Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Publications

Scientific reports, journal articles, and information products produced by USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center scientists.

USGS Pubs Warehouse

Photo of library shelves full of books

Browse the USGS Publications Warehouse to broaden your search with enhanced filtering.

USGS Pubs Warehouse

Sound Waves Newsletter

Coastline with data plotted on top to quantify the amount of damage caused by hurricanes.

Browse issues of the Sound Waves newsletter, featuring coastal and marine research news from across the USGS.

Read Newsletter
Filter Total Items: 1337

Coral skeleton δ15N as a tracer of historic nutrient loading to a coral reef in Maui, Hawaii

Excess nutrient loading to nearshore environments has been linked to declining water quality and ecosystem health. Macro-algal blooms, eutrophication, and reduction in coral cover have been observed in West Maui, Hawaii, and linked to nutrient inputs from coastal submarine groundwater seeps. Here, we present a forty-year record of nitrogen isotopes (δ15N) of intra-crystalline coral skeletal organi
Authors
Joseph Murray, Nancy G. Prouty, Sara E. Peek, Adina Paytan
By
Natural Hazards Mission Area, Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center, 3-D CT Core Imaging Laboratory, Core Preparation and Analysis Laboratory and Sample Repositories

Seasonal, tidal, and geomorphic controls on sediment export to Amazon River tidal floodplains

Mainstem–floodplain material exchange in the tidal freshwater reach of ma jor rivers may lead to significant sequestration of riverine sediment, but this zone remains understudied compared to adjacent fluvial and marine environ ments. This knowledge gap prompts investigation of floodplain-incising tidalchannels found along the banks of tidal rivers and their role in facilitating water and suspende
Authors
Daniel J. Nowacki, Andrea S. Ogston, Charles A. Nittrouer, Aaron Fricke, Nils Asp, Pedro Walfir M. Souza Filho
By
Natural Hazards Mission Area, Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center, Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

The influence of shelf bathymetry and beach topography on extreme total water levels: Linking large-scale changes of the wave climate to local coastal hazards

Total water levels (TWLs) at the coast are driven by a combination of deterministic (e.g., tides) and stochastic (e.g., waves, storm surge, and sea level anomalies) processes. The contribution of each process to TWLs varies depending on regional differences in climate and framework geology, as well as local-scale variations in beach morphology, coastal orientation, and shelf bathymetry. Large-scal
Authors
Katherine A. Serafin, Peter Ruggiero, Patrick L. Barnard, Hilary F. Stockdon
By
Natural Hazards Mission Area, Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center

Offshore landslide hazard curves from mapped landslide size distributions

We present a method to calculate landslide hazard curves along offshore margins based on size distributions of submarine landslides. The method analyzes ten different continental margins, that were mapped by high-resolution multibeam sonar with landslide scar areas measured by a consistent GIS procedure. Statistical tests of several different probability distribution models indicate that the logno
Authors
Eric L. Geist, Uri S. ten Brink
By
Natural Hazards Mission Area, Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center, Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in the Pacific sand lance, Puget Sound, Washington

Forage fish are small, abundant, schooling planktivores that form a critical link in marine food webs by transferring energy from plankton up to birds, fishes, and marine mammals. Forage fishes in Puget Sound include the iconic Pacific herring as well as lesser known species such as surf smelt and the Pacific sand lance. There are significant knowledge gaps regarding the basic life history and p
Authors
Theresa Liedtke, Kathleen Conn, Richard Dinicola, Renee Takesue
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Natural Hazards Mission Area, Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center, Washington Water Science Center, Western Fisheries Research Center, Columbia River Research Laboratory (CRRL)

A revised continuous surface elevation model for modeling

A digital elevation model (DEM) is an essential component of any hydrodynamic model. The Delta Modeling Section (Section) has maintained a database of bathymetry soundings and levee surveys for decades and published a 10-meter (10m) DEM for the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Delta) (California Department of Water Resources 2012). In collaboration with the U.S. Geological Surve
Authors
Rueen-Fang Wang, Eli Ateljevich, Theresa A. Fregoso, Bruce E. Jaffe
By
Natural Hazards Mission Area, Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center

