Publications

Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center in St. Petersburg, Florida, conducted a bathymetric survey of Fire Island, New York, from October 5 to 10, 2014. The U.S. Geological Survey is involved in a post-Hurricane Sandy effort to map and monitor the morphologic evolution of the wilderness breach, which formed in October 2012 during...

As part of the Barrier Island Comprehensive Monitoring Program (BICM), scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center conducted a nearshore single-beam bathymetry survey along the south-central coast of Louisiana, from Raccoon Point to Point Au Fer Island, in July 2015. The goal of the BICM program is to provide long-term data on...

Breton Island, located at the southern end of the Chandeleur Islands, supports one of Louisiana’s largest historical brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) nesting colonies. Although the brown pelican was delisted as an endangered species in 2009, nesting areas are threatened by continued land loss and are extremely vulnerable to storm impacts. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed...

To better understand how individual processes combine to cause flooding and erosion events, we investigate the relative contribution of tides, waves, and nontidal residuals to extreme total water levels (TWLs) at the shoreline of U.S. West Coast sandy beaches. Extreme TWLs, defined as the observed annual maximum event and the simulated 100 year return level event, peak in Washington, and...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), as part of the National Assessment of Coastal Change Hazards project, conducts baseline and storm-response photography missions to document and understand the changes in the vulnerability of the Nation's coasts to extreme storms. On March 8–9, 2016, the USGS conducted an oblique aerial photographic survey from Assateague Island, Virginia, to Montauk...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), as part of the National Assessment of Coastal Change Hazards project, conducts baseline and storm-response photography missions to document and understand the changes in the vulnerability of the Nation's coasts to extreme storms. On February 18–19, 2016, the USGS conducted an oblique aerial photographic survey from the South Carolina/North Carolina...

As part of the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) Barrier Island Comprehensive Monitoring Program, scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center conducted a single-beam bathymetry survey around the Chandeleur Islands, Louisiana, in June 2015. The goal of the program is to provide long-term data on Louisiana’s...

A methodology for developing a representative set of storm scenarios based on historical wave buoy and tide gauge data for a region at the Chandeleur Islands, Louisiana, was developed by the U.S. Geological Survey. The total water level was calculated for a 10-year period and analyzed against existing topographic data to identify when storm-induced wave action would affect island...

Models of dune erosion depend on a set of assumptions that dictate the predicted evolution of dunes throughout the duration of a storm. Lidar observations made before and after Hurricane Sandy at over 800 profiles with diverse dune elevations, widths, and volumes are used to quantify specific dune erosion model parameters including the dune face slope, which controls dune avalanching...

This protocol describes the processing steps for 45 g and 9 g soil samples potentially contaminated with Bacillus anthracis spores. The protocol is designed to separate and concentrate the spores from bulk soil down to a pellet that can be used for further analysis. Soil extraction solution and mechanical shaking are used to disrupt soil particle aggregates and to aid in the separation...

Massive corals provide a useful archive of environmental variability, but careful testing of geochemical proxies in corals is necessary to validate the relationship between each proxy and environmental parameter throughout the full range of conditions experienced by the recording organisms. Here we use samples from a coral-growth study to test the hypothesis that Sr/Ca in the coral...

As part of the Barrier Island Evolution Research Project, scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center conducted nearshore geophysical surveys around the northern Chandeleur Islands, Louisiana, in July and August of 2013. The objective of the study is to better understand barrier-island geomorphic evolution, particularly storm-related