Publications

A box model to simulate water volume and salinity of a salt pond has been developed by the U.S. Geological Survey to obtain water and salinity budgets. The model, SPOOM, uses the principle of conservation of mass to calculate daily pond volume and salinity and includes a salt crystallization and dissolution algorithm. Model inputs include precipitation, evaporation, infiltration, and water transfe

A dilatational step-over between the right-lateral Hayward and Rodgers Creek faults lies beneath San Pablo Bay in the San Francisco Bay area. A key seismic hazard issue is whether an earthquake on one of the faults could rupture through the step-over, enhancing its maximum possible magnitude. If ruptures are terminated at the step-over, then another important issue is how strain transfers through

San Francisco Bay is the defining landscape feature of the place we call ‘The Bay Area,’ but most of us only experience the Bay as we view it from an airplane window or drive across one of its bridges. These views from afar suggest that the Bay is static and sterile, but this impression is deceptive. If you are one of the many thousands of students who have experienced the Bay through a school exc

In this paper we describe a three-step procedure to infer the spatial heterogeneity in microphytobenthos primary productivity at the scale of tidal estuaries and embayments. The first step involves local measurement of the carbon assimilation rate of benthic microalgae to determine the parameters of the photosynthesis-irradiance (P-E) curves (using non-linear optimization methods). In the next ste

This article presents an overview of recent findings from hydrodynamic research on circulation and mixing in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Delta) (Figure 1) and North San Francisco Bay (North Bay) (Figure 2). For the purposes of this article, North Bay includes San Pablo Bay, Carquinez Strait, and Suisun Bay. The findings presented are those gained from field studies carried out by the U.S. Ge

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For over three decades, sand-sized protozoans known as foraminifers have made contributions to our understanding of environmental problems in urban areas (Alve, 1991; Clark, 1971; Ellison et al., 1986; Watkins, 1961). Benthic foraminiferal assemblages are particularly sensitive pollution indicators in estuarine and coastal areas (Alve, 1995) because they vary spatially and temporally in relation t

Variations in stable lead isotopic composition (240Pb, 206Pb, 207Pb, 208Pb) in three sediment cores from the San Francisco Bay estuary document temporal changes in sources of lead during the past two centuries. Sediment, with lead from natural geologic sources, and relatively homogeneous lead isotopic compositions are overlain by sediments whose isotopic compositions indicate change in the sources

A field investigation of the hydrodynamics and the resuspension and transport of particulate matter in a bottom boundary layer was carried out in South San Francisco Bay (South Bay), California, during March-April 1995. Using broadband acoustic Doppler current profilers, detailed measurements of turbulent mean velocity distribution within 1.5 m above bed have been obtained. A global method of data

A two dimensional depth-averaged sediment transport model is used to simulate field measurements of suspended sediment concentrations in northern San Francisco Bay. The model uses a semi-implicit finite difference method to solve the shallow water equations and incorporates standard empirical expressions for erosion and deposition of sediments into the transport equation as source/sink terms. The