Sediments

USGS and the California Ocean Protection Council (COPC) are supporting development of peer-reviewed map sets for California’s mainland State Waters.

The map sheets display seafloor morphology and character, identify potential marine benthic habitats, and illustrate both the surficial seafloor geology and shallow (to about 100 m) subsurface geology. The total number of sheets varies by area.

California Seafloor Mapping Program data and map publications have and will be used for a large range of applications in coastal zone management and research.

This project assesses the physical controls of sediment and material exchange between wetlands and estuarine environments along the northern Gulf of Mexico (Grand Bay Alabama/Mississippi and Vermilion Bay, Louisiana) and the Atlantic coast (Chincoteague Bay, Virginia/Maryland).

The Sea Floor Mapping Group (SFMG) is a core capability at the Woods Hole Coastal & Marine Science Center (WHCMSC) that provides support for coastal, lacustrine and marine geologic research. The staff has a wide-range of expertise and is responsible for geophysical and sampling data acquisition, processing, interpretation and publication, logistics, design, and research and development. SFMG has...

Exchange of flows, sediment, and biological particles between the inner shelf and back-barrier estuaries are significant for determination of extreme water levels, maintenance and formation of inlets, barrier-island evolution, and pollutant and larval transport. These connections are controlled by cross-shore processes including wave-driven inner-shelf and near-shore processes, dune overtopping...

Numerical models are used by scientists, engineers, coastal managers, and the public to understand and predict processes in the coastal ocean. This project supports the development and application of open-source coastal models and has several objectives: 1) improve the code of numerical sediment-transport models by implementing new or improved algorithms; 2) obtain measurements of coastal ocean...

The primary objective of this project is to increase our understanding of the physical processes that cause coastal change, and ultimately improve our capability to predict the processes and their impacts. This will be approached by using geophysical surveys, oceanographic studies, and predictive models to investigate the interactions of shoreline, nearshore, and offshore sediment transport...

Since 2007, the USGS (with NPS and USACE) has been mapping the seafloor and substrate around the Mississippi barrier islands to characterize the near-surface stratigraphy and identify the influence it has on island evolution and fate.

Information about the USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center's study from 2001-2004, on Englebright Dam and the science behind its removal.

Information about the USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center's research from 2000-2004, on how mud damages hawaiian coral reefs.

Information about the USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center's development of an instrument called the "flying eyeball" to measure river sand, from 1993-2004.