Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Publications

Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

2022 Annual Report

Read report

Mapping methane reduction potential of tidal wetland restoration in the United States

Read article

Opportunities to improve alignment with the FAIR Principles for U.S. Geological Survey data

Read report

Scientific literature and information products produced by Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center staff

Featured Journal Article

Herring River, Wellfleet, MA

Calibrating optical turbidity measurements with suspended-sediment concentrations from the Herring River in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, from November 2018 to November 2019

Read article

Featured USGS Series

Image shows equipment being brought on board a ship from the water

Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center—2022 Annual Report.  The 2022 annual report highlights accomplishments, includes a list of publications, and summarizes the work of the center and each of the science groups.

Learn more

Sound Waves

Group of people sitting in chairs outside listening to the standing person speaking

Coastal and Marine Research News from Across the USGS

Read now
Filter Total Items: 1684

Calculation of a suspended-sediment concentration-turbidity regression model and flood-ebb suspended-sediment concentration differentials from marshes near Stone Harbor and Thompsons Beach, New Jersey, 2018–19 and 2022–23

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 at both sit
Authors
Olivia A. De Meo, Robert D. Bales, Neil K. Ganju, Eric D. Marsjanik, Steven E. Suttles
By
Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

National shoreline change—Summary statistics for vector shorelines from the early 1900s to the 2010s for Puerto Rico

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 informati
Authors
Rachel E. Henderson, Julia L. Heslin, Emily A. Himmelstoss, Maritza Barreto-Orta
By
Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Modeled flooding by tsunamis and a storm versus observed extent of coral erratics on Anegada, British Virgin Islands— Further evidence for a great Caribbean earthquake six centuries ago

Models of near-field tsunamis and an extreme hurricane provide further evidence for a great precolonial earthquake along the Puerto Rico Trench. The models are benchmarked to brain-coral boulders and cobbles on Anegada, 125 km south of the trench. The models are screened by their success in flooding the mapped sites of these erratics, which were emplaced some six centuries ago. Among 25 tsunami sc
Authors
Yong Wei, Uri S. ten Brink, Brian F. Atwater
By
Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Short-term sediment dispersal on a large retreating coastal river delta via 234Th and 7Be sediment geochronology: The Mississippi River Delta Front

Many Mississippi River Delta studies have shown recent declines in fluvial sediment load from the river and associated land loss. In contrast, recent sedimentary processes on the subaqueous delta are less documented. To help address this knowledge gap, multicores were collected offshore from the three main river outlets at water depths of 25–280 m in June 2017 just after the peak river discharge p
Authors
Andrew Courtois, Samuel J. Bentley, Jillian Maloney, Kehui Xu, Jason Chaytor, Ioannis Y. Georgiou, Michael Miner, Jeffery Obelcz, Navid H. Jafari, Melanie Damour
By
Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Sedimentary processes and instability on the Mississippi River Delta Front near the shipwreck of the SS Virginia

Sediment cores were collected from a mudflow lobe (80 m water depth) offshore of the Mississippi River’s Southwest Pass in 2017 to better understand the sedimentology near the lobe entraining the SS Virginia shipwreck (sunk by a German U-boat in 1942) and surrounding Mississippi River delta front. Core analyses included 210Pb/137Cs geochronology, granulometry, and X-radiography. Sediment accumulat
Authors
Nathan Figueredo, Samuel J. Bentley, Jason Chaytor, Kehui Xu, Navid H. Jafari, Iaonnis Georgiou, Melanie D'amour, Jeffrey Duxbury, Jeffrey B. Obelcz, Jillian Maloney
By
Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

National shoreline change—Summary statistics of shoreline change from the 1800s to the 2010s for the coast of California

Rates of shoreline change have been updated for the open-ocean sandy coastline of California as part of studies conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey. Shorelines from the original assessment (1800s through 1998 or 2002), as well as additional shoreline position data from 2009 to 2011, 2015, and 2016 extracted from light detection and ranging (lidar) data, were used to compute long-term rates (ap
Authors
Meredith G. Kratzmann
By
Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

The Coastal Carbon Library and Atlas: Open source soil data and tools supporting blue carbon research and policy

Quantifying carbon fluxes into and out of coastal soils is critical to meeting greenhouse gas reduction and coastal resiliency goals. Numerous ‘blue carbon’ studies have generated, or benefitted from, synthetic datasets. However, the community those efforts inspired does not have a centralized, standardized database of disaggregated data used to estimate carbon stocks and fluxes. In this paper, we
Authors
James R. Holmquist, David H. Klinges, Michael Lonneman, Jaxine Wolfe, Brandon M. Boyd, Meagan J. Eagle, Jonathan Sanderman, Katherine Todd-Brown, Lauren N. Brown, E. Fay Belshe, Samantha K. Chapman, Ron Corstanje, Christopher N. Janousek, James T. Morris, Gregory B. Noe, Andre S. Rovai, Amanda C. Spivak, Megan Vahsen, Lisamarie Windham-Myers, Kevin D. Kroeger, Patrick Megonigal
By
Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Biophysical drivers of coastal treeline elevation

