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.
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. On the use of receiver operating character tests for evaluating spatial earthquake forecasts
Spatial forecasts of triggered earthquake distributions have been ranked using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) tests. The test is a binary comparison between regions of positive and negative forecast against positive and negative presence of earthquakes. Forecasts predicting only positive changes score higher than Coulomb methods, which...
Parsons, Thomas E. Distribution of earthquakes on a branching fault system using integer programming and greedy sequential methods
A new global optimization method is used to determine the distribution of earthquakes on a complex, connected fault system. The method, integer programming, has been advanced in the field of operations research, but has not been widely applied to geophysical problems until recently. In this application, we determine the optimal distribution of...
Geist, Eric L.; Parsons, Thomas E.
Shoreline retreat of the Corte Madera marshes, 1853 to 2016, Marin County, California
The greater San Francisco Bay estuary, prior to human intervention, encompassed about 2,200 km2 of tidal and salt marshes. Over time, these areas became increasingly diked, developed, and altered from their natural state. In addition, natural forces are always driving a continually shifting equilibrium.This study area, the Corte Madera marshes, is...
Carkin, Bradley A.; Kayen, Robert E.; Wong, Florence L. A holistic modelling approach to project the evolution of inlet-interrupted coastlines over the 21st century
Approximately one quarter of the World’s sandy beaches, most of which are interrupted by tidal inlets, are eroding. Understanding the long-term (50-100 year) evolution of inlet-interrupted coasts in a changing climate is therefore of great importance for coastal zone planners and managers. This study therefore focuses on the development and...
Bamunawala, Janaka; Dastgheib, Ali; Ranasinghe, Rosh; van der Spek, AD; Maskey, Shreedhar; Murray, A. Brad; Duong, Trang M.; Barnard, Patrick L.; Sirisena, Jeewanthi Gangani Morphology, structure, and kinematics of the San Clemente and Catalina faults based on high-resolution marine geophysical data, southern California Inner Continental Borderland
Catalina Basin, located within the southern California Inner Continental Borderland (ICB), is traversed by two active submerged fault systems that are part of the broader North America-Pacific plate boundary: the San Clemente fault (along with a prominent splay, the Kimki fault) and the Catalina fault. Previous studies have suggested that the San...
Walton, Maureen A. L.; Brothers, Daniel; Conrad, James E.; Maier, Katherine L.; Roland, Emily C.; Kluesner, Jared; Dartnell, Peter In situ observations of wave transformation and infragravity bore development across reef flats of varying geomorphology
The character and energetics of infragravity (IG, 25 s < period < 250 s) and very-low frequency (VLF, period > 250 s) waves over coral reef flats can enhance shoreline erosion or accretion, and also govern extreme shoreline events such as runup, overwash, and flooding on coral reef-lined coasts. Here we use in situ wave measurements...
Cheriton, Olivia; Storlazzi, Curt D.; Rosenberger, Kurt J. Selective sediment transport during Hurricane Sandy on Fire Island (New York, USA): Inferences from heavy-mineral assemblages
In October 2012, Hurricane Sandy caused severe erosion on beaches and dunes of Fire Island (New York, USA). Major shoreline changes occurred with erosional dominance in the upper shoreline and aggradation in the lowermost section of the beach due to the deposition of eroded upper beach and dune sediment. Sand laminations with a high concentration...
Cascalho, João; Costa, Pedro; Gelfenbaum, Guy R.; La Selle, Seanpaul; Jaffe, Bruce E. Book Review of "Mathematical Geosciences: Hybrid Symbolic-Numeric Methods", by Joseph L. Awange, Béla Paláncz, Robert H. Lewis, and Lajos Völgyesi
No abstract available.
Geist, Eric L. Accurate bathymetric maps from underwater digital imagery without ground control
Structure-from-Motion (SfM) photogrammetry can be used with digital underwater photographs to generate high-resolution bathymetry and orthomosaics with millimeter-to-centimeter scale resolution at relatively low cost. Although these products are useful for assessing species diversity and health, they have additional utility for quantifying benthic...
Hatcher, Gerry; Warrick, Jonathan; Ritchie, Andrew C.; Dailey, Evan; Zawada, David G.; Kranenburg, Christine; Yates, Kimberly K. The predictive skills of elastic Coulomb rate-and-state aftershock forecasts during the 2019 Ridgecrest, California, earthquake sequence
Operational earthquake forecasting protocols commonly use statistical models for their recognized ease of implementation and robustness in describing the short-term spatiotemporal patterns of triggered seismicity. However, recent advances on physics-based aftershock forecasting reveal comparable performance to the standard statistical counterparts...
Mancini, Simone; Segou, Margarita; Werner, Maximillian J; Parsons, Thomas E. Book review of "Tsunami Propagation in Tidal Rivers", by Elena Tolkova
No abstract available.
Geist, Eric L.