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Scientific reports, journal articles, and information products produced by USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center scientists.
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Filter Total Items: 1338
Climate controls on longshore sediment transport and coastal morphology adjacent to engineered inlets
Coastal jetties are commonly used throughout the world to stabilize channels and improve navigation through inlets. These engineered structures form artificial boundaries to littoral cells by reducing wave-driven longshore sediment transport across inlet entrances. Consequently, beaches adjacent to engineered inlets are subject to large gradients in longshore transport rates and are highly sensiti
Authors
Andrew W. Stevens, Peter R Ruggiero, Kai Alexander Parker, Sean Vitousek, Guy Gelfenbaum, George M Kaminsky
Shifting sands: The influence of coral reefs on shoreline erosion from short-term storm protection to long-term disequilibrium
Climate change is exacerbating shoreline erosion and flooding, posing significant risks to coastal communities. Although traditional coastal defenses such as seawalls, dykes, and breakwaters offer protection from these hazards, their high environmental and economic costs are driving interest in cost-competitive nature-based solutions. Coral reef restoration is a nature-based solution that may be p
Authors
Stephan Bitterwolf, Borja Reguero, Curt Storlazzi, Michael W. Beck
Postfire sediment mobilization and its downstream implications across California, 1984 – 2021
Fire facilitates erosion through changes in vegetation and soil, with major postfire erosion commonly occurring even with moderate rainfall. As climate warms, the western United States (U.S.) is experiencing an intensifying fire regime and increasing frequency of extreme rain. We evaluated whether these hydroclimatic changes are evident in patterns of postfire erosion by modeling hillslope erosion
Authors
Helen Willemien Dow, Amy E. East, Joel B. Sankey, Jonathan Warrick, Jaime Kostelnik, Donald N. Lindsay, Jason W. Kean
Post-glacial stratigraphy and late Holocene record of great Cascadia earthquakes in Ozette Lake, Washington, USA
Ozette Lake is an ~100-m-deep coastal lake located along the outer coast of the Olympic Peninsula (Washington, USA); it is situated above the locked portion of the northern Cascadia megathrust but also relatively isolated from active crustal faults and intraslab earthquakes. Here we present a suite of geophysical and geological evidence for earthquake-triggered mass transport deposits (MTDs) and r
Authors
Daniel Brothers, Brian Sherrod, Drake Moore Singleton, Jason Scott Padgett, Jenna C. Hill, Andrew C. Ritchie, Jared W. Kluesner, Peter Dartnell
Remote sensing large-wood storage downstream of reservoirs during and after dam removal: Elwha River, Washington, USA
Large wood is an integral part of many rivers, often defining river-corridor morphology and habitat, but its occurrence, magnitude, and evolution in a river system are much less well understood than the sedimentary and hydraulic components, and due to methodological limitations, have seldom previously been mapped in substantial detail. We present a new method for this, representing a substantial a
Authors
Daniel D. Buscombe, Jonathan Warrick, Andrew C. Ritchie, Amy E. East, M. McHenry, Randall McCoy, Amy C. Foxgrover, E. Wohl
Quantifying the coastal hazard risk reduction benefits of coral reef restoration in the U.S. Virgin Islands
Coastal habitat restoration, especially of coral reef ecosystems, can significantly reduce the exposure of coastal communities to natural hazards and, consequently, the risk of wave-driven flooding. Likewise, reef degradation can increase coastal flood risks to people and property. In this study, the valuation of coral reefs in the United States Virgin Islands (USVI), along the coasts of St. Croix
Authors
Camila Gaido-Lasserre, Valerie Pietsch McNulty, Curt Storlazzi, Borja Reguero, Denise Perez, Sandra Fogg, Kristen A. Cumming, Jessica Ward, Steve Schill, Celeste Jarvis, Michael W. Beck
Significant challenges to the sustainability of the California coast considering climate change
Climate change is an existential threat to the environmental and socioeconomic sustainability of the coastal zone and impacts will be complex and widespread. Evidence from California and across the United States shows that climate change is impacting coastal communities and challenging managers with a plethora of stressors already present. Widespread action could be taken that would sustain Califo
Authors
Karen M. Thorne, Glen M. MacDonald, Francisco P. Chavez, Richard F. Ambrose, Patrick L. Barnard
Reversal in estuarine sand supply driven by Holocene sea level rise: A model for sand transport in large structural estuaries, San Francisco Bay, California, USA
Reversal in estuarine sand supply driven by Holocene sea level rise: A model for sand transport in large structural estuaries, San Francisco Bay, California, USA
Authors
M.A. Malkowski, Z.T. Sickmann, Theresa A. Fregoso, Lester McKee, D. Stockli, Bruce E. Jaffe
Post-fire sediment yield from a central California watershed: Field measurements and validation of the WEPP model
In a warming climate, an intensifying fire regime and higher likelihood of extreme rain are expected to increase watershed sediment yield in many regions. Understanding regional variability in landscape response to fire and post-fire rainfall is essential for managing water resources and infrastructure. We measured sediment yield resulting from sequential wildfire and extreme rain and flooding in
Authors
Amy E. East, Joshua B. Logan, Helen Willemien Dow, Douglas P. Smith, Pat Iampietro, Jonathan Warrick, Thomas Lorenson, Leticia Hallas, Benjamin Kozlowicz
Palaeontological signatures of the Anthropocene are distinct from those of previous epochs
The “Great Acceleration” beginning in the mid-20th century provides the causal mechanism of the Anthropocene, which has been proposed as a new epoch of geological time beginning in 1952 CE. Here we identify key parameters and their diagnostic palaeontological signals of the Anthropocene, including the rapid breakdown of discrete biogeographical ranges for marine and terrestrial species, rapid chan
Authors
Mark A. Williams, Jan Zalasiewicz, Anthony D. Barnosky, Reinhold Leinfelder, Martin J. Head, Colin N. Waters, Francine M.G. McCarthy, Alejandro Cearreta, David C. Aldridge, Mary McGann, Bruce Hamilton, Colin P. Summerhayes, Jaia Syvitski, Jens Zinke, Andrew B. Cundy, Barbara Fialkiewicz-Koziel, J.R. McNeill, Michinobu Kuwae, Neil L. Rose, Simon D. Turner, Yoshiki Saito, Michael Wagreich, M. Allison Stegner, Moriaki Yasuhara, Yongming Han, Amy Wrisdale, Rachael Holmes, Juan Carlos Berrio
Seasonality of retreat rate of a wave-exposed marsh edge
Wave-driven erosion of marsh boundaries is a major cause of marsh loss, but little research has captured the effect of seasonal differences on marsh-edge retreat rates to illuminate temporal patterns of when the majority of this erosion is occurring. Using five surface models captured over a study year of a marsh with a steep escarped boundary in South San Francisco Bay, we find a pronounced seaso
Authors
Lukas T. WinklerPrins, Jessica R. Lacy, Mark T. Stacey, Joshua B. Logan, Andrew W. Stevens
Invertebrate trophic structure on marine ferromanganese and phosphorite hardgrounds
The Southern California Borderland hosts a variety of geologic and oceanographic features that allow for diverse habitats to occur in a restricted region with a strong oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) and hard substrates. These include ferromanganese (FeMn) crusts and phosphorites targeted for deep-seabed mining in other regions. Baseline studies regarding hardground macro- (> 0.3 mm) and megafaunal (> 2
Authors
Olivia S. Pereira, Devin Vlach, Angelica Bradley, Jennifer Gonzalez, Kira Mizell, Lisa A. Levin