Natural Hazards

The CMHRP has been conducting scientific investigations at Fire Island in order to protect natural and cultural resources.

On May 6, 2019, Congressman Charlie Crist (13^th district, FL) and Operations and Outreach Director Mr. Kendrick Lewis will visit the St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center (SPCMSC). Congressman Crist requested this visit because he is interested to learn more about the Center and to discuss needs/priorities that we may have. (First row, left to right:

Jessica Rodysill (Reston) and Hunter Wilcox (SPCMSC) deploying a corer in Lake Enriquillo. The scientists will use the cores to construct precipitation changes in Dominican Republic over the late Holocene (~5000 years ago to present) time period.

This core from Lake Enriquillo, Dominican Republic, shows the laminated lakebed sediments (Chucho, a local Dominican boat driver, is shown in the background).

This is one of three 4–5 meter long sediment cores recovered from the deepest part of Lago Enriquillo (95 feet water depth). This sediment core most likely represents the late Holocene (~5000 years ago to present), and the scientists will use it to construct precipitation changes in Dominican Republic over that time period. 

Pictured: (front) Dr. Wilson Ramirez,

SPMSC scientist Lauren Toth conducts a photographic survey of Porter Patch reef off Key Largo, one of the sites that has been surveyed as part of FWRI’s Coral Reef Ecosystem Monitoring project since 1996. The modern reef surveys will be compared to historic surveys to determine how much structural complexity the reefs of the Florida Keys have lost over the past two decades

Map showing the surficial geology from this study and Baldwin and others (2016) with equivalent onshore geology (adapted from Stone and DiGiacomo-Cohen, 2009). The areal extents over which offshore subsurface geologic units crop out at the sea floor were interpreted from seismic-reflection data.

Annual number of earthquakes with a magnitude of 3.0 or larger in the central and eastern United States, 1970–2016. The long-term rate of approximately 25 earthquakes per year increased sharply starting around 2009.

Three-dimensional model of Chimney Bluffs, New York along Lake Ontario created from low-altitude digital images collected from an unmanned aerial system (UAS).

Beach simulation of topography and bathymetry change during a storm. Pre-storm lidar data can be used to set up elevation grids for the model and post-storm lidar can be used in assessing how well the model performs. 

Displaying fixed bin options (left) for rates of change for an example dataset (LRR, EPR, WLR), and scaled to data (right) (NSM).