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Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

2022 Annual Report

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Mapping methane reduction potential of tidal wetland restoration in the United States

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Opportunities to improve alignment with the FAIR Principles for U.S. Geological Survey data

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Scientific literature and information products produced by Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center staff

Featured Journal Article

Herring River, Wellfleet, MA

Calibrating optical turbidity measurements with suspended-sediment concentrations from the Herring River in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, from November 2018 to November 2019

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Featured USGS Series

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Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center—2022 Annual Report.  The 2022 annual report highlights accomplishments, includes a list of publications, and summarizes the work of the center and each of the science groups.

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Coastal and Marine Research News from Across the USGS

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Filter Total Items: 1691

The Coastal Carbon Library and Atlas: Open source soil data and tools supporting blue carbon research and policy

Quantifying carbon fluxes into and out of coastal soils is critical to meeting greenhouse gas reduction and coastal resiliency goals. Numerous ‘blue carbon’ studies have generated, or benefitted from, synthetic datasets. However, the community those efforts inspired does not have a centralized, standardized database of disaggregated data used to estimate carbon stocks and fluxes. In this paper, we
Authors
James R. Holmquist, David H. Klinges, Michael Lonneman, Jaxine Wolfe, Brandon M. Boyd, Meagan J. Eagle, Jonathan Sanderman, Katherine Todd-Brown, Lauren N. Brown, E. Fay Belshe, Samantha K. Chapman, Ron Corstanje, Christopher N. Janousek, James T. Morris, Gregory Noe, Andre S. Rovai, Amanda C. Spivak, Megan Vahsen, Lisamarie Windham-Myers, Kevin D. Kroeger, Patrick Megonigal
By
Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Biophysical drivers of coastal treeline elevation

Sea level rise is leading to the rapid migration of marshes into coastal forests and other terrestrial ecosystems. Although complex biophysical interactions likely govern these ecosystem transitions, projections of sea level driven land conversion commonly rely on a simplified “threshold elevation” that represents the elevation of the marsh-upland boundary based on tidal datums alone. To determine

Authors
Grace Molino, Joel A. Carr, Neil K. Ganju, Mathew Kirwan
By
Chesapeake Bay Activities, Eastern Ecological Science Center, Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Carbonate chemistry and carbon sequestration driven by inorganic carbon outwelling from mangroves and saltmarshes

Mangroves and saltmarshes are biogeochemical hotspots storing carbon in sediments and in the ocean following lateral carbon export (outwelling). Coastal seawater pH is modified by both uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide and natural biogeochemical processes, e.g., wetland inputs. Here, we investigate how mangroves and saltmarshes influence coastal carbonate chemistry and quantify the contributi
Authors
Gloria Reithmaier, Alex Cabral, Anirban Akhand, Matthew Bogard, Alberto V. Borges, Steven Bouillon, David J. Burdige, Mitchel Call, Nengwang Chen, Xiaogang Chen, Jr. Cotovicz, Meagan J. Eagle, Erik Kristensen, Kevin D. Kroeger, Zeyang Lu, Damien Maher, Lucas Pérez-Lloréns, Raghab Ray, Pierre Taillardat, Joseph Tamborski, Robert C. Upstill-Goddard, Faming Wang, Zhaohui Aleck Wang, Kai Xiao, Yvonne Yau, Isaac Santos
By
Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Hydraulic properties of sediments from the GC955 gas hydrate reservoir in the Gulf of Mexico

The economic feasibility of gas production from hydrate deposits is critical for hydrate to become an energy resource. Permeability in hydrate-bearing sediments dictates gas and water flow rates and needs to be accurately evaluated. Published permeability studies of hydrate-bearing sediments mostly quantify vertical permeability; however, the flow is mainly horizontal during gas production in laye
Authors
Imgenur Tepecik, Yumeng Zhao, Yongkoo Seol, Adrian Victor Garcia, William F. Waite, Sheng Dai
By
Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Practical guide to measuring wetland carbon pools and fluxes

Wetlands cover a small portion of the world, but have disproportionate influence on global carbon (C) sequestration, carbon dioxide and methane emissions, and aquatic C fluxes. However, the underlying biogeochemical processes that affect wetland C pools and fluxes are complex and dynamic, making measurements of wetland C challenging. Over decades of research, many observational, experimental, and