Sea level rise is leading to the rapid migration of marshes into coastal forests and other terrestrial ecosystems. Although complex biophysical interactions likely govern these ecosystem transitions, projections of sea level driven land conversion commonly rely on a simplified “threshold elevation” that represents the elevation of the marsh-upland boundary based on tidal datums alone. To determine

Authors
Grace Molino, Joel A. Carr, Neil K. Ganju, Mathew Kirwan
By
Chesapeake Bay Activities, Eastern Ecological Science Center, Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Carbonate chemistry and carbon sequestration driven by inorganic carbon outwelling from mangroves and saltmarshes

Mangroves and saltmarshes are biogeochemical hotspots storing carbon in sediments and in the ocean following lateral carbon export (outwelling). Coastal seawater pH is modified by both uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide and natural biogeochemical processes, e.g., wetland inputs. Here, we investigate how mangroves and saltmarshes influence coastal carbonate chemistry and quantify the contributi
Authors
Gloria Reithmaier, Alex Cabral, Anirban Akhand, Matthew Bogard, Alberto V. Borges, Steven Bouillon, David J. Burdige, Mitchel Call, Nengwang Chen, Xiaogang Chen, Jr. Cotovicz, Meagan J. Eagle, Erik Kristensen, Kevin D. Kroeger, Zeyang Lu, Damien Maher, Lucas Pérez-Lloréns, Raghab Ray, Pierre Taillardat, Joseph Tamborski, Robert C. Upstill-Goddard, Faming Wang, Zhaohui Aleck Wang, Kai Xiao, Yvonne Yau, Isaac Santos
By
Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Hydraulic properties of sediments from the GC955 gas hydrate reservoir in the Gulf of Mexico

The economic feasibility of gas production from hydrate deposits is critical for hydrate to become an energy resource. Permeability in hydrate-bearing sediments dictates gas and water flow rates and needs to be accurately evaluated. Published permeability studies of hydrate-bearing sediments mostly quantify vertical permeability; however, the flow is mainly horizontal during gas production in laye
Authors
Imgenur Tepecik, Yumeng Zhao, Yongkoo Seol, Adrian Victor Garcia, William F. Waite, Sheng Dai
By
Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Practical guide to measuring wetland carbon pools and fluxes

Wetlands cover a small portion of the world, but have disproportionate influence on global carbon (C) sequestration, carbon dioxide and methane emissions, and aquatic C fluxes. However, the underlying biogeochemical processes that affect wetland C pools and fluxes are complex and dynamic, making measurements of wetland C challenging. Over decades of research, many observational, experimental, and

Authors
Sheel Bansal, Irena F. Creed, Brian Tangen, Scott D. Bridgham, Ankur R. Desai, Ken Krauss, Scott C Neubauer, Gregory B. Noe, Donald O. Rosenberry, Carl C. Trettin, Kimberly Wickland, Scott T. Allen, Ariane Arias-Ortiz, Anna R. Armitage, Dennis Baldocchi, Kakoli Banerjee, David Bastviken, Peter Berg, Matthew J. Bogard, Alex T. Chow, William H. Conner, Christopher Craft, Courtney Creamer, Tonya Delsontro, Jamie Duberstein, Meagan J. Eagle, M. Siobhan Fennessey, Sarah A. Finkelstein, Mathias Goeckede, Sabine Grunwald, Meghan Halibisky, Ellen R. Herbert, Mohammad Jahangir, Olivia Johnson, Miriam C. Jones, Jeffrey Kelleway, Sarah Knox, Kevin D. Kroeger, Kevin Kuehn, David Lobb, Amanda Loder, Shizhou Ma, Damien Maher, Gavin McNicol, Jacob Meier, Beth A. Middleton, Christopher T. Mills, Purbasha Mistry, Abhijith Mitra, Courtney Mobilian, Amanda M. Nahlik, Sue Newman, Jessica O'Connell‬, Patty Oikawa, Max Post van der Burg, Charles A Schutte, Chanchung Song, Camille Stagg, Jessica Turner, Rodrigo Vargas, Mark Waldrop, Markus Wallin, Zhaohui Aleck Wang, Eric Ward, Debra A. Willard, Stephanie A. Yarwood, Xiaoyan Zhu
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Water Resources Mission Area, Florence Bascom Geoscience Center, Geology, Minerals, Energy, and Geophysics Science Center, Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center, Wetland and Aquatic Research Center , Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Geologic carbon management options for the North Atlantic-Appalachian Region

IntroductionThe U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) North Atlantic-Appalachian Region is developing the regionwide capacity to provide timely science support for decision-makers attempting to enhance carbon removal, sequestration, and emissions mitigation to meet national atmospheric carbon reduction goals. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported that in 2021, the fourteen States and the
Authors
Peter D. Warwick, Madalyn S. Blondes, Sean T. Brennan, Steven M. Cahan, C. Özgen Karacan, Kevin D. Kroeger, Matthew D. Merrill
By
Energy Resources Program, Geology, Energy & Minerals Science Center, Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center