Seafloor Imaging Reveals Nearly 1,500 Submarine Landslides Off Southern California Coast
Revisiting the 1957 Aleutian Earthquake: New Insights into Tsunami Hazards for Hawaiʻi
Open Job Announcement: PCMSC Center Director
Traversing the Sea for Science
How USGS Uses the Federal Fleet to Study Natural Hazards, Resources, and More
How USGS Uses the Federal Fleet to Study Natural Hazards, Resources, and More
New USGS-led Research Sheds Light on Deep-Sea Food Webs
Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program Scientists Presented with Distinguished Service Awards
Carolyn Ruppel and Curt Storlazzi were presented with awards at DOI HQ
Carolyn Ruppel and Curt Storlazzi were presented with awards at DOI HQ
New Study Highlights Benefits and Challenges of Using Built Structures for Coral Reef Restoration
Sediment Flows Create Seafloor Pockmarks offshore of Central California
Studying Tsunami Sands to Better Understand the 1700 Cascadia Earthquake
Collaborative Federal Investigation Reveals Cause of Huntington Oil Spill
Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center
We conduct multidisciplinary scientific research in the coastal and offshore areas of California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Hawaii, and other US Pacific Islands; and in other waterways of the United States.
Research Projects
Research Projects
Read about our science projects, find out where we are working, and discover the reasons why our research matters.
Science Seminar Series
Science Seminar Series
Join us for virtual science seminars via Microsoft Teams. Details will be posted here!
News
News Briefs: June 2024
News Briefs: June 2024
Sound Waves Newsletter: Ocean Month 2024 Special Issue
Sound Waves Newsletter: Ocean Month 2024 Special Issue
Photo Roundup: June 2024
Photo Roundup: June 2024
Publications
Iron oxyhydroxide-rich hydrothermal deposits at the high-temperature Fåvne vent field, Mohns Ridge
The recently discovered Fåvne vent field, located at 3,040 m depth on the slow-spreading Mohns mid-ocean ridge between Greenland and Norway, is a high-temperature (≥250°C) vent field that is characterized by Fe oxyhydroxide-rich and S-poor chimneys and mounds. The vent field is located on both the hanging wall and footwall of a normal fault with a ∼1.5 km throw that forms the western edge of the ∼
Testing megathrust rupture models using tsunami deposits
The 26 January 1700 CE Cascadia subduction zone earthquake ruptured much of the plate boundary and generated a tsunami that deposited sand in coastal marshes from northern California to Vancouver Island. Although the depositional record of tsunami inundation is extensive in some of these marshes, few sites have been investigated in enough detail to map the inland extent of sand deposition and depi
Pockmarks offshore Big Sur, California provide evidence for recurrent, regional, and unconfined sediment gravity flows
Recent surface ship multibeam surveys of the Sur Pockmark Field, offshore Central California, reveal >5,000 pockmarks in an area that is slated to host a wind farm, between 500- and 1,500-m water depth. Extensive fieldwork was conducted to characterize the seafloor environment and its recent geologic history, including visual observations with remotely operated vehicles, sediment core sampling, an
Science
Post-Fire Sediment Research at the Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center
The USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center (PCMSC) in Santa Cruz, California, has been growing our post-fire research contributions since 2017, through studies of post-fire sediment movement that address the Natural Hazards Mission Area objectives for understanding wildfire hazards.
Anthropogenic Nutrient Loading and Coral Health at Ofu, American Samoa
Declining water quality poses a significant and persistent threat to coral reefs worldwide, contributing to their widespread degradation. Identifying the specific impacts of water quality stressors is challenging due to the complex interplay of various physical and biological factors affecting reef health. Submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) plays a crucial role in transporting nutrients into...
Developing a USGS Digital Coral Growth Archive using Rotating X-Ray Computerized Tomography - The ACTS Project
The Archival Computed Tomography Scanning Project (ACTS) currently develops the USGS Coral Core Archive, housed at the Pacific and St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Centers, that contains approximately 500 coral reef cores from U.S. jurisdictions worldwide. This archive, is one of the largest coral archives in the world and provides historical context for coral-reef science studies...