Authors
Sheel Bansal, Irena F. Creed, Brian Tangen, Scott D. Bridgham, Ankur R. Desai, Ken Krauss, Scott C Neubauer, Gregory Noe, Donald O. Rosenberry, Carl C. Trettin, Kimberly Wickland, Scott T. Allen, Ariane Arias-Ortiz, Anna R. Armitage, Dennis Baldocchi, Kakoli Banerjee, David Bastviken, Peter Berg, Matthew J. Bogard, Alex T. Chow, William H. Conner, Christopher Craft, Courtney Creamer, Tonya Delsontro, Jamie Duberstein, Meagan J. Eagle, M. Siobhan Fennessey, Sarah A. Finkelstein, Mathias Goeckede, Sabine Grunwald, Meghan Halibisky, Ellen R. Herbert, Mohammad Jahangir, Olivia Johnson, Miriam C. Jones, Jeffrey Kelleway, Sarah Knox, Kevin D. Kroeger, Kevin Kuehn, David Lobb, Amanda Loder, Shizhou Ma, Damien Maher, Gavin McNicol, Jacob Meier, Beth A. Middleton, Christopher T. Mills, Purbasha Mistry, Abhijith Mitra, Courtney Mobilian, Amanda M. Nahlik, Sue Newman, Jessica O'Connell‬, Patty Oikawa, Max Post van der Burg, Charles A Schutte, Chanchung Song, Camille Stagg, Jessica Turner, Rodrigo Vargas, Mark Waldrop, Markus Wallin, Zhaohui Aleck Wang, Eric Ward, Debra A. Willard, Stephanie A. Yarwood, Xiaoyan Zhu
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Water Resources Mission Area, Florence Bascom Geoscience Center, Geology, Minerals, Energy, and Geophysics Science Center, Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center, Wetland and Aquatic Research Center , Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Geologic carbon management options for the North Atlantic-Appalachian Region

IntroductionThe U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) North Atlantic-Appalachian Region is developing the regionwide capacity to provide timely science support for decision-makers attempting to enhance carbon removal, sequestration, and emissions mitigation to meet national atmospheric carbon reduction goals. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported that in 2021, the fourteen States and the
Authors
Peter D. Warwick, Madalyn S. Blondes, Sean T. Brennan, Steven M. Cahan, C. Özgen Karacan, Kevin D. Kroeger, Matthew D. Merrill
By
Energy Resources Program, Geology, Energy & Minerals Science Center, Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center—2022 annual report

The 2022 annual report of the U.S. Geological Survey Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center highlights accomplishments of 2022, includes a list of 2022 publications, and summarizes the work of the center, as well as the work of each of its science groups. This product allows readers to gain a general understanding of the focus areas of the center’s scientific research and learn more about sp
Authors
Sara Ernst
By
Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

High-frequency variability of carbon dioxide fluxes in tidal water over a temperate salt marsh

Existing analyses of salt marsh carbon budgets rarely quantify carbon loss as CO2 through the air–water interface in inundated marshes. This study estimates the variability of partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) and air–water CO2 fluxes over summer and fall of 2014 and 2015 using high-frequency measurements of tidal water pCO2 in a salt marsh of the U.S. northeast region. Monthly mean CO2 effluxes vari
Authors
Shuzhen Song, Zhaohui Aleck Wang, Kevin D. Kroeger, Meagan J. Eagle, Sophie N. Chu, Jianzhong Ge
By
Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Mapping methane reduction potential of tidal wetland restoration in the United States

Coastal wetlands can emit excess methane in cases where they are impounded and artificially freshened by structures that impede tidal exchange. We provide a new assessment of coastal methane reduction opportunities for the contiguous United States by combining multiple publicly available map layers, reassessing greenhouse gas emissions datasets, and applying scenarios informed by geospatial inform
Authors
James Holmquist, Meagan J. Eagle, Rebecca Molinari, Sydney K. Nick, Liana Stachowicz, Kevin D. Kroeger
By
Natural Hazards Mission Area, Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Canada Basin tectono-sedimentary element, Arctic Ocean

The Canada Basin (CB) formed during a short period of seafloor spreading inferred to be Early Cretaceous in age. Brookian strata of inferred Early Cretaceous–Holocene age comprise the sedimentary fill of the Canada Basin Tectono-Sedimentary Element (CB TSE). Although the CB has remained tectonically quiet since seafloor spreading ceased, both proximal and distal tectonism (Alpha Ridge magmatism, a
Authors
Deborah Hutchinson, David W. Houseknecht, David Mosher
By
Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, Energy Resources Program, Geology, Energy & Minerals Science Center, Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Using geospatial analysis to guide marsh restoration in Chesapeake Bay and beyond

Coastal managers are facing imminent decisions regarding the fate of coastal wetlands, given ongoing threats to their persistence. There is a need for objective methods to identify which wetland parcels are candidates for restoration, monitoring, protection, or acquisition due to limited resources and restoration techniques. Here, we describe a new spatially comprehensive data set for Chesapeake B
Authors
Neil K. Ganju, Kate Ackerman, Zafer Defne
By
Chesapeake Bay Activities, Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Calibrating optical turbidity measurements with suspended-sediment concentrations from the Herring River in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, from November 2018 to November 2019

The sediment budget in the tidally restricted Herring River in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, must be quantified so restoration options for the river can be evaluated. Platforms equipped with optical turbidity sensors were deployed seaward and landward of the Herring River restriction to measure a time series of turbidity, from which a time series of suspended-sediment concentration (SSC) can be estima
Authors
Olivia A. De Meo, Neil K. Ganju, Robert D. Bales, Eric D. Marsjanik, Steven E. Suttles
By
Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center