Publications
Explore scientific publications from the USGS St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center.
Filter Total Items: 919
Gulf of Mexico Climate-History Calibration Study
Reliable instrumental records of past climate are available for about the last 150 years only. To supplement the instrumental record, reconstructions of past climate are made from natural recorders such as trees, ice, corals, and microfossils preserved in sediments. These proxy records provide information on the rate and magnitude of past climate variability, factors that are critical to distingui
Authors
Jessica W. Spear, Richard Z. Poore
Assimilating models and data to enhance predictions of shoreline evolution
A modeling system that considers both long- and short-term process-driven shoreline change is presented. The modeling system is integrated into a data assimilation framework that uses sparse observations of shoreline change to correct a model forecast and to determine unobserved model variables and free parameters. Application of the assimilation algorithm also provides quantitative statistical es
Authors
Joseph W. Long, Nathaniel G. Plant
Geological Impacts and Sedimentary Record of the February 27, 2010, Chile Tsunami-La Trinchera to Concepcion
The February 27, 2010, Chilean tsunami substantially altered the coastal landscape and left a permanent depositional record that may be preserved at many locales along the central coast of Chile. From April 24 to May 2, 2010, a team of U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and Chilean scientists examined the geological impacts of the tsunami at five sites along a 200-km segment of coast centered on the ea
Authors
Robert A. Morton, Mark L. Buckley, Guy Gelfenbaum, Bruce M. Richmond, Adriano Cecioni, Osvaldo Artal, Constanza Hoffmann, Felipe Perez
Coastal Change on Gulf Islands National Seashore during Hurricane Gustav: West Ship, East Ship, Horn, and Petit Bois Islands
INTRODUCTION
Hurricane Gustav made landfall on September 1, 2008, near Cocodrie, Louisiana, as a category 2 storm, with maximum sustained winds near 170 km/hr. Hurricane-force winds, with speeds in excess of 119 km/hr, extended along 270 km of the Louisiana coastline, from Marsh Island to the central barrier islands. Tropical-storm-force winds (speeds > 63 km/hr) were felt across the coasts of Mi
Authors
Hilary F. Stockdon, Kara S. Doran, Katherine A. Serafin
A snapshot of climate variability at Tahiti ~ 9 ka using a fossil coral from IODP Expedition 310
The Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Expedition 310 recovered drill cores from the drowned reefs around the island of Tahiti (17°40′S, 149°30′W), many of which contained samples of massive corals from the genus Porites. Herein we report on one well-preserved fossil coral sample: a 13.6 cm long Porites sp. dated by uranium series techniques at 9523 ± 33 years. Monthly δ18O and Sr/Ca determi
Authors
Kristine L DeLong, Terrence M. Quinn, Chuan-Chou Shen, Ke Lin
Effects of building a sand barrier berm to mitigate the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on Louisiana marshes
The State of Louisiana requested emergency authorization on May 11, 2010, to perform spill mitigation work on the Chandeleur Islands and on all the barrier islands from Grand Terre Island eastward to Sandy Point to enhance the capability of the islands to reduce the movement of oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill to the marshes. The proposed action-building a barrier berm (essentially an arti
Authors
Dawn Lavoie, James G. Flocks, Jack L. Kindinger, A. H. Sallenger, David C. Twichell
First-order controls of extreme-storm impacts on the Mississippi-Alabama Barrier-Island chain
Predicting the morphological impacts and associated hazards of extreme storms on barrier islands is facilitated by examining historical poststorm images and identifying the predominant alongshore and cross-shore patterns of erosion and deposition for different island segments. Morphological changes on the Mississippi–Alabama barrier-island chain produced by 12 Category 3 and stronger hurricanes si
Authors
Robert A Morton
EAARL Coastal Topography-Chandeleur Islands, Louisiana, 2010: Bare Earth
These remotely sensed, geographically referenced elevation measurements of lidar-derived bare-earth (BE) and submerged topography datasets were produced collaboratively by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center, St. Petersburg, FL, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Wallops Flight Facility, VA.
This project provides highly
Authors
Amar Nayegandhi, Jamie M. Bonisteel-Cormier, John Brock, A. H. Sallenger, C. Wayne Wright, David B. Nagle, Saisudha Vivekanandan, Xan Yates, Emily S. Klipp
Cartographic Production for the FLaSH Map Study: Generation of Rugosity Grids, 2008
Project Summary
This series of raster data is a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Data Series release from the Florida Shelf Habitat Project (FLaSH). This disc contains two raster images in Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI) raster grid format, jpeg image format, and Geo-referenced Tagged Image File Format (GeoTIFF). Data is also provided in non-image ASCII format. Rugosity grids a
Authors
Lisa L. Robbins, Paul O. Knorr, Mark Hansen
A Review of Land-Cover Mapping Activities in Coastal Alabama and Mississippi
INTRODUCTION
Land-use and land-cover (LULC) data provide important information for environmental management. Data pertaining to land-cover and land-management activities are a common requirement for spatial analyses, such as watershed modeling, climate change, and hazard assessment. In coastal areas, land development, storms, and shoreline modification amplify the need for frequent and detailed l
Authors
Kathryn E. L. Smith, Amar Nayegandhi, John Brock
ATM Coastal Topography-Louisiana, 2001: UTM Zone 15 (Part 1 of 2)
These remotely sensed, geographically referenced elevation measurements of lidar-derived first-surface (FS) topography were produced collaboratively by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Florida Integrated Science Center (FISC), St. Petersburg, FL, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Wallops Flight Facility, VA.
This project provides highly detailed and accurate datase
Authors
Xan Yates, Amar Nayegandhi, John Brock, A. H. Sallenger, Emily S. Klipp, C. Wayne Wright
Recent subsidence-rate reductions in the Mississippi Delta and their geological implications
The Mississippi Delta has long been characterized as an area of rapid subsidence; however, recent subsidence rates are substantially lower than previously reported. Tide-gauge records indicate that rates of relative sea-level rise were slow from 1947 until the mid-1960s, relatively fast from the mid-1960s until the early 1990s, and then slow since the early 1990s. These trends and rates are indepe
Authors
Julie Bernier, Robert A. Morton