Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center
Publications
Search for scientific reports, publications, and information products produced by Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center staff. Also browse the USGS Publications Warehouse to broaden your search with enhanced filtering.
An assessment of vertical land movement to support coastal hazards planning in Washington state
The sea and land change elevation spatially and temporally from a multitude of processes, so it is necessary to constrain the movement of both to evaluate how coastlines will evolve and how those evolving coastlines will impact the natural and built environment over time. We combine land movement observations from global navigation satellite...
Newton, Tyler; Weldon, Ray; Miller, Ian M.; Schmidt, David; Morgan, Harriet; Grossman, Eric; Mauger, Guillaume S Role of future reef growth on morphological response of coral reef islands to sea-level rise
Coral reefs are widely recognised for providing a natural breakwater effect that modulates erosion and flooding hazards on low‐lying sedimentary reef islands. Increased water depth across reef platforms due sea‐level rise (SLR) can compromise this breakwater effect and enhance island exposure to these hazards, but reef accretion in response to SLR...
Masselink, Gerd; McCall, Robert T.; Beetham, Eddie; Kench, Paul; Storlazzi, Curt
USGS permafrost research determines the risks of permafrost thaw to biologic and hydrologic resources
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in collaboration with university, Federal, Tribal, and independent partners, conducts fundamental research on the distribution, vulnerability, and importance of permafrost in arctic and boreal ecosystems. Scientists, land managers, and policy makers use USGS data to help make decisions for development, wildlife...
Waldrop, Mark P.; Anderson, Lesleigh; Dornblaser, Mark; Erikson, Li H.; Gibbs, Ann E.; Herman-Mercer, Nicole M.; James, Stephanie R.; Jones, Miriam C.; Koch, Joshua C.; Leewis, Mary-Cathrine; Manies, Kristen L.; Minsley, Burke J.; Pastick, Neal J.; Patil, Vijay; Urban, Frank; Walvoord, Michelle A.; Wickland, Kimberly P.; Zimmerman, Christian
Nearshore water quality and coral health indicators along the west coast of the Island of Hawaiʻi, 2010–2014
Coral reefs worldwide are experiencing rapid degradation in response to climate and land-use change, namely effects of warming sea-surface temperatures, contaminant runoff, and overfishing. Extensive coral bleaching caused by the steady rise of sea-surface temperatures is projected to increase, but our understanding and ability to predict where...
Grossman, Eric E.; Marrack, Lisa; vanArendonk, Nathan R. Editorial: Flooding on coral reef-lined coasts: Current state of knowledge and future challenges
No abstract available.
Skirving, William; Pomeroy, Andrew; McCall, Robert T.; Marra, John ; Storlazzi, Curt Toward an integrative geological and geophysical view of Cascadia subduction zone earthquakes
The Cascadia subduction zone (CSZ) is an exceptional geologic environment for recording evidence of land level changes, tsunamis, and ground motion that reveals at least 19 great megathrust earthquakes over the past 10 kyr. Such earthquakes are among the most impactful natural hazards on Earth, transcend national boundaries, and can have global...
Walton, Maureen A. L.; Staisch, Lydia M.; Dura, Tina; Pearl, Jessie Kathleen; Sherrod, Brian; Gomberg, Joan S.; Engelhart, Simon E.; Trehu, Anne; Watt, Janet; Perkins, Jonathan P; Witter, Robert C.; Bartlow, Noel; Goldfinger, Chris; Kelsey, Harvey; Morey, Ann; Sahakian, Valerie J.; Tobin, Harold; Wang, Kelin; Wells, Ray; Wirth, Erin The impacts of the 2015/2016 El Niño on California's sandy beaches
The El Niño Southern Oscillation is the most dominant mode of interannual climate variability in the Pacific. The 2015/2016 El Niño event was one of the strongest of the last 145 years, resulting in anomalously high wave energy across the U.S. West Coast, and record coastal erosion for many California beaches. To better manage coastal resources,...
Smith, Schuyler A; Barnard, Patrick L. Ocean floor manganese deposits
Much of the dissolved Mn delivered to the oceans is slowly oxidized and precipitated alongside varying amounts of Fe into Mn and ferromanganese (FeMn) mineral deposits that occur extensively in the deep ocean wherever sediment accumulation is low and substrate is available. FeMn crusts grow as pavements on rock outcrops throughout the...
Mizell, Kira; Hein, James R. Systematic characterization of morphotectonic variability along the Cascadia convergent margin: Implications for shallow megathrust behavior and tsunami hazards
Studies of recent destructive megathrust earthquakes and tsunamis along subduction margins in Japan, Sumatra, and Chile have linked forearc morphology and structure to megathrust behavior. This connection is based on the idea that spatial variations in the frictional behavior of the megathrust influence the tectono-morphological evolution of...
Watt, Janet; Brothers, Daniel Amazon sediment transport and accumulation along the continuum of mixed fluvial and marine processes
Sediment transfer from land to ocean begins in coastal settings and, for large rivers such as the Amazon, has dramatic impacts over thousands of kilometers covering diverse environmental conditions. In the relatively natural Amazon tidal river, combinations of fluvial and marine processes transition toward the ocean, affecting the transport and...
Nittrouer, Charles A.; DeMaster, David J.; Kuehl, Steven A.; Figueiredo, Alberto G.; Sternberg, Richard W.; Faria, L. Ercilio C.; Silveira, Odete M.; Allison, Meade A.; Kineke, Gail C.; Ogston, Andrea S.; Souza Filho, Pedro W.M.; Asp, Nils E.; Nowacki, Daniel J. ; Fricke, Aaron T. Coastal permafrost erosion
Highlights• Since the early 2000s, erosion of permafrost coasts in the Arctic has increased at 13 of 14 sites with observational data that extend back to ca. 1960 and ca. 1980, coinciding with warming temperatures, sea ice reduction, and permafrost thaw.• Permafrost coasts along the US and Canadian Beaufort Sea experienced the largest increase in...
Jones, Benjamin M.; Irrgang, Anna M; Farquharson, Louise M.; Lantuit, Hugues; Whalen, Dustin; Ogorodov, Stanislav; Grigoriev, Mikhail; Tweedie, Craig E.; Gibbs, Ann E.; Strzelecki, Matt C; Baranskaya, Alisa; Belova, Nataliya; Sinitsyn, Anatoly; Kroon, Art; Maslakov, Alexey; Vieira, Gonçalo; Grosse, Guido; Overduin, Paul; Nitze, Ingmar; Maio, Christopher V.; Overbeck, Jacquelyn R.; Bendixen, Mette; Zagórski, Piotr; Romanovsky, Vladimir America’s offshore critical mineral wealth
No abstract available.