Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center
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Research published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, suggests water transport at the Middle America Trench subduction zone is less than previously estimated.
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Meeting the Challenge: U.S. Geological Survey North Atlantic and Appalachian Region Fiscal Year 2020 in Review
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Coastal and marine science of the U.S. Geological Survey in Woods Hole, Massachusetts
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 Evaluation of a roughness length parametrization accounting for wind–wave alignment in a coupled atmosphere–wave model
The importance of wind energy as an alternative energy source has increased over the latest years with more focus on offshore winds. A good estimation of the offshore winds is thus of major importance for this industry. Up to now the effect of the wind–wave (mis)alignment has not yet been taken into account in coupled atmosphere–wave models to...
Porchetta, Sara; Temel, O.; Warner, John C.; Muñoz-Esparza, J.C.; Monbaliu, J; van Beeck, J.; van Lipzig, N. Probabilistic patterns of inundation and biogeomorphic changes due to sea-level rise along the northeastern U.S. Atlantic coast
ContextCoastal landscapes evolve in response to sea-level rise (SLR) through a variety of geologic processes and ecological feedbacks. When the SLR rate surpasses the rate at which these processes build elevation and drive lateral migration, inundation is likely.ObjectivesTo examine the role of land cover diversity and composition in landscape...
Lentz, Erika E.; Zeigler, Sara L.; Thieler, E. Robert; Plant, Nathaniel G. Sediment budget estimates for a highly impacted embayment with extensive wetland loss
External sediment supply is an important control on wetland morphology and vulnerability to storms, sea-level rise, and land use change. Constraining sediment supply and net budgets is difficult due to multiple timescales of variability in hydrodynamic forcing and suspended-sediment concentrations, as well as the fundamental limitations of...
Chant, Robert; Ralston, David K.; Ganju, Neil Kamal; Pianca, Casia; Simonson, Amy; Cartwright, Richard Soil organic carbon development and turnover in natural and disturbed salt marsh environments
Salt marsh survival with sea‐level rise (SLR) increasingly relies on soil organic carbon (SOC) accumulation and preservation. Using a novel combination of geochemical approaches, we characterized fine SOC (≤1 mm) supporting marsh elevation maintenance. Overlaying thermal reactivity, source (δ13C), and age (F14C) information demonstrates several...
Luk, Sheron; Todd-Brown, Katherine; Eagle, Meagan; McNichol, Ann; Sanderman, Jonathan; Gosselin, Kelsey; Spivak, Amanda C. Ideas and perspectives: A strategic assessment of methane and nitrous oxide measurements in the marine environment
>In the current era of rapid climate change, accurate characterization of climate-relevant gas dynamics – namely production, consumption, and net emissions – is required for all biomes, especially those ecosystems most susceptible to the impact of change. Marine environments include regions that act as net sources or sinks for numerous climate-...
Wilson, S.T.; Al-Haj, A.N.; Bourbonnais, A.; Frey, C.; Fulweiler, R.W.; Kessler, John D.; Marchant, H.K.; Milucka, J; Ray, N.E.; Suntharalingham, P; Thornton, B.F.; Upstill-Goddard, R.C.; Weber, T.S.; Arévalo-Martínez, D.L.; Bange, H.W.; Benway, H.M.; Bianchi, D.; Borges, A.V.; Chang, B.X.; Crill, P.M.; del Valle, D.A.; Farías, L.; Joye, S.B.; Kock, A.; Labidi, J; Manning, C.C.; Pohlman, John; Rehder, G.; Sparrow, K.J.; Tortell, P.D.; Truede, T.; Valentine, D.L.; Ward, B.B.; Yang, S.; Yurganov, L.N. Sediment dynamics of a divergent bay–marsh complex
Bay–marsh systems, composed of an embayment surrounded by fringing marsh incised by tidal channels, are widely distributed coastal environments. External sediment availability, marsh-edge erosion, and sea-level rise acting on such bay–marsh complexes may drive diverse sediment-flux regimes. These factors reinforce the ephemeral and dynamic nature...
Nowacki, Daniel J. ; Ganju, Neil Kamal Along-margin variations in breakup volcanism at the Eastern North American Margin
We model the magnetic signature of rift-related volcanism to understand the distribution and volumeofmagmatic activity that occurred during the breakup of Pangaea and early Atlantic opening at the Eastern North American Margin (ENAM).Along-strike variations in the amplitude and character of the prominent East Coast Magnetic Anomaly (ECMA) suggest...
Greene, John A.; Tominaga, Masako; Miller, Nathaniel C. Using tracer variance decay to quantify variability of salinity mixing in the Hudson River Estuary
The salinity structure in an estuary is controlled by time‐dependent mixing processes. However, the locations and temporal variability of where significant mixing occurs is not well‐understood. Here we utilize a tracer variance approach to demonstrate the spatial and temporal structure of salinity mixing in the Hudson River Estuary. We run a 4‐...
Warner, John C.; Geyer, W Rockwill; Ralston, David K.; Kalra, Tarandeep S. Development of a submerged aquatic vegetation growth model in the Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere–Wave–Sediment Transport (COAWST v3.4) model
The coupled biophysical interactions between submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV), hydrodynamics (currents and waves), sediment dynamics, and nutrient cycling have long been of interest in estuarine environments. Recent observational studies have addressed feedbacks between SAV meadows and their role in modifying current velocity, sedimentation, and...
Kalra, Tarandeep S.; Ganju, Neil Kamal; Testa, Jeremy M.