Publications
Scientific reports, journal articles, and information products produced by USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center scientists.
USGS Pubs Warehouse
USGS Pubs Warehouse
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Sound Waves Newsletter
Sound Waves Newsletter
Browse issues of the Sound Waves newsletter, featuring coastal and marine research news from across the USGS.
Filter Total Items: 1331
Overview of the ARkStorm scenario
The U.S. Geological Survey, Multi Hazards Demonstration Project (MHDP) uses hazards science to improve resiliency of communities to natural disasters including earthquakes, tsunamis, wildfires, landslides, floods and coastal erosion. The project engages emergency planners, businesses, universities, government agencies, and others in preparing for major natural disasters. The project also helps to
Authors
Keith Porter, Anne Wein, Charles N. Alpers, Allan Baez, Patrick L. Barnard, James Carter, Alessandra Corsi, James Costner, Dale Cox, Tapash Das, Mike Dettinger, James Done, Charles Eadie, Marcia Eymann, Justin Ferris, Prasad Gunturi, Mimi Hughes, Robert Jarrett, Laurie Johnson, Hanh Dam Le-Griffin, David Mitchell, Suzette Morman, Paul Neiman, Anna Olsen, Suzanne Perry, Geoffrey Plumlee, Martin Ralph, David Reynolds, Adam Rose, Kathleen Schaefer, Julie Serakos, William Siembieda, Jonathan D. Stock, David Strong, Ian Sue Wing, Alex Tang, Pete Thomas, Ken Topping, Chris Wills, Lucile Jones
By
Natural Hazards Mission Area, Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, Earthquake Hazards Program, Science Application for Risk Reduction, Geologic Hazards Science Center, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center, Big Sur Landslides, Reducing Risk, San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Estuary
Chapter 50 Geology and tectonic development of the Amerasia and Canada Basins, Arctic Ocean
Amerasia Basin is the product of two phases of counterclockwise rotational opening about a pole in the lower Mackenzie Valley of NW Canada. Phase 1 opening brought ocean–continent transition crust (serpentinized peridotite?) to near the seafloor of the proto-Amerasia Basin, created detachment on the Eskimo Lakes Fault Zone of the Canadian Arctic margin and thinned the continental crust between the
Authors
Arthur Grantz, Patrick E. Hart, Vicki A Childers
New insights of tsunami hazard from the 2011 Tohoku-oki event
We report initial results from our recent field survey documenting the inundation and resultant deposits of the 2011 Tohoku-oki tsunami from Sendai Plain, Japan. The tsunami inundated up to 4.5 km inland but the > 0.5 cm-thick sand deposit extended only 2.8 km (62% of the inundation distance). The deposit however continued as a mud layer to the inundation limit. The mud deposit contained high conc
Authors
K. Goto, C. Chague-Goff, S. Fujino, J. Goff, Bruce Jaffe, Y. Nishimura, Bruce M. Richmond, D. Sugawara, Witold Szczucinski, D.R. Tappin, Robert C. Witter, E. Yulianto
Observations of coarse sediment movements on the mixed beach of the Elwha Delta, Washington
Mixed beaches, with poorly sorted grains of multiple sizes, are a common and globally distributed shoreline type. Despite this, rates and mechanisms of sediment transport on mixed beaches are poorly understood. A series of tracer deployments using native clasts implanted with Radio Frequency Identifier (RFID) tags was used to develop a better understanding of sediment transport directions and magn
Authors
I.M. Miller, Jonathan Warrick, C. Morgan
Hydrodynamics of a bathymetrically complex fringing coral reef embayment: Wave climate, in situ observations, and wave prediction
This paper examines the relationship between offshore wave climate and nearshore waves and currents at Hanalei Bay, Hawaii, an exposed bay fringed with coral reefs. Analysis of both offshore in situ data and numerical hindcasts identify the predominance of two wave conditions: a mode associated with local trade winds and an episodic pattern associated with distant source long-period swells. Analys
Authors
R. Hoeke, C. Storlazzi, P. Ridd
Recent storm and tsunami coarse-clast deposit characteristics, southeast Hawai'i
Deposits formed by extreme waves can be useful in elucidating the type and characteristics of the depositional event. The study area on the southeast coast of the island of Hawaiʻi is characterized by the presence of geologically young basalts of known age that are mantled by recent wave-derived sedimentary deposits. The area has been impacted by large swells, storms and tsunamis over the last cen
Authors
B. M. Richmond, Sebastian Watt, M. Buckley, B. E. Jaffe, G. Gelfenbaum, R.A. Morton
Book review: Nonlinear ocean waves and the inverse scattering transform
Nonlinear Ocean Waves and the Inverse Scattering Transform is a comprehensive examination of ocean waves built upon the theory of nonlinear Fourier analysis. The renowned author, Alfred R. Osborne, is perhaps best known for the discovery of internal solitons in the Andaman Sea during the 1970s. In this book, he provides an extensive treatment of nonlinear water waves based on a nonlinear spectr
Authors
Eric L. Geist
Rising sea level may cause decline of fringing coral reefs
Coral reefs are major marine ecosystems and critical resources for marine diversity and fisheries. These ecosystems are widely recognized to be at risk from a number of stressors, and added to those in the past several decades is climate change due to anthropogenically driven increases in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. Most threatening to most coral reefs are elevated sea surface
Authors
Michael E. Field, Andrea S. Ogston, Curt D. Storlazzi
Growth rate and age distribution of deep-sea black corals in the Gulf of Mexico
Black corals (order Antipatharia) are important long-lived, habitat-forming, sessile, benthic suspension feeders that are found in all oceans and are usually found in water depths greater than 30 m. Deep-water black corals are some of the slowest-growing, longest-lived deep-sea corals known. Previous age dating of a limited number of black coral samples in the Gulf of Mexico focused on extrapolate
Authors
N.G. Prouty, E.B. Roark, N.A. Buster, Steve W. Ross
The characteristics of gas hydrates recovered from the Mount Elbert Gas Hydrate Stratigraphic Test Well, Alaska North Slope
Systematic analyses have been carried out on two gas hydrate-bearing sediment core samples, HYPV4, which was preserved by CH4 gas pressurization, and HYLN7, which was preserved in liquid-nitrogen, recovered from the BPXA-DOE-USGS Mount Elbert Stratigraphic Test Well. Gas hydrate in the studied core samples was found by observation to have developed in sediment pores, and the distribution of hydrat
Authors
H. Lu, Thomas Lorenson, I.L. Moudrakovski, J.A. Ripmeester, Timothy S. Collett, R.B. Hunter, C.I. Ratcliffe
The use (and misuse) of sediment traps in coral reef environments: Theory, observations, and suggested protocols
Sediment traps are commonly used as standard tools for monitoring “sedimentation” in coral reef environments. In much of the literature where sediment traps were used to measure the effects of “sedimentation” on corals, it is clear from deployment descriptions and interpretations of the resulting data that information derived from sediment traps has frequently been misinterpreted or misapplied. De
Authors
C. D. Storlazzi, M.E. Field, Michael H. Bothner
Effects of fringing reefs on tsunami inundation: American Samoa
A numerical model of tsunami inundation, Delft3D, which has been validated for the 29 September 2009 tsunami in Tutuila, American Samoa, is used to better understand the impact of fringing coral reefs and embayments on tsunami wave heights, inundation distances, and velocities. The inundation model is used to explore the general conditions under which fringing reefs act as coastal buffers against
Authors
G. Gelfenbaum, A. Apotsos, A.W. Stevens, B. Jaffe