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.
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. Impacts of hydrothermal plume processes on oceanic metal cycles and transport
Chemical, physical and biological processes in hydrothermal plumes control the flux of elements from hydrothermal vents to the global oceans. The timescales of these processes range from less than a second, as the hydrothermal fluid mixes with seawater at the seafloor, to decades, as the plume disperses over thousands of kilometers. Integrating...
Gartman, Amy; Findlay, Alyssa J. Sediment transport in a restored, river-influenced Pacific Northwest estuary
Predicting the success of future investments in coastal and estuarine ecosystem restorations is limited by scarce data quantifying sediment budgets and transport processes of prior restorations. This study provides detailed analyses of the hydrodynamics and sediment fluxes of a recently restored U.S. Pacific Northwest estuary, a 61 ha former...
Nowacki, Daniel J. ; Grossman, Eric
Observations of coastal change and numerical modeling of sediment-transport pathways at the mouth of the Columbia River and its adjacent littoral cell
Bathymetric and topographic surveys performed annually along the coastlines of northern Oregon and southwestern Washington documented changes in beach and nearshore morphology between 2014 and 2019. Volume change analysis revealed measurable localized erosion and deposition throughout the study area, but significant net erosion at the regional...
Stevens, Andrew W.; Elias, Edwin; Pearson, Stuart; Kaminsky, George M.; Ruggiero, Peter R; Weiner, Heather M.; Gelfenbaum, Guy R. Active steady-state creep on a nontectonic normal fault in southeast Utah: Implications for strain release in a rapidly deforming salt system
Characterizing short-term temporal variations of fault creep provides insight into the evolution, mechanics, and strength of fault systems. Using spirit leveling and an extensome- ter, we measured surface displacement of a fault southwest of the Needles District, Canyon- lands National Park, Utah, where extension is driven by differential...
Kravitz, Katherine; Mueller, Karl; Bilham, Roger; Walton, Maureen A. L. Lessons learned from monitoring of turbidity currents and guidance for future platform designs
Turbidity currents transport globally significant volumes of sediment and organic carbon into the deep-sea and pose a hazard to critical infrastructure. Despite advances in technology, their powerful nature often damages expensive instruments placed in their path. These challenges mean that turbidity currents have only been measured in a few...
Clare, Michael; Lintern, D. Gwyn; Rosenberger, Kurt J.; Clarke, John Hughes; Paull, Charles K.; Gwiazda, Roberto; Cartigny, Matthieu J.B.; Talling, Peter J.; Perara, Daniel; Xu, Jingping; Parsons, Daniel; Jacinto, Ricardo Silva; Apprioual, Ronan The role of seismic and slow slip events in triggering the 2018 M7.1 Anchorage earthquake in the Southcentral Alaska subduction zone
The M 7.1 2018 Anchorage earthquake occurred in the bending part of the subducting North Pacific plate near the geometrical barrier formed by the underthrusting Yakutat terrane. We calculate the triggering potential related with stress redistribution from deformation sources including the M 9.2 1964 earthquake coseismic slip,...
Segou, Margarita; Parsons, Thomas E. Sea-level rise exponentially increases coastal flood frequency
Sea-level rise will radically redefine the coastline of the 21st century. For many coastal regions, projections of global sea-level rise by the year 2100 (e.g., 0.5–2 meters) are comparable in magnitude to today’s extreme but short-lived increases in water level due to storms. Thus, the 21st century will see significant changes to...
Taherkhani, Mohsen; Vitousek, Sean; Barnard, Patrick L.; Frazer, L Neil; Anderson, Tiffany; Fletcher, Charles Steps to develop early warning systems and future scenarios of wave-driven flooding along coral reef-lined coasts
Tropical coral reef-lined coasts are exposed to storm wave-driven flooding. In the future, flood events during storms are expected to occur more frequently and to be more severe due to sea-level rise, changes in wind and weather patterns, and the deterioration of coral reefs. Hence, disaster managers and coastal planners are in urgent need of...
Winter, Gundula; Storlazzi, Curt D.; Vitousek, Sean; van Dongeren, Ap; McCall, Robert T.; Hoeke, Ron; Skirving, William; Marra, John ; Reyns, Johan; Aucan, Jerome; Widlansky, Matthew J.; Becker, Janet; Perry, Chris; Masselink, Gerd; Lowe, Ryan; Ford, Murray; Pomeroy, Andrew; Mendez, Fernando J.; Rueda, Ana C.; Wandres, Moritz Molecular indicators of methane metabolisms at cold seeps along the United States Atlantic margin
A lipid biomarker study was undertaken to determine the microbial composition and variability in authigenic carbonates and associated soft bottom habitats from the Norfolk and the Baltimore Canyon seep fields along the US mid-Atlantic margin. Results from this study capture a distinct molecular signal from methane oxidizing archaea, including...
Prouty, Nancy G.; Campbell, Pamela L.; Close, Hilary; Biddle, Jennifer F.; Beckmann, Sabrina Defining active, inactive, and extinct seafloor massive sulfide deposits
Hydrothermal activity results in the formation of hydrothermal mineral deposits, including seafloor massive sulfide deposits, at oceanic spreading ridges, arcs, and back-arcs. As hydrothermal systems age, the mineral deposits eventually become severed from the heat source and fluid-flow pathways responsible for their formation and become extinct....
Jamieson, John W.; Gartman, Amy Mapping metabolic activity at single cell resolution in intact volcanic fumarole soil
Interactions among microorganisms and their mineralogical substrates govern the structure, function, and emergent properties of microbial communities. These interactions are predicated on spatial relationships, which dictate metabolite exchange and access to key substrates. To quantitatively assess links between spatial relationships and metabolic...
Marlow, Jeffrey J. ; Colocci, Isabella ; Jungbluth, Sean ; Weber, Nils Moritz ; Gartman, Amy; Kallmeyer, Jens