Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Publications

Explore scientific publications from the USGS St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center.

Filter Total Items: 919

Relative sea-level change in South Florida during the past ~5000 years

A paucity of detailed relative sea-level (RSL) reconstructions from low latitudes hinders efforts to understand the global, regional, and local processes that cause RSL change. We reconstruct RSL change during the past ~5 ka using cores of mangrove peat at two sites (Snipe Key and Swan Key) in the Florida Keys. Remote sensing and field surveys established the relationship between peat-forming mang
Authors
Nicole S. Khan, Erica L. Ashe, Ryan P. Moyer, Andrew C. Kemp, Simon E. Engelhart, Matthew J. Brain, Lauren Toth, Amanda R. Chappel, Margaret Christie, Robert E. Kopp, Benjamin P. Horton

Subsampling large-scale digital elevation models to expedite geospatial analyses in coastal regions

Large-area, high-resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) created from light detection and ranging (LIDAR) and/or multibeam echosounder data sets are commonly used in many scientific disciplines. These DEMs can span thousands of square kilometers, typically with a spatial resolution of 1 m or finer, and can be difficult to process and analyze without specialized computers and software. Such DEMs

Authors
Kelly Ann Murphy, David G. Zawada, Kimberly K. Yates

Millennia-old coral holobiont DNA provides insight into future adaptive trajectories

Ancient DNA (aDNA) has been applied to evolutionary questions across a wide variety of taxa. Here, for the first time, we leverage aDNA from millennia-old fossil coral fragments to gain new insights into a rapidly declining western Atlantic reef ecosystem. We sampled four Acropora palmata fragments (dated 4215 BCE - 1099 CE) obtained from two Florida Keys reef cores. From these samples, we establi

Authors
Carly B. Scott, Anny Cárdenas, Matthew Mah, Vagheesh Narasimhan, Nadin Rohland, Lauren Toth, Christian Voostra, David Reich, Mikhail V Matz

Documenting the multiple facets of a subsiding landscape from coastal cities and wetlands to the continental shelf

Land subsidence is a settling, sinking, or collapse of the land surface. In the southeastern United States, subsidence is frequently observed as sinkhole collapse in karst environments, wetland degradation and loss in coastal and other low-lying areas, and inundation of coastal urban communities. Human activities such as fluid extraction, mining, and overburden alteration can cause or exacerbate s
Authors
James G. Flocks, Eileen McGraw, John Barras, Julie Bernier, Mike Bradley, Devin L. Galloway, James Landmeyer, W. Scott McBride, Christopher Smith, Kathryn Smith, Christopher Swarzenski, Lauren Toth

Barium enrichment in the non-spinose planktic foraminifer, Globorotalia truncatulinoides

Observations of elevated barium-to-calcium ratios (Ba/Ca) in Globorotalia truncatulinoides have been attributed to contaminant phases, deep calcification depth and diagenetic processes. Here we investigate intra- and inter-test Ba/Ca variability in the non-spinose planktic foraminifer, G. truncatulinoides, from a sediment trap time series in the northern Gulf of Mexico to gain insights into the en
Authors
Julie N. Richey, Jennifer S. Fehrenbacher, Caitlin E. Reynolds, Catherine Z. Davis, Howard J. Spero

Geologic framework, anthropogenic impacts, and hydrodynamics contribute to variable sediment availability and shoreface morphology at the Rockaway Peninsula, NY

Recent field and modeling studies have shown that barrier island resiliency is sensitive to sediment fluxes from the shoreface, making it important to evaluate how shoreface sediment availability varies in coastal systems. To do this, we assessed shoreface geology and morphology along the Rockaway Peninsula, NY, USA. We find that spatial variability in shoreface volume is influenced by sediment ac
Authors
Emily A. Wei, Jennifer L. Miselis

Database of topo-bathy cross-shore profiles and characteristics for the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico sandy coastlines

A database of seamless topographic and bathymetric cross-shore profiles along with metrics of the associated morphological characteristics based on the latest available lidar data ranging from 2011–2020 and bathymetry from the Continuously Updated Digital Elevation Model was developed for U.S. Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico open-ocean sandy coastlines. Cross-shore resolution ranges from 2.5 m for top
Authors
Rangley C. Mickey, Davina Passeri

The past, present, and future of coral reef growth in the Florida Keys

Coral-reef degradation is driving global-scale reductions in reef-building capacity and the ecological, geological, and socioeconomic functions it supports. The persistence of those essential functions will depend on whether coral-reef management is able to rebalance the competing processes of reef accretion and erosion. Here, we reconstructed census-based carbonate budgets of 46 reefs throughout
Authors
Lauren Toth, Travis A. Courtney, Michael A. Colella, Selena Anne-Marie Johnson, Robert R. Ruzicka

Combining process-based and data-driven approaches to forecast beach and dune change

Producing accurate hindcasts and forecasts with coupled models is challenging due to complex parameterizations that are difficult to ground in observational data. We present a calibration workflow that utilizes a series of machine learning algorithms paired with Windsurf, a coupled beach-dune model (Aeolis, the Coastal Dune Model, and XBeach), to produce hindcasts and forecasts of morphologic chan
Authors
Michael Christopher Itzkin, Laura J. Moore, Peter Ruggiero, Paige A. Hovenga, Sally D. Hacker

Scale dependence of coral reef oases and their environmental correlates

Identifying relatively intact areas within ecosystems and determining the conditions favoring their existence is necessary for effective management in the context of widespread environmental degradation. In this study, we used 3766 surveys of randomly selected sites in the United States and U.S. Territories to identify the correlates of sites categorized as “oases” (defined as sites with relativel
Authors
Robin Elahi, Peter J. Edmunds, Ruth D. Gates, Ilsa B. Kuffner, Brian B. Barnes, Iliana Chollett, Travis A. Courtney, James R. Guest, Elizabeth A. Lenz, Lauren Toth, T. Shay Viehman, Ivor D. Williams

On the potential for remote observations of coastal morphodynamics from surf-cameras

Recreational surf-cameras (surfcams) are ubiquitous along many coastlines, and yet are a largely untapped source of coastal morphodynamic observations. Surfcams offer broad spatial coverage and flexibility in data collection, but a method to remotely acquire ground control points (GCPs) and initial camera parameter approximations is necessary to better leverage this existing infrastructure to make
Authors
Matthew P. Conlin, Peter N. Adams, Margaret Louise Palmsten

Predicted sea-level rise-driven biogeomorphological changes on Fire Island, New York: Implications for people and plovers

Forecasting biogeomorphological conditions for barrier islands is critical for informing sea-level rise (SLR) planning, including management of coastal development and ecosystems. We combined five probabilistic models to predict SLR-driven changes and their implications on Fire Island, New York, by 2050. We predicted barrier island biogeomorphological conditions, dynamic landcover response, piping
Authors
Sara Lynn Zeigler, Benjamin T. Gutierrez, Erika Lentz, Nathaniel Plant, Emily J. Sturdivant, Kara S. Doran