Publications

The largest uncertainty in assessing hazards from local tsunamis along the Cascadia margin is estimating the possible earthquake source parameters. We investigate which source parameters exert the largest influence on tsunami generation and determine how each parameter affects the amplitude of the local tsunami. The following source parameters were analyzed: (1) type of faulting...

No abstract available.

As part of A Multidisciplinary Amazon Shelf Sediment Study (AMASSEDS), moored and shipboard current measurements made over the Amazon shelf during 1990–1991 have been analyzed to determine the dominant semidiurnal tidal constituent, the M2. These results have been combined with coastal sea level data from within the Amazon and Para Rivers, the adjacent shelf, and with satellite‐derived...

Although the shorelines of Prince William Sound still bear traces of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, most of the flattened tar balls that can be found today on these shorelines are not residues of Exxon Valdez oil. Instead, the carbon-isotopic and hydrocarbonbiomarker signatures of 61 tar ball samples, collected from shorelines throughout the northern and western parts of the sound, are...

The Wilkes Land continental shelf, similar to other Antarctic shelves, is underlain by thick sequences of steeply prograded glacial diamictons. On the outer shelf, banks that are shallower than 400 m are separated by broad outer-shelf troughs that deepen landward. The prograded sequences are found preferentially in these broad outer-shelf troughs. We propose that these outer-shelf...

It is known that the Antarctic ice sheet greatly affected global climate, sea‐level, ocean circulation, and Southern Hemisphere biota during Cenozoic times, but until recently, how remained largely a mystery. Because few Cenozoic rocks are exposed on the Antarctic continent, the only way to investigate the evolution of the Antarctic ice sheet was through isotopic studies on distant deep...

An instrumented bottom tripod (GEOPROBE) recorded flow and suspended sediment data in the bottom boundary layer above the lower foresets of the Amazon subaqueous delta in 65 m mean water depth in February, 1990. After about two weeks of operation the apparent seafloor at the tripod site rapidly elevated over a 14-hour period by about 44 cm. This sudden change, which was detected by an...

Mamala Bay, off the south shore of the island of Oahu, has been used as a repository of dredged material primarily from Pearl and Honolulu Harbors for over a century. The U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are conducting an integrated study on the distribution and character of dredged materials as well as the effects of...

The regional stratigraphy of eastern Kamchatka includes an exotic, Early-Late Cretaceous ophiolite and Late Cretaceous island-arc volcanic sequence. Integrating the existing geologic and geophysical data, we examine the origin, transport, emplacement, and postemplacement deformation of the island-arc terrane, which is named the Olyutorsky island arc. Results from several paleomagnetic...

Three active hydrothermal vents forming sulfide mounds and chimneys (Monolith, Fountain, and Pipe Organ) and more widely distributed inactive chimneys are spatially related to a system of discontinuous fissures and young sheet flow lavas at the northern Cleft segment, Juan de Fuca Ridge. The formation of zoned tubular Curich chimneys (type I) on the Monolith sulfide mound is related to...

No abstract available.

Measurements of velocities and light transmission in the bottom boundary layer on the continental shelf off northern California demonstrate the importance of storms in the transport of sediment along the coast and offshore in this region. Time-series estimates of bottom stress obtained from a combined wave-current bottom boundary layer model in which wave and current measurements from...