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Publications

Scientific reports, journal articles, and information products produced by USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center scientists.

Filter Total Items: 1315

Current controlled deposition on the Wilkes Land continental rise, Antarctica

Turbidite, contourite and hemipelagic deposition are the main components of Wilkes Land continental rise sedimentation above the regional unconformity WL2. On the continental shelf, unconformity WL2 marks the start of shelf progradation, which is interpreted to correspond with the onset of glacial conditions in this segment of the east Antarctic margin. Unusually large (i.e. up to 900 m relief and
Authors
C. Escutia, C.H. Nelson, G.D. Acton, S. L. Eittreim, Alan K. Cooper, D.A. Warnke, J.M. Jaramillo

Distribution and transport of suspended particulate matter in Monterey Canyon, California

From August 1993 to August 1994, six moorings that measure current, temperature, salinity, and water clarity were deployed along the axis of Monterey Canyon to study the circulation and transport of water and suspended particulate matter through the canyon system. The moorings occupied three sites that are morphologically different: a narrow transverse section (axis width 900 m) at 1450 m water de
Authors
J. P. Xu, M. Noble, S. L. Eittreim, L.K. Rosenfeld, F.B. Schwing, C.H. Pilskaln

Global Omori law decay of triggered earthquakes: Large aftershocks outside the classical aftershock zone

[1] Triggered earthquakes can be large, damaging, and lethal as evidenced by the1999 shocks in Turkey and the 2001 earthquakes in El Salvador. In this study, earthquakes with Ms ≥ 7.0 from the Harvard centroid moment tensor (CMT) catalog are modeled as dislocations to calculate shear stress changes on subsequent earthquake rupture planes near enough to be affected. About 61% of earthquakes that oc
Authors
Tom Parsons

Displaced rocks, strong motion, and the mechanics of shallow faulting associated with the 1999 Hector Mine, California, earthquake

The paucity of strong-motion stations near the 1999 Hector Mine earthquake makes it impossible to make instrumental studies of key questions about near-fault strong-motion patterns associated with this event. However, observations of displaced rocks allow a qualitative investigation of these problems. By observing the slope of the desert surface and the frictional coefficient between these rocks a
Authors
Andrew J. Michael, Stephanie L. Ross, Heidi D. Stenner

Pockmarks off Big Sur, California

A pockmark field was discovered during EM-300 multi-beam bathymetric surveys on the lower continental slope off the Big Sur coast of California. The field contains ??? 1500 pockmarks which are between 130 and 260 m in diameter, and typically are 8-12 m deep located within a 560 km2 area. To investigate the origin of these features, piston cores were collected from both the interior and the flanks
Authors
C. Paull, W. Ussler, N. Maher, H. Gary Greene, G. Rehder, T. Lorenson, H. Lee

Southwest Washington coastal erosion workshop report 2000

This report is a compilation of abstracts that correspond to oral presentations and posters presented at the fifth principal investigators workshop of the Southwest Washington Coastal Erosion Study. The workshop was held November 15 - 17, 2000 at the Department of Ecology headquarters building in Olympia, WA. For the fourth consecutive year in November, the workshop convened the entire multi-disci
Authors
Guy R. Gelfenbaum

Very different crustal response to extreme extension in the southern Basin and Range and Colorado Plateau transition

Clustered about the southwest edge of the Colorado Plateau lie many highly extended terranes. Among these are metamorphic core complexes, distinguished by low-angle normal faults with sufficient offset to expose middle crustal rocks at higher elevation relative to the surrounding areas. About 150 km to the southwest, strong extension in the Salton Trough manifests itself very differently; high-ang
Authors
Tom Parsons, Jill McCarthy, George A. Thompson

Core descriptions, core photographs, physical property logs and surface textural data of sediment cores recovered from the continental shelf of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary during the research cruises M-1-95-MB, P-2-95-MB, and P-1-97-MB

In response to the 1992 creation of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary (MBNMS), the United States Geological Survey (USGS) initiated a multiyear investigation of the Sanctuary continental margin. As part of the investigative effort, this report summarizes the shipboard procedures, subsequent laboratory analyses, and data results from three seafloor sampling cruises conducted on the contine
Authors
Kevin M. Orzech, Wendy E. Dahl, Brian D. Edwards

Clay mineral content of continental shelf and river sediments, southern California

This report contains data on the clay mineral content of 250 shelf surface-sediment samples from the California Continental Borderland (Tables 1, 2; Figures 1-7), 79 samples with depth in cores from Santa Monica Bay (Table 3; see Table 1 for surface sediment data for those same cores and for core locations), 24 suspended and 13 bottom sediment samples from rivers draining Southern California (Tabl
Authors
James R. Hein, Jennifer S. Dowling

Continental shelf GIS for the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary

A marine sanctuary is an environment where the interests of science and society meet. Sanctuary managers need access to the best scientific data available that describe the environment and environmental processes in sanctuaries. Seafloor mapping and sampling in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary have revealed new details about the geology, morphology, and active geologic processes of this
Authors
Florence L. Wong, Stephen L. Eittreim

Coastal evolution and sediment budget at the mouth of the Columbia River, USA

The coastal morphology of the Mouth of the Columbia River (MCR) has changed dramatically over the past century. Since the construction of jetties in 1914 and 1917, the inlet deepened and stabilized, the outer ebb delta migrated northward and offshore several kilometers, and the adjacent shorelines to the north and south prograded several hundreds of meters. Recently, high rates of erosion along th
Authors
Guy Gelfenbaum, Maarten C. Buijsman, Christopher R. Sherwood, Hans R. Moritz, Ann E. Gibbs

Sediment transport on a high-energy ebb-tidal delta

Six tripods were deployed at shallow (~14-m) and deep (~24-m) sites on the northern, middle, and southern flanks of the Grays Harbor, Washington, U.S.A. ebb-tidal delta from early October through December, 1999 to measure waves, currents, temperature, and suspended-sediment concentrations as part of a wave-refraction and sediment-transport experiment. Directional wave spectra show that the general
Authors
Christopher R. Sherwood, Guy Gelfenbaum, Peter A. Howd, Margaret L. Palmsten