Publications

Simple mechanical arguments suggest that slip along interlocked, rough faults, damages surrounding rocks. The same arguments require that the scale of secondary damage is proportional to the size of geometric irregularities along the main fault. This relationship could apply at all scales, but has, so far, been difficult to observe at the 10s to 100 s of km scales of large, natural...

The settling velocity (ws) in estuarine environments can impact whether a region is eroding or accreting sediment on the bed, yet determining this rate can be an indirect process requiring a number of assumptions. Accurate determination of ws is especially needed for numerical models to reproduce observed sediment concentrations at the appropriate timescale. We collected information on...

Large amounts of video images have been collected for decades by scientific and governmental organizations in deep (>1000 m) water using manned and unmanned submersibles and towed cameras. The collected images were analyzed individually or were mosaiced in small areas with great effort. Here, we provide a workflow for utilizing modern photogrammetry to construct virtual geological...

We recently developed a dynamically coupled hydrological-ocean modeling system that provides seamless coverage across the land-ocean continuum during hurricane-induced compound flooding. This study introduced a local inertial equation and a diagonal flow algorithm to the overland routing of the coupled system’s hydrology model (WRF-Hydro). Using Hurricane Florence (2018) as a test case...

The Coastal Science Navigator is an online gateway to a wide variety of U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) coastal change hazards-related information, data, and tools relevant to stakeholders’ scientific and decision-making needs. The products within the Coastal Science Navigator provide data related to past, present, and future threats to our coastlines. The filter search allows users to see...

The origin of rupture segmentation along subduction zone megathrusts and linkages to the structural evolution of the subduction zone are poorly understood. Here, regional-scale seismic imaging of the Cascadia margin is used to characterize the megathrust spanning ~900 km from Vancouver Island to the California border, across the seismogenic zone to a few tens of kilometers from the coast...

The coherent recombination of a direct and seabed reflected path is sensitive to the geophysical properties of the seabed. The concept of feature-based inversion is used in the analysis of acoustic data collected on a vertical line array (VLA) on the New England continental shelf break in about 200 m of water. The analysis approach for the measurements is based on a ray approach in which...

Coastal salt marshes are crucial ecosystems that provide habitat for a variety of species, improve water quality, and play a major role in the global carbon cycle. However, many salt marshes have been severely damaged by human activities such as diking and draining for urban development. Recently, there has been a noticeable shift toward the prioritization of coastal marsh restoration to...

Because splay faults branch at a steep dip angle from the plate-boundary décollement in an accretionary wedge, their coseismic displacement can potentially result in larger tsunamis with distinct characteristics compared to megathrust-only fault ruptures, posing an enhanced hazard to coastal communities. Elsewhere, there is evidence of coseismic slip on splay faults during many of the...

The U.S. Geological Survey collected water velocity and water quality data from salt marshes in Great Channel, southwest of Stone Harbor, New Jersey, and near Thompsons Beach, New Jersey, to evaluate restoration effectiveness after Hurricane Sandy and monitor postrestoration marsh health. Time series data of turbidity and water velocity were collected from 2018 to 2019 and 2022 to 2023...

We examined Holocene benthic foraminiferal biofacies, % planktonic foraminifera, and lithofacies changes from New England mud patch cores and present a relative sea-level (RSL) record to evaluate evolution of these rapidly deposited (30–79 cm/kyr) muds. Sandy lower Holocene sections are dominated by Bulimina marginata. The mud patch developed from 11–9 ka as RSL rise slowed from 10 to 7...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) maintains a database of historical shoreline positions for the United States coasts derived from historical sources, such as aerial photographs or topographic surveys, and contemporary sources, such as modern orthophotography, light detection and ranging (lidar) point clouds, and digital elevation models. These shorelines are compiled within a geographic