Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program

USGS Research Geologist Madelyn Mette led a recent manuscript with coauthors in academia, titled “Persistent multidecadal variability since the 15^th century in the southern Barents Sea derived from annually resolved shell-based records.”

The COAWST (Coupled-Ocean-Atmosphere-Wave-Sediment Transport) modeling system is an open-source tool that combines many sophisticated models that each provide earth-system components necessary to investigate the dynamics of coastal storm impacts.

SPCMSC geologist Julie Bernier was interviewed for an outreach story, "Keeping an Eye on Vulnerable Coastal Wetlands," that was released by the Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center.

SPCMSC Research Geologist Jennifer Miselis and Operations scientist Andy Farmer will conduct a geophysical survey at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Field Research Facility in Duck, NC as part of DUNEX.

SPCMSC scientist Emily Wei and operations personnel Andrew Farmer, BJ Reynolds, and Chelsea Stalk will be collecting high-resolution bathymetric data from the barrier systems of Rockaway, New York, and Seven Mile Island, New Jersey, to study their evolution.

Research conducted by USGS Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program (CMHRP) and NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) assesses the effectiveness of beach and dune nourishment on barrier island morphological resilience.

Each year, the National Association of Government Communicators (NAGC) holds the Blue Pencil & Gold Screen Awards Competition, an international awards program that recognizes superior government communication products and those who produce them. It is open to federal, tribal, military, state, regional, county, municipal, and all other government entities. 

On June 1, 2021, USGS and USFWS published a joint report in response to a request from the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources to evaluate the impacts of sediment removal and placement within barrier island systems.

SPCMSC geologists are giving presentations on research of recent geomorphologic changes at the Chandeleur Islands, Louisiana, at the virtual State of the Coast 2021 conference held June 2–4, 2021.

Coastal sediment management practices, such as dredging and beach nourishment, can have beneficial and detrimental impacts on the physical and ecological resiliency of barrier islands, particularly when sediment is removed from one barrier island system and placed in another, according to a report released today.

Hurricane Sandy, one of the most destructive hurricanes in U.S. history, significantly affected the mid Atlantic coast in 2012. In New Jersey, where Sandy made landfall, much of the coast consists of barrier islands - narrow stretches of sand deposited parallel to the mainland coast – that were deeply eroded, overwashed and in places breached by the storm.