Biologic Ecosystems

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, is one of three centers serving the mission of the USGS Coastal/Marine Hazards and Resources Program (CMHRP). Since its authorization by Congress in 1962, the CMHRP has served as the primary Federal program for marine geology and physical science research.

These field activity data releases, publications, and maps are part of the combined effort by the U.S. Geological Survey and NOAA’s Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary to map the geologic substrates of Stellwagen Bank and to study the ecology of fish and invertebrate species that inhabit the bank’s sandy substrates off Boston, Massachusetts.

From June 12 to July 3, 2019, the USGS sailed onboard Schmidt Ocean Institute’s R/V Falkor with several other partners, seeking methane seeps along the seafloor of several underwater canyons off the coast of Oregon and Washington. On this cruise, USGS scientists will seek to understand how much methane is coming out of these seeps, how it travels through the water column, and its ultimate fate in...

In the Field; Land, Sea, and Air Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center scientists and staff study coastal and ocean resources and processes from the land, sea, and air, to shorelines and estuaries to the continental shelf, deep sea, lake floor, river bottoms and shallow subsurfaces environments. We have implemented new safety and fieldwork processes to maintain social distancing to ensure...

Estuarine processes, hazards, and ecosystems describes several interdisciplinary projects that aim to quantify and understand estuarine processes through observations and numerical modeling. Both the spatial and temporal scales of these mechanisms are important, and therefore require modern instrumentation and state-of-the-art hydrodynamic models. These projects are led from the U.S. Geological...

Coastal Environmental Geochemistry research at the Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center spans multiple ecosystems and topics, including coastal wetlands, aquifers, and estuaries, with the goal of providing data and guidance to federal, state, local, and private land owners and managers on these vital ecosystems.

The Sea Floor Mapping Group (SFMG) is a core capability at the Woods Hole Coastal & Marine Science Center (WHCMSC) that provides support for coastal, lacustrine and marine geologic research. The staff has a wide-range of expertise and is responsible for geophysical and sampling data acquisition, processing, interpretation and publication, logistics, design, and research and development. SFMG has...

The Stellwagen Bank region, located off Boston, Massachusetts, just east of Massachusetts Bay between Cape Cod and Cape Ann, is a glaciated terrain of shallow banks and deep basins with water depths ranging from 20 to 200 meters. The region is heavily utilized by humans and marine species. It serves as a National Marine Sanctuary; a rich commercial and recreational fishing ground; a disposal site...

The Core Laboratories Project is a research support service of the WHCMSC which provides analytical and technical infrastructure, and supports of a range of projects associated with Coastal Biogeochemical Processes, Coastal Groundwater, and Sedimentology.

Policy-makers, individuals from government agencies, and natural resource managers are under increasing pressure to manage changing coastal areas to meet social, economic, and natural resource demands, particularly under a regime of sea-level rise. Scientific knowledge of coastal processes and habitat-use can support decision-makers as they balance these often-conflicting human and ecological...

The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) is the cornerstone of our Nation's environmental laws and was enacted to ensure that information on the environmental impacts of any Federal, or federally funded, action is available to public officials and citizens before decisions are made and before actions are taken

This project is complete and the website is archived and no longer updated. Boston Harbor, once one of the most polluted waterways in the nation, is in the final stages of a major cleanup. A $3.8 billion cleanup program, begun in 1985 by the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) was designed to address more than 300 years of metropolitan waste disposal. The cleanup has significantly...