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Scientific reports, journal articles, and information products produced by USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center scientists.
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Filter Total Items: 1337
The role of farfield tectonic stress in oceanic intraplate deformation, Gulf of Alaska
An integration of geophysical data from the Pacific Plate reveals plate bending anomalies, massive intraplate shearing and deformation, and a lack of oceanic crust magnetic lineaments in different regions across the Gulf of Alaska. We argue that farfield stress from the Yakutat Terrane collision with North America is the major driver for these unusual features. Similar plate motion vectors indicat
Authors
Robert S. Reece, Sean P. S. Gulick, Gail L. Christesen, Brian K. Horton, Harm J. VanAvendonk, Ginger Barth
Forecasting the impact of storm waves and sea-level rise on Midway Atoll and Laysan Island within the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument—a comparison of passive versus dynamic inundation models
Two inundation events in 2011 underscored the potential for elevated water levels to damage infrastructure and affect terrestrial ecosystems on the low-lying Northwestern Hawaiian Islands in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. The goal of this study was to compare passive "bathtub" inundation models based on geographic information systems (GIS) to those that include dynamic water level
Authors
Curt D. Storlazzi, Paul Berkowitz, Michelle H. Reynolds, Joshua B. Logan
Estimation of submarine mass failure probability from a sequence of deposits with age dates
The empirical probability of submarine mass failure is quantified from a sequence of dated mass-transport deposits. Several different techniques are described to estimate the parameters for a suite of candidate probability models. The techniques, previously developed for analyzing paleoseismic data, include maximum likelihood and Type II (Bayesian) maximum likelihood methods derived from renewal p
Authors
Eric L. Geist, Jason D. Chaytor, Thomas E. Parsons, Uri S. ten Brink
SedPods: a low-cost coral proxy for measuring net sedimentation
Sediment derived from impaired watersheds is a major stressor to adjacent coral reefs globally. To better understand stresses generated by specific processes and events, many coral reef scientists seek to collect physical samples of settling particles and obtain reproducible information about net rates of sediment accumulation on coral reefs. Yet, the tools most commonly used to gather this inform
Authors
Michael E. Field, Henry Chezar, Curt D. Storlazzi
Burial and exhumation of temperate bedrock reefs as elucidated by repetitive high-resolution sea floor sonar surveys: Spatial patterns and impacts to species' richness and diversity
To understand how chronic sediment burial and scour contribute to variation in the structure of algal and invertebrate communities on temperate bedrock reefs, the dynamics of the substrate and communities were monitored at locations that experience sand inundation and adjacent areas that do not. Co-located benthic scuba-transect surveys and high-resolution swath-sonar surveys were completed on bed
Authors
Curt D. Storlazzi, Theresa A. Fregoso, Jared D. Figurski, Jan Freiwald, Steve I. Lonhart, David P. Finlayson
Recent seasonal variations in arid landscape cover and aeolian sand mobility, Navajo Nation, southwestern U.S.
The socioeconomic impacts of climate change pose problems not only in devel- oping countries but also to residents of arid lands in the United States among marginalized societies with limited economic means. In the Navajo Nation, warming temperatures and recent drought have increased aeolian sediment mobility such that large, migrating sand dunes affect grazing lands, housing, and road access. Dus
Authors
Amy E. Draut, Margaret Hiza Redsteer, Lee Amoroso
Tidally influenced alongshore circulation at an inlet-adjacent shoreline
The contribution of tidal forcing to alongshore circulation inside the surfzone is investigated at a 7 km long sandy beach adjacent to a large tidal inlet. Ocean Beach in San Francisco, CA (USA) is onshore of a ∼150 km2 ebb-tidal delta and directly south of the Golden Gate, the sole entrance to San Francisco Bay. Using a coupled flow-wave numerical model, we find that the tides modulate, and in so
Authors
Jeff E. Hansen, Edwin P.L. Elias, Jeffrey H. List, Li H. Erikson, Patrick L. Barnard
Seafloor video footage and still-frame grabs from U.S. Geological Survey cruises in Hawaiian nearshore waters
Underwater video footage was collected in nearshore waters (
Authors
Ann E. Gibbs, Susan A. Cochran, Peter W. Tierney
Integration of bed characteristics, geochemical tracers, current measurements, and numerical modeling for assessing the provenance of beach sand in the San Francisco Bay Coastal System
Over 150 million m3 of sand-sized sediment has disappeared from the central region of the San Francisco Bay Coastal System during the last half century. This enormous loss may reflect numerous anthropogenic influences, such as watershed damming, bay-fill development, aggregate mining, and dredging. The reduction in Bay sediment also appears to be linked to a reduction in sediment supply and recent
Authors
Patrick L. Barnard, Amy C. Foxgrover, Edwin P.L. Elias, Li H. Erikson, James R. Hein, Mary McGann, Kira Mizell, Robert J. Rosenbauer, Peter W. Swarzenski, Renee K. Takesue, Florence L. Wong, Don Woodrow
Mw 8.6 Sumatran earthquake of 11 April 2012: rare seaward expression of oblique subduction
The magnitude 8.6 and 8.2 earthquakes off northwestern Sumatra on 11 April 2012 generated small tsunami waves that were recorded by stations around the Indian Ocean. Combining differential travel-time modeling of tsunami waves with results from back projection of seismic data reveals a complex source with a significant trench-parallel component. The oblique plate convergence indicates that ~20-50
Authors
Miaki Ishii, Eric Kiser, Eric L. Geist
Quantifying landscape change in an arctic coastal lowland using repeat airborne LiDAR
Increases in air, permafrost, and sea surface temperature, loss of sea ice, the potential for increased wave energy, and higher river discharge may all be interacting to escalate erosion of arctic coastal lowland landscapes. Here we use airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data acquired in 2006 and 2010 to detect landscape change in a 100 km2 study area on the Beaufort Sea coastal plain of
Authors
Benjamin M. Jones, Jason M. Stoker, Ann E. Gibbs, Guido Grosse, Vladimir E. Romanovsky, Thomas A. Douglas, Nichole E.M. Kinsman, Bruce M. Richmond
Seafloor off Natural Bridges State Beach, Santa Cruz, California
The seafloor off Natural Bridges State Beach, Santa Cruz,
California, is extremely varied, with sandy flats, boulder fields,
faults, and complex bedrock ridges. These ridges support rich
marine ecosystems; some of them form the "reefs" that
produce world-class surf breaks. Colors indicate seafloor
depth, from red-orange (about 2 meters or 7 feet) to magenta
(25 meters or 82 feet).
Authors
Curt D. Storlazzi, Nadine E. Golden, Helen Gibbons