Publications

Photographs of the seabed taken from an instrumented bottom tripod located approximately 100 km east of Charleston, South Carolina, reveal bed elevation changes of over 20 cm between July and November 1978. The tripod was in 85 m of water and was equipped with two current meters at 38.7 and 100 cm from the bed, a pressure sensor, a transmissometer, which fouled early during the deployment, a tempe

We used geologic and geochemical techniques to document the change with time of the distribution and concentration of contaminated bottom sediments in southern Lake Champlain near an International Paper Company plant. Our work, initiated in 1972, was expanded on behalf of Vermont citizens in a class-action suit against the International Paper Company. To update our 1972-1973 results, we collected

Nowhere are the problems of coastal wetland loss more serious and dramatic than in the Mississippi River deltaic plain region of south-central Louisiana. In that area, rates of shoreline erosion of 20 m.yr and loss of land area of up to 75 km/yr result from a complex combination of natural (delta switching, subsidence, sea-level rise, storms) and human (flood control, navigation, oil and gas devel

On the North Slope of Alaska, geothermal gradient data are available from high-resolution, equilibrated well-bore surveys and from estimates based on well-log identification of the base of ice-bearing permafrost. A total of 46 North Slope wells, considered to be in or near thermal equilibrium, have been surveyed with high-resolution temperatures devices and geothermal gradients can be interpreted

A method to separate sediments into discrete size fractions for geochemical analysis has been tested. The procedures were chosen to minimize the destruction or formation of aggregates and involved gentle sieving and settling of wet samples. Freeze-drying and sonication pretreatments, known to influence aggregates, were used for comparison. Freeze-drying was found to increase the silt/clay ratio by

A time-dependent, three-dimensional numerical modeling study of the tides of Massachusetts and Cape Code Bays, motivated by construction of a new sewage treatment plant and ocean outfall for the city of Boston, has been undertaken by the authors. The numerical model being used is a hybrid version of the Blumberg and Mellor ECOM3D model, modified to include a semi-implicit time-stepping scheme and

The U.S. Geological Survey conducts geologic surveys and research in marine areas of the United States and its territories and possessions. An objective in some of the investigations is locating and evaluating marine sand and gravel resources and interpretation of the origins of the sand body deposits. Results from such studies over the past 30 years show that many extremely large deposits are loc

The Transantarctic Mountains (TAM), which separate the West Antarctic rift system from the stable shield of East Antarctica, are the largest mountains developed adjacent to a rift. The cause of uplift of mountains bordering rifts is poorly understood. One notion based on observations of troughs next to many uplifted blocks is that isostatic rebound produces a coeval uplift and subsidence. The resu

The Exxon 975-1, Conoco 145-1, and Mobil 312-1 hydrocarbon exploratory wells and the Continental Offshore Stratigraphic Test (COST) G-1 and G-2 wells were drilled in the southeastern part of the Georges Bank Basin. We used drill cuttings and logs from these wells to describe and correlate the dominant lithostratigraphic units and to document lateral changes in the depositional environments. The st

New radiocarbon dates provide ages for two submerged strandline features on the Massachusetts inner shelf. These ages provide limited control on a relative sea-level (RSL) curve for the late Wisconsinan and Holocene. The curve indicates a late Wisconsinan high stand of RSL of +33 m about 14,000 yr ago and a very short-lived relative low stand of about -43 m at about 12,000 yr ago followed by a ris

The bulk volume of gas hydrates in marine sediments can be estimated by measuring interval velocities and amplitude blanking of hydrated zones from true amplitude processed multichannel seismic reflection data. In general, neither velocity nor amplitude information is adequate to independently estimate hydrate concentration. A method is proposed that uses amplitude blanking calibrated by interval

The BASS current meter can measure currents down to the millimeter per second range. Due to the dependence of zero offset on pressure, determining a sensor referenced velocity requires accurate in situ zeroing of the meter. Previously, flow was restricted during calibration by placing plastic bags around the acoustic volume. In this paper, bacterial grade and carrageenan agars are used in the labo