Publications
Scientific reports, journal articles, and information products produced by USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center scientists.
USGS Pubs Warehouse
USGS Pubs Warehouse
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Sound Waves Newsletter
Sound Waves Newsletter
Browse issues of the Sound Waves newsletter, featuring coastal and marine research news from across the USGS.
Filter Total Items: 1316
Multi-factor biotopes as a method for detailed site characterization in diverse benthic megafaunal communities and habitats in deep-water off Morro Bay, California
Here we describe the methods and results for biological characterization of the benthos on a previously unexplored area of central California, USA seafloor. We conducted 40 remotely operated vehicle dives from 371 to 1173 m water depth. Seafloor habitats and megafauna (fish and invertebrates) were documented from 46.8 km of seafloor video footage. Our expanded development and analysis of biotopes
Authors
Linda A. Kuhnz, Lisa Gilbane, Guy R. Cochrane, Charles K. Paull
Estimation of site terms in ground-motion models for California using horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratios from microtremor
The horizontal‐to‐vertical spectral ratios from microtremor (mHVSR) data obtained at 196 seismic stations in California are used to evaluate three alternative microtremor‐based proxies for site amplification for use in ground‐motion models (GMMs): the site fundamental period (f0), the period‐dependent amplitude of the mHVSR(T), and the normalized amplitude of the mHVSR(T). The alternative parame
Authors
Camilo Pinilla Ramos, Norman A. Abrahamson, Robert Kayen
Planetary-scale change to the biosphere signalled by global species translocations can be used to identify the Anthropocene
We examine three distinctive biostratigraphic signatures associated with: hunting and gathering, landscape domestication, and globalisation. All three signatures have significant fossil records of regional importance that can be correlated inter-regionally and help describe the developing pattern of human expansion and appropriation of resources. While none have individual first or last appearance
Authors
Mark A. Williams, Reinhold Leinfelder, Anthony D. Barnosky, Martin J Head, Francine M G McCarthy, Cearreta. Alejandro, Stephen J Himson, Rachael Holmes, Colin N. Waters, Jan Zalasiewicz, Simon Turner, Mary McGann, Elizabeth A. Hadly, M. Allison Stegner, Paul Michael Pilkington, Jérôme Kaiser, Juan Carlos Berrio, Ian P. Wilkinson, Jens Zinke, Kristine L. DeLong
Wave-driven hydrodynamic processes over fringing reefs with varying slopes, depths, and roughness: Implications for coastal protection
Wave breaking on the steep fore-reef slopes of shallow fringing reefs is effective at dissipating incident sea-swell waves prior to reaching reef shorelines. However, wave setup and free infragravity waves generated during the sea-swell breaking process are often the largest contributors to wave-driven water levels at the shoreline. Laboratory flume experiments and a multi-layer phase-resolving no
Authors
Mark L. Buckley, Ryan L. Lowe, Jeff E. Hansen, Ap R. Dongeren, Andrew Pomeroy, Curt Storlazzi, Dirk P. Rijnsdorp, Renan F. Silva, Stephanie Contardo, Rebecca H. Green
Measuring and attributing sedimentary and geomorphic responses to modern climate change: Challenges and opportunities
Today, climate change is affecting virtually all terrestrial and nearshore settings. This commentary discusses the challenges of measuring climate-driven physical landscape responses to modern global warming: short and incomplete data records, land use and seismicity masking climatic effects, biases in data availability and resolution, and signal attenuation in sedimentary systems. We identify opp
Authors
Amy E. East, Jonathan Warrick, Dongfeng Li, Joel B. Sankey, Margaret H. Redsteer, Ann E. Gibbs, Jeffrey A. Coe, Patrick L. Barnard
Pharmaceuticals and personal care products in passive samplers at seven coastal sites off West Maui, Hawaiʻi:
Passive membrane samplers—semipermeable membrane devices and polar organic chemical integrative samplers—were deployed for 22 continuous days at 7 sites along the West Maui, Hawaiʻi, coastline in February and March 2017 to assess organic contaminants at shallow coral reef ecosystems from diverse upstream inputs. The distribution of organic compounds observed at these coastal sites showed considera
Authors
Pamela L. Campbell, Nancy G. Prouty, Curt D. Storlazzi
Categorizing active marine acoustic sources based on their potential to affect marine animals
Marine acoustic sources are widely used for geophysical imaging, oceanographic sensing, and communicating with and tracking objects or robotic vehicles in the water column. Under the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act and similar regulations in several other countries, the impact of controlled acoustic sources is assessed based on whether the sound levels received by marine mammals meet the criteri
Authors
Carolyn D. Ruppel, T.S. Weber, Erica Staaterman, Stanley Labak, Patrick E. Hart
Mass wasting along the Cascadia subduction zone: Implications for abyssal turbidite sources and the earthquake record
The only submarine records of large (>Mw7) prehistoric earthquakes along the Cascadia subduction zone are derived from sequences of deep sea turbidites interpreted to represent synchronous, shaking-induced failures along the continental slope. However, the spatial correlation of these deposits along the margin is complicated and the chronological constraints involve significant uncertainties, rais
Authors
Jenna C. Hill, Janet Watt, Daniel S. Brothers
A reproducible and reusable pipeline for segmentation of geoscientific imagery
Segmentation of Earth science imagery is an increasingly common task. Among modern techniques that use Deep Learning, the UNet architecture has been shown to be a reliable for segmenting a range of imagery. We developed software–Segmentation Gym–to implement a data-model pipeline for segmentation of scientific imagery using a family of UNet models. With an existing set of imagery and labels, the s
Authors
Daniel Buscombe, Evan B. Goldstein
Fires, floods and other extreme events – How watershed processes under climate change will shape our coastlines
Ongoing sea-level rise has brought renewed focus on terrestrial sediment supply to the coast because of its strong influence on whether and how long beaches, marshes and other coastal landforms may persist into the future. Here, we summarise findings of sediment discharge from several coastal rivers, revealing that infrequent, large-magnitude events have disproportionate influence on the morphodyn
Authors
Jonathan Warrick, Amy E. East, Helen Willemien Dow
Diverse tsunamigenesis triggered by the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption
On the evening of 15 January 2022, the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano1 unleashed a violent underwater eruption, blanketing the surrounding land masses in ash and debris. The eruption generated tsunamis observed around the world. An event of this type last occurred in 1883 during the eruption of Krakatau, and thus we have the first observations of a tsunami from a large emergent volcanic eruptio
Authors
Patrick Lynett, Maile McCann, Zili Zhou, Willington Renteria, Jose Borrero, Dougal Greer, 'Ofa Fa'anunu, Cyprien Bosserelle, Bruce E. Jaffe, SeanPaul La Selle, Andrew C. Ritchie, Alexander G. Snyder, Brandon Nasr, Jaqueline Bott, Nicholas A Graehl, Costas Synolakis, Behzad Ebrahimi, Ezgi Cinar
Element concentrations and grain size of sediment from the Similkameen River above Enloe Dam (Enloe Reservoir) near Oroville, Washington, 2019
In 2019, the U.S. Geological Survey conducted a reconnaissance survey of concentrations of 41 trace elements present in bed sediment in the reservoir on the Similkameen River upstream from Enloe Dam, near Oroville, Washington. The Similkameen River drains a watershed containing highly mineralized geologic deposits with current (2019) and historical mining activity. Results of this survey indicated
Authors
Stephen E. Cox, Christopher A. Curran, Andrew R. Spanjer, Chad C. Opatz, Renee K. Takesue, J. Lynn Bell