Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center
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The center is one of three centers serving the mission of the USGS Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program—the primary Federal marine geology and physical science research program responsible for the Nation’s entire coastal and marine landscape. The center conducts scientific research in various locations throughout the United States to describe and understand the processes shaping coastal and marine ecosystems. The center’s research is used to make informed decisions about the use, management, and protection of our coastal resources.
Woods Hole Research
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Photo Roundup - Coastal Change Hazards
Multimedia documenting coastal change hazards research at the USGS
USGS Research Spotlight: Subduction May Recycle Less Water Than Thought
Dr. Nathan Miller, Research Geophysicist from the USGS Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center, led a study on new analysis of seismic data from the Middle America Trench suggesting that previous calculations have vastly overestimated the total amount of water transported to the mantle worldwide.
Groundwater discharge impacts marine isotope budgets.
Groundwater is an important pathway for materials to flow from land to sea. This is particularly true for materials that are concentrated in groundwater due to chemical interactions between water and aquifer rocks as groundwater flows to the coast.
Publications
Groundwater discharge impacts marine isotope budgets of Li, Mg, Ca, Sr, and Ba
Groundwater-derived solute fluxes to the ocean have long been assumed static and subordinate to riverine fluxes, if not neglected entirely, in marine isotope budgets. Here we present concentration and isotope data for Li, Mg, Ca, Sr, and Ba in coastal groundwaters to constrain the importance of groundwater discharge in mediating the magnitude and...
Mayfield, Kimberly; Eisenhauer, Anton; Santiago Ramos, Danielle P.; Higgins, John A.; Horner, Tristan; Auro, Maureen; Magna, Tomas; Moosdorf, Nils; Charette, Matthew; Gonneea Eagle, Meagan; Brady, Carolyn; Komar, Nemanja; Peucker-Ehrenbrink, Bernard; Paytan, Adina Estimating the impact of seep methane oxidation on ocean pH and dissolved inorganic radiocarbon along the U.S. mid‐Atlantic Bight
Ongoing ocean warming can release methane (CH4) currently stored in ocean sediments as free gas and gas hydrates. Once dissolved in ocean waters, this CH4 can be oxidized to carbon dioxide (CO2). While it has been hypothesized that the CO2 produced from aerobic CH4 oxidation could enhance ocean acidification, a previous study...
Garcia-Tigreros, Fenix; Leonte, Mihai; Ruppel, Carolyn D.; Ruiz-Angulo, Angel; Joung, DoongJoo; Young, Benjamin; Kessler, John D. Limited mantle hydration by bending faults at the Middle America Trench
Seismic anisotropy measurements show that upper mantle hydration at the Middle America Trench (MAT) is limited to serpentinization and/or water in fault zones, rather than distributed uniformly. Subduction of hydrated oceanic lithosphere recycles water back into the deep mantle, drives arc volcanism, and affects seismicity at subduction zones....
Miller, Nathaniel C.; Lizarralde, Danile; Collins, John A.; Holbrook, Steven; van Avendonk, Harm