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Publications

Scientific reports, journal articles, and information products produced by USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center scientists.

Filter Total Items: 1332

Wave attenuation in the shallows of San Francisco Bay

Waves propagating over broad, gently-sloped shallows decrease in height due to frictional dissipation at the bed. We quantified wave-height evolution across 7 km of mudflat in San Pablo Bay (northern San Francisco Bay), an environment where tidal mixing prevents the formation of fluid mud. Wave height was measured along a cross shore transect (elevation range−2mto+0.45mMLLW) in winter 2011 and sum
Authors
Jessica R. Lacy, Lissa J. MacVean

Tracking millennial-scale Holocene glacial advance and retreat using osmium isotopes: Insights from the Greenland ice sheet

High-resolution Os isotope stratigraphy can aid in reconstructing Pleistocene ice sheet fluctuation and elucidating the role of local and regional weathering fluxes on the marine Os residence time. This paper presents new Os isotope data from ocean cores adjacent to the West Greenland ice sheet that have excellent chronological controls. Cores MSM-520 and DA00-06 represent distal to proximal sites
Authors
Alan D. Rooney, David Selby, Jeremy M. Llyod, David H. Roberts, Andreas Luckge, Bradley B. Sageman, Nancy G. Prouty

California State Waters Map Series — Offshore of Santa Cruz, California

IntroductionIn 2007, the California Ocean Protection Council initiated the California Seafloor Mapping Program (CSMP), designed to create a comprehensive seafloor map of high-resolution bathymetry, marine benthic habitats, and geology within the limit of California’s State Waters. The CSMP approach is to create highly detailed seafloor maps through collection, integration, interpretation, and visu
Authors
Guy R. Cochrane, Peter Dartnell, Samuel Y. Johnson, Mercedes D. Erdey, Nadine E. Golden, H. Gary Greene, Bryan E. Dieter, Stephen R. Hartwell, Andrew C. Ritchie, David P. Finlayson, Charles A. Endris, Janet Watt, Clifton W. Davenport, Ray W. Sliter, Katherine L. Maier, Lisa M. Krigsman

California State Waters map series — Offshore of Aptos, California

Introduction In 2007, the California Ocean Protection Council initiated the California Seafloor Mapping Program (CSMP), designed to create a comprehensive seafloor map of high-resolution bathymetry, marine benthic habitats, and geology within California’s State Waters. The CSMP approach is to create highly detailed seafloor maps through collection, integration, interpretation, and visualization of
Authors
Guy R. Cochrane, Samuel Y. Johnson, Peter Dartnell, H. Gary Greene, Mercedes D. Erdey, Bryan E. Dieter, Nadine E. Golden, Stephen R. Hartwell, Andrew C. Ritchie, Rikk G. Kvitek, Katherine L. Maier, Charles A. Endris, Clifton W. Davenport, Janet Watt, Ray W. Sliter, David P. Finlayson, Lisa M. Krigsman

Variability of the internal tide on the southern Monterey Bay continental shelf and associated bottom boundary layer sediment transport

A 6-month deployment of instrumentation from April to October 2012 in 90 m water depth near the outer edge of the mid-shelf mud belt in southern Monterey Bay, California, reveals the importance regional upwelling on water column density structure, potentially accounting for the majority of the variability in internal tidal energy flux across the shelf. Observations consisted of time-series measure
Authors
Kurt J. Rosenberger, Curt D. Storlazzi, Olivia Cheriton

What a drag: Quantifying the global impact of chronic bottom trawling on continental shelf sediment

Continental shelves worldwide are subject to intense bottom trawling that causes sediment to be resuspended. The widely used traditional concepts of modern sedimentary transport systems on the shelf rely only on estimates for naturally driven sediment resuspension such as through storm waves, bottom currents, and gravity-driven flows but they overlook a critical anthropogenic factor. The strong in
Authors
Ferdinand K. J. Oberle, Curt D. Storlazzi, Till J.J. Hanebuth

Vertical deformation associated with normal fault systems evolved over coseismic, postseismic, and multiseismic periods

Vertical deformation of extensional provinces varies significantly and in seemingly contradictory ways. Sparse but robust geodetic, seismic, and geologic observations in the Basin and Range province of the western United States indicate that immediately after an earthquake, vertical change primarily occurs as subsidence of the normal fault hanging wall. A few decades later, a ±100 km wide zone is
Authors
George A. Thompson, Thomas E. Parsons

Controls on ferromanganese crust composition and reconnaissance resource potential, Ninetyeast Ridge, Indian Ocean

A reconnaissance survey of Fe-Mn crusts from the 5000 km long (~31°S to 10°N) Ninetyeast Ridge (NER) in the Indian Ocean shows their widespread occurrence along the ridge as well as with water depth on the ridge flanks. The crusts are hydrogenetic based in growth rates and discrimination plots. Twenty samples from 12 crusts from 9 locations along the ridge were analyzed for chemical and mineralogi
Authors
James R. Hein, Tracey A. Conrad, Kira Mizell, Virupaxa K. Banakar, Frederick A. Frey, William W. Sager

Seismic attribute detection of faults and fluid pathways within an active strike-slip shear zone: New insights from high-resolution 3D P-Cable™ seismic data along the Hosgri Fault, offshore California

Poststack data conditioning and neural-network seismic attribute workflows are used to detect and visualize faulting and fluid migration pathways within a 13.7 km2 13.7 km2 3D P-Cable™ seismic volume located along the Hosgri Fault Zone offshore central California. The high-resolution 3D volume used in this study was collected in 2012 as part of Pacific Gas and Electric’s Central California Seismic
Authors
Jared W. Kluesner, Daniel S. Brothers

Continental Shelf Morphology and Stratigraphy Offshore San Onofre, CA: The Interplay Between Rates of Eustatic Change and Sediment Supply

New high-resolution CHIRP seismic data acquired offshore San Onofre, southern California reveal that shelf sediment distribution and thickness are primarily controlled by eustatic sea level rise and sediment supply. Throughout the majority of the study region, a prominent abrasion platform and associated shoreline cutoff are observed in the subsurface from ~ 72 to 53 m below present sea level. The
Authors
Shannon Klotsko, Neal W. Driscoll, Graham Kent, Daniel S. Brothers

A submarine landslide source for the devastating 1964 Chenega tsunami, southern Alaska

During the 1964 Great Alaska earthquake (Mw 9.2), several fjords, straits, and bays throughout southern Alaska experienced significant tsunami runup of localized, but unexplained origin. Dangerous Passage is a glacimarine fjord in western Prince William Sound, which experienced a tsunami that devastated the village of Chenega where 23 of 75 inhabitants were lost – the highest relative loss of a
Authors
Daniel S. Brothers, Peter J. Haeussler, Lee Liberty, David Finlayson, Eric L. Geist, Keith A. Labay, Michael Byerly

Impacts of Climate Change on Regulated Streamflow, Hydrologic Extremes, Hydropower Production, and Sediment Discharge in the Skagit River Basin

Previous studies have shown that the impacts of climate change on the hydrologic response of the Skagit River are likely to be substantial under natural (i.e. unregulated) conditions. To assess the combined effects of changing natural flow and dam operations that determine impacts to regulated flow, a new integrated daily-time-step reservoir operations model was constructed for the Skagit River Ba
Authors
Se-Yeun Lee, Alan F. Hamlet, Eric E. Grossman