Sediment Transport in Coastal Environments

The PCMSC research vessel R/V Parke Snavely heads out of the Vallejo Marina on June 11, 2019 to deploy instrument frames in Grizzly Bay for the ERO19 study.

Lukas Winkler-Prins checks on the frame setup on June 10, 2019.  This tripod has an RBR CTD, an RBR bursting pressure sensor, an RBR optical backscatter sensor, a LISST-200X, an altimeter, and two Nortek ADVs + Seapoint optical backscatter sensors, which will reveal information about water temperature and salinity, wave height and period, total s

Top row, left to right: Cordell Johnson (left) and Evan Dailey use the USGS R/V Fast Eddy to collect water samples. Cordell Johnson (left) and Jessie Lacy prepare to deploy a tripod holding instruments to measure water level, currents, and suspended sediment.

San Clemente Dam was a 106-foot-high concrete arch dam that was located approximately 18.5 miles from the Pacific Ocean on the Carmel River. It was built in 1921 to create a reservoir to support the growing residential, agricultural, and tourism-related development.

Elkhorn Slough is a tidal river delta, salt marsh, and estuary in Monterey County, California. It is near the community of Moss Landing and is fed by Carneros Creek.

Aerial view of Estero de San Antonio on Bodega Bay, near Dillon Beach, California.

Lower Tubbs Island is a tidal marsh near Midshipman Point in northern San Pablo Bay, California, and is part of the San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge. Historically, Tubbs Island was used as a club for duck hunters, protected by levees that could be opened with the tides to release salt water into the sloughs. In 1969, it was purchased by the Natu

After 100 years of restricted tidal activity to support agricultural use and salt harvesting, the tidal marshes around San Francisco Bay, like this one at Bair Island, are steadily rebuilding, returning to a stunning mosaic of marsh, mudflat, and channels.

USGS physical scientist Cordell Johnson, at left, and USGS research oceanographer Jessie Lacy, both from the Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center, guide a tripod with instruments into the waters of the Mokelumne River near the confluence with the San Joaquin River. The Mokelumne is part of the vast Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in California,&nbs

Flow from San Gregorio Creek in San Gregorio, California is often blocked by a natural sand levee when the flow is not strong enough to push through to the Pacific Ocean.

On March 21, 2017, the sediment trap from this instrument package (deployed the previous October into Monterey Canyon) is gone and the mounting frame is mangled, having been exposed to several significant turbidity currents in one deployment. 

Map view. Colored shaded-relief bathymetry map of Monterey Canyon and Vicinity map area, generated from multibeam-echosounder and bathymetric-sidescan data. Colors show depth: reds and oranges indicate shallower areas; purples, deeper areas. Illumination azimuth is 300°, from 45° above horizon.

On October 6, 2016, scientists lower an instrument package on a taut-wire mooring into the canyon. The sediment trap (long funnel-shaped device) is designed to capture mud and sand carried in turbidity flows; the other sensors measure currents and suspended sediment.

San Clemente Dam was a 106-foot-high concrete arch dam that was located approximately 18.5 miles from the Pacific Ocean on the Carmel River. It was built in 1921 to create a reservoir to support the growing residential, agricultural, and tourism-related development.

San Clemente Dam was a 106-foot-high concrete arch dam that was located approximately 18.5 miles from the Pacific Ocean on the Carmel River.

Figure 2 from the 2012 publication, "Arrival and Expansion of the Invasive Foraminifera Trochammina hadai Uchio in Padilla Bay, Washington," by McGann, et al. Trochammina hadai Uchio: A, dorsal view; B, edge view; C, ventral view.