Sources, timing, and fate of sediment and contaminants in the nearshore: insights from geochemistry

Rivers in Cascade watersheds carry sediment with a volcanic composition that is distinct from the plutonic composition of the Puget lowlands. Compositional properties (signatures) allow discrimination of river-sourced Cascade from lowland sediment, and inferences about transport pathways. Surface sediment on land contains atmospheric radionuclides whose known decay rates define monthly (7Be) and d

Authors
Renee K. Takesue, Kathleen E. Conn, Margaret Dutch
By
Natural Hazards Mission Area, Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center

Assessing patterns of annual change to permafrost bluffs along the North Slope coast of Alaska using high-resolution imagery and elevation models

Coastal permafrost bluffs at Barter Island, on the North Slope, Beaufort Sea Coast of Alaska are among the most rapidly eroding along Alaska’s coast, having retreated up to 132 m between 1955 and 2015. Here we quantify rates and patterns of change over a single year using very-high resolution orthophotomosaics and co-registered surface elevation models derived from a survey-grade form of structure

Authors
Ann E. Gibbs, Matt Nolan, Bruce M. Richmond, Alexander G. Snyder, Li Erikson
By
Natural Hazards Mission Area, Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center

HyCReWW: A hybrid coral reef wave and water level metamodel

Wave-induced flooding is a major coastal hazard on tropical islands fronted by coral reefs. The variability of shape, size, and physical characteristics of the reefs across the globe make it difficult to obtain a parameterization of wave run-up, which is needed for risk assessments. Therefore, we developed the HyCReWW metamodel to predict wave run-up under a wide range of reef morphometric and off
Authors
Ana C. Rueda, Laura Cagigal, Stuart Pearson, Jose Antolínez, Curt D. Storlazzi, Ap van Dongeren, Paula Camus, Fernando J. Mendez
By
Natural Hazards Mission Area, Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center

Tsunamigenic splay faults imply a long-term asperity in southern Prince William Sound, Alaska

Coseismic slip partitioning and uplift over multiple earthquake cycles is critical to understanding upper‐plate fault development. Bathymetric and seismic reflection data from the 1964 Mw9.2 Great Alaska earthquake rupture area reveal sea floor scarps along the tsunamigenic Patton Bay/Cape Cleare/Middleton Island fault system. The faults splay from a megathrust where duplexing and underplating pro

Authors
Lee Liberty, Daniel S. Brothers, Peter J. Haeussler
By
Natural Hazards Mission Area, Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, Alaska Science Center, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center

Discovery of an extensive deep-sea fossil serpulid reef associated with a cold seep, Santa Monica Basin, California

Multi-beam mapping of the Santa Monica Basin in the eastern Pacific has revealed the existence of a number of elevated bathymetric features, or mounds, harboring cold seep communities. During 2013-2014, mounds at ~600 m water depth were observed for the first time and sampled by Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute’s ROV Doc Ricketts. Active cold seeps were found, but surprisingly one of these
Authors
Magdalena N Georgieva, Charles K. Paull, Crispin TS Little, Mary McGann, Diana Sahy, Daniel Condon, Lonny Lundsten, Jack Pewsey, David W Caress, Robert C Vrijenhoek
By
Natural Hazards Mission Area, Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center

Dynamic flood modeling essential to assess the coastal impacts of climate change

Coastal inundation due to sea level rise (SLR) is projected to displace hundreds of millions of people worldwide over the next century, creating significant economic, humanitarian, and national-security challenges. However, the majority of previous efforts to characterize potential coastal impacts of climate change have focused primarily on long-term SLR with a static tide level, and have not comp
Authors
Patrick L. Barnard, Li H. Erikson, Amy C. Foxgrover, Juliette A. Finzi Hart, Patrick W. Limber, Andrea C. O'Neill, Maarten van Ormondt, Sean Vitousek, Nathan J. Wood, Maya K. Hayden, Jeanne M. Jones
By
Natural Hazards Mission Area, Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center
Was this page helpful?