Conference Papers

During 1986, the U. S. Geological Survey and the Louisiana Geological Survey began a five-year cooperative study focused on the processes which cause erosion of barrier islands. These processes must be understood in order to predict future erosion and to better manage our coastal resources. The study area includes the Louisiana barrier islands which serve to protect 41% of the nation's wetlands. T

Using a combination of geophysical techniques, in situ observations, and sampling by scuba divers, we investigated along the south shore of Tutuila Island, American Samoa, for nearshore sand deposits. To minimize the impact of future sand dredging on the island's littoral sediments, the search took place in a narrow zone between the outside of the fringing reef and the 30-m bathymetric contour. Be

A study is in progress to identify the relative significance, effects, and benefits attributable to the use of one-dimensional, unsteady, open-channel, flow-simulation models employing a variety of nonhomogeneous terms in their equation formulations. Nonhomogeneous terms being analyzed include those representing bed slope, frictional resistance, nonprismatic channel geometry, lateral flow, and (su

Experiments on steady flow over uniform grass roughness through centered single-opening contractions were conducted in the Flood Plain Simulation Facility at the U. S. Geological Survey's Gulf Coast Hydroscience Center near Bay St. Louis, Miss. The experimental series was designed to provide data for calibrating and verifying two-dimensional, vertically averaged surface-water flow models used to s

No abstract available 

No abstract available 

To better understand the coalification process, we have conducted numerous studies of the chemical structural composition of xylem tissue from gymosperm wood and related woods that has been coalified to varying degrees. The studies presented here, examine the chemical nature of buried and coalified xylem tissue at the molecular level. To achieve this, we employed pyrolysis/gas chromatography (py/g

Populations of lake trout, severely depleted in Lake Superior and virtually extirpated from the other Great Lakes because of sea lamprey predation and intense fishing, are now maintained by annual plantings of hatchery-reared fish in Lakes Michigan, Huron, and Ontario and parts of Lake Superior. The extensive coastal areas of the Great Lakes and proximity to large populations resulted in fishing p

During investigations of the regional geologic framework of Long Island shelf by means of seismic-reflection profiles and cores, Williams (1976) identified a rather limited area on the shelf off Jones Beach where Upper Cretaceous or early Tertiary age glauconite-rich lithosomes subcrop at the seabed, seaward of the shoreface. A suite of beach samples from Montauk Point to Rockaway Beach, cores fro

Recent studies document the effectiveness of sea ice in reshaping the seafloor of the inner shelf into sharp-relief features, including ice gouges with jagged flanking ridges, ice-wallow relief, and 2- to 6-m-deep strudel-scour craters. These ice-related relief forms are in disequilibrium with classic open-water hydraulic processes and thus are smoothed over by waves and currents in one to two yea

A historical survey of US bathymetric mapping is presented up through the major mapping project begun in response to the 1983, establishment of an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), 200 nautical miles seaward. The EEZ extends sovereign rights for the purposes of exploring, exploiting, conserving, and managing natural resources in the coastal ocean. This new area is approximately 3. 4 million square na

The strong north-south gradient in precipitation along the West Coast makes this region an interesting laboratory for studying the influence of climate on runoff variability in general and riverine chemistry in particular. Interannual fluctuations in large-scale atmospheric circulation and associated precipitation and runoff can produce major disruptions in the "average" climatologic picture. Such