scenario planning. This close coordination led to a joint presentation at a monthly North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center seminar. We are also co-developing simulated wetland- waterfowl responses under different climate futures for wetlands. Information from these robust predictions of waterfowl habitat and settling patterns in this region provides land-management agencies insights in prioritizing current conservation actions given uncertainty. In addition, understanding how many breeding pairs the USPPR might support in coming decades will likely influence overall breeding population sizes and sustainable harvest objectives across North America.

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USGS2018

Implications of spatially variable costs and habitat conversion risk in landscape-scale conservation planning

“Strategic habitat conservation” refers to a process used by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to develop cost-efficient strategies for conserving wildlife populations and their habitats. Strategic habitat conservation focuses on resolving uncertainties surrounding habitat conservation to meet specific wildlife population objectives (i.e., targets) and developing tools to guide where conservation actions should be focused on the landscape. Although there are examples of using optimization models to highlight where conservation should be delivered, such methods often do not explicitly account for spatial variation in the costs of conservation actions. Furthermore, many planning approaches assume that habitat protection is a preferred option, but they do not assess its value relative to other actions, such as restoration. We developed a case study to assess the implications of accounting for and ignoring spatial variation in conservation costs in optimizing conservation targets. We included assumptions about habitat loss to determine the extent to which protection or restoration would be necessary to meet an established population target. Our case study focused on optimal placement of grassland protection or restoration actions to influence bobolink Dolichonyx oryzivorus populations in the tallgrass prairie ecoregion of the north central United States. Our results show that not accounting for spatially variable costs doubled or tripled the cost of meeting the population target. Furthermore, our results suggest that one should not assume that protecting existing habitat is always a preferred option. Rather, our results show that the balance between protection and restoration can be influenced by a combination of desired targets, assumptions about habitat loss, and the relative cost of the two actions. Our analysis also points out how difficult it may be to reach targets, given the expense to meet them. We suggest that a full accounting of expected costs and benefits will help to guide development of viable management actions and meaningful conservation plans.

Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dak↗

USGS2016

The Integrated Landscape Modeling partnership - Current status and future directions

The Integrated Landscape Modeling (ILM) partnership is an effort by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to identify, evaluate, and develop models to quantify services derived from ecosystems, with a focus on wetland ecosystems and conservation effects. The ILM partnership uses the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) modeling platform to facilitate regional quantifications of ecosystem services under various scenarios of land-cover change that are representative of differing conservation program and practice implementation scenarios. To date, the ILM InVEST partnership has resulted in capabilities to quantify carbon stores, amphibian habitat, plant-community diversity, and pollination services. Work to include waterfowl and grassland bird habitat quality is in progress. Initial InVEST modeling has been focused on the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) of the United States; future efforts might encompass other regions as data availability and knowledge increase as to how functions affecting ecosystem services differ among regions. The ILM partnership is also developing the capability for field-scale process-based modeling of depressional wetland ecosystems using the Agricultural Policy/Environmental Extender (APEX) model. Progress was made towards the development of techniques to use the APEX model for closed-basin depressional wetlands of the PPR, in addition to the open systems that the model was originally designed to simulate. The ILM partnership has matured to the stage where effects of conservation programs and practices on multiple ecosystem services can now be simulated in selected areas. Future work might include the continued development of modeling capabilities, as well as development and evaluation of differing conservation program and practice scenarios of interest to partner agencies including the USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) and Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). When combined, the ecosystem services modeling capabilities of InVEST and the process-based abilities of the APEX model should provide complementary information needed to meet USDA and the Department of the Interior information needs.

Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dak↗

USGS1983

Stratigraphy and paleontology of Mid-Cretaceous rocks in Minnesota and contiguous areas

PART A: Molluscan fossils are locally abundant at outcrops of Upper Cretaceous rocks in eastern North and South Dakota, northeastern Nebraska, northwestern Iowa, and western and northern Minnesota. Other Cretaceous mollusks have been found in the glacial deposits in Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois. The oldest well dated marine mollusks are of earliest late Cenomanian age and occur in northwestern Iowa. Mollusks of marginal marine and nonmarine environments in northwestern Iowa and south-central Minnesota are probably of slightly younger late Cenomanian age. The youngest mollusks treated in this report are bivalves of Santonian age found in the Niobrara Formation in eastern North and South Dakota. The collections indicate the presence or former presence of the following ammonite zones in the northeastern part of the Western Interior seaway: Santonian: Scaphites depressus-Clioscaphites choteauensis Coniacian: Scaphites uentrocosus; Scaphites preuentricosus Turonian: Scaphites coruensis; Scaphites whitfieldi; Prionocyclus hyatti; Subprionocyclus percarinatus; Collignoniceras woollgari; Watinoceras coloradoense Cenomanian: Dunueganoceras albertense; Dunueganoceras pondi PART B: Sedimentary rocks of early Late Cretaceous age occur in the eastern parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska, and in Minnesota and western Iowa. They are generally included in, from oldest to youngest, the Dakota Formation, Graneros Shale, Greenhorn Formation, Carlile Shale, and Niobrara Formation. However, in eastern North Dakota, they are also assigned to, in ascending order, the Belle Fourche Shale, Greenhorn Formation, Carlile Shale, and Niobrara Formation. The Graneros Shale and laterally equivalent strata in the Belle Fourche Shale grade eastward into the Coleraine Formation of northeastern Minnesota and probably into the Windrow Formation of southeastern Minnesota. Cretaceous beds locally overlie rocks of Precambrian, Paleozoic, and Jurassic ages, and they are generally overlain by glacial drift and alluvium of Quaternary age. In Minnesota and adjoining areas, formations of mid-Cretaceous age commonly overlap the dissected surface of Precambrian rocks. The thickness of the lower Upper Cretaceous sequence ranges from about 223 m in eastern North Dakota and about 200 m in northeastern Nebraska to a featheredge in Minnesota and Iowa. These lower Upper Cretaceous formations are composed mainly of shale, siltstone, sandstone, and limestone units of marine and nonmarine origin and were deposited near the eastern shore of a transgressing and regressing epicontinental sea in Cenomanian Turonian Coniacian. and Santonian time. During the late Cenoanian, the strandline was in Minnesota and was oriented generally northnortheast. Interpretations of the depositional environments of the strata and of fossils from outcrops and from clasts in glacial drift indicate that the Cretaceous seaway extended from this region northeastward across Canada to Greenland in the Turonian Coniacian, and Santonian. The Cretaceous formations are deformed into broad, shallow synclines in eastern North and South Dakota and in northeastern Nebraska. A west-trending anticline, the Sioux uplift, separates the synclines in southeastern South Dakota. Sparse evidence of minor faulting in the formations exists in northeastern South Dakota, along the strike of a major southwest-trending zone of tectonism in the Precambrian basement rocks. The structural relief in the region, on the top of the Greenhorn Formation, is at least 250 m between eastern North Dakota and northeastern Minnesota, and at least 200 m between northeastern Nebraska and northwestern Iowa. A comparison of the Cretaceous stratigraphy of the Minnesota region and of areas in Wyoming indicates that some marine transgressions and regressions were synchronous in the two regions. The transgression during Greenhorn time, the regression during early Carlile time, and the transgression dur

Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dak↗