Publications

As part of the U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR, Arlington, VA) mine burial program, an experiment was conducted off the pier at Santa Cruz, CA, to measure the near-bed suspended sediment reference concentration under waves and currents. Two tripods were deployed to carry out the measurements; one consisting mainly of acoustical instrumentation and the other solely of optical instruments. The tr

This report summarizes a three-year study of aeolian sedimentary processes in the Colorado River corridor, Grand Canyon, Arizona, and discusses the relevance of those processes to the preservation of archaeological sites. Findings are based upon detailed sedimentary and geomorphic investigations conducted in three areas of the river corridor, continuous measurements of wind, precipitation, and aeo

In cooperation with the U.S. National Park Service (NPS), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has mapped the underwater environment in and adjacent to three parks along the Kona coast on the island of Hawai‘i. This report is the second of two produced for the NPS on the geologic resource evaluation of Pu‘ukoholā Heiau National Historic Site (PUHE) and presents benthic habitat mapping of the waters o

Overview: The International Symposium on Antarctic Earth Sciences (ISAES) is held once every four years to provide an international forum for presenting research results and new ideas and for planning future Antarctic geoscience research projects. This Tenth ISAES coincides with the International Polar Year (IPY; 50th Anniversary of the International Geophysical Year) and has been structured to sh

Broad continental shelf regions such as the New York Bight are the product of a complex geologic history and dynamic oceanographic processes, dominated by the Holocene marine transgression (>100 m sea-level rise) following the end of the last Pleistocene ice advance ~ 20,000 years ago. The area of the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (U.S. EEZ) territory, extending 200 nautical miles seaward from the

The Southern California Coastal Water Research Project (SCCWRP) is developing a hydrodynamic model of the SGR estuary, which is part of the comprehensive water-quality model of the SGR estuary and watershed investigated by SCCWRP and other local agencies. The hydrodynamic model will help understanding of 1) the exchange processes between the estuary and coastal ocean; 2) the circulation patterns i

During the late Neogene, the Lambert Glacier–Amery Ice Shelf drainage system flowed across Prydz Bay and showed several changes in flow pattern. In the Early Pliocene, the Lambert Glacier ice stream reached the shelf edge and built a trough mouth fan on the upper continental slope. This was associated with an increase in ice discharge from the Princess Elizabeth Land coast into Prydz Bay. The trou

Nearshore dredge disposal was performed during the summer of 2005 at Ocean Beach, San Francisco, CA, a high energy tidal and wave environment. This trial run was an attempt to provide a buffer to a reach of coastline where wave attack during the winter months has had a severe impact on existing sewage infrastructure. Although the subsequent beach response was inconclusive, after one year the peak

Habitat mapping and characterization has been defined as a high-priority management issue for the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary (OCNMS), especially for poorly known deep-sea habitats that may be sensitive to anthropogenic disturbance. As a result, a team of scientists from OCNMS, National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS), and other partnering institutions initiated a series of s

A Tsunami Pilot Study was conducted for the area surrounding the coastal town of Seaside, Oregon, as part of the Federal Emergency Management's (FEMA) Flood Insurance Rate Map Modernization Program (Tsunami Pilot Study Working Group, 2006). The Cascadia subduction zone extends from Cape Mendocino, California, to Vancouver Island, Canada. The Seaside area was chosen because it is typical of many co

Sediments of the beach, nearshore, and continental shelves record a complex interplay of processes including wave energy and direction , currents, beach erosion or accretion, bluff or cliff retreat, fluvial input, sediment longshore and cross-shelf transport processes, contaminant content and transport, sediment sources and sinks, and others. In turn, sediments and rocks modify wave patterns, affe

Results from different tsunami forecasting and hazard assessment models are compared with observed tsunami wave heights from the 26 December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Forecast models are based on initial earthquake information and are used to estimate tsunami wave heights during propagation. An empirical forecast relationship based only on seismic moment provides a close estimate to the observed