Publications

Modern sediments from representative localities in Willapa Bay, Washington, comprise two principal heavy-mineral suites. One contains approximately equivalent amounts of hornblende, orthopyroxene, and clinopyroxene; this is derived from the Columbia River, which discharges into the Pacific Ocean a short distance south of the bay. The other suite, dominated by clinopyroxene, is restricted...

San Francisco Bight, located near the coast of San Francisco, USA, is an extremely dynamic tidal inlet environmental subject to large waves and strong currents. Wave heights coming from the Pacific Ocean commonly exceed 5 m during winter storms. During peak flow tidal currents approach 3 m/s at the Golden Gate, a 1 km wide entrance that connects San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean...

No abstract available.

The prediction of longshore transport gradients is critical for forecasting shoreline change. We employ simple test cases consisting of shoreface pits at varying distances from the shoreline to compare the longshore transport gradients predicted by the CERC formula against results derived from the process-based model Delft3D. Results show that while in some cases the two approaches give...

No abstract available.

Following the 1964 M9.2 megathrust earthquake in southern Alaska, Seward was the only town hit by tsunamis generated from both submarine landslides and tectonic sources. Within 45 seconds of the start of the earthquake, a 1.2-km-long section of waterfront began sliding seaward, and soon after, ~6-8-m high waves inundated the town. Studies soon after the earthquake concluded that...

Methane hydrate is an icelike form of concentrated methane and water found in the sediments of permafrost regions and marine continental margins at depths far shallower than conventional oil and gas. Despite their relative accessibility and widespread occurrence, methane hydrates have never been tapped to meet increasing global energy demands. With rising natural gas prices, production...

The accuracy of shoreline change analysis is dependent on how the shoreline is defined and the consistency of the techniques(s) used to define it. Using the concurrent lidar (light detection and ranging) and orthophotography dataset from August and September of 2004 covering North Carolina's 516 kilometers of barrier island oceanfront, Limber et al. (2007) examined the spatial...

If nothing else, research in deep-sea environments teaches us how little we know about such important and productive habitats. The relatively recent discovery of hydrothermal-vent and cold-seep ecosystems illustrates this paucity of knowledge, and the subsequent explosion of research on these systems is a good example of the impact such concentrated efforts can have on marine sciences...

The M9.2 Alaska earthquake of 1964 caused major damage to the port facilities and town of Valdez, most of it the result of submarine landslide and the consequent tsunamis. Recent bathymetric multibeam surveys, high-resolution subbottom profiles, and dated sediment cores in Port Valdez supply new information about the morphology and character of the landslide deposits. A comparison of pre...

The interaction among water molecules, guest gas molecules, salts, and mineral particles determines the nucleation and growth behavior of gas hydrates in natural sediments. Hydrate of tetrahydrofuran (THF) has long been used for laboratory studies of gas hydrate-bearing sediments to provide close control on hydrate concentrations and to overcome the long formation history of methane...

In the last 30 years, there has been approximately a 30% loss of corals worldwide, largely due to emerging diseases (Harvell et al., 2002, 2007; Hughes et al., 2003). Coral microbiology is a new field, driven largely by a desire to understand the interactions between corals and their symbiotic microorganisms and to use this knowledge to eventually prevent the spread of coral diseases.