Publications

To help guide watershed restoration to reduce the impacts to adjacent coral reefs, the United States Geological Survey and Deltares acquired and analyzed oceanographic and sedimentologic data off 5 West Maui watersheds to calibrate and validate physics-based, numerical hydrodynamic and sediment transport models of the study area. The results indicated sheltered sites are impacted by...

Arctic barrier islands and spits are dynamic features influenced by a variety of oceanographic, geologic, and environmental factors. Many serve as habitat and protection for native species and shelter the coast from waves and storms that can flood and erode the adjacent mainland. This paper summarizes results of a study documenting changes to barrier morphology along the North Slope...

During a 3-month deployment on a broad, fringing reef flat in Moloka’i, Hawai’i, we observed over 28,000 wave-driven resuspension (WDR) events of coarse-grained sediment in order to identify major factors. These events were short-lived (2-11 s) and distinct from the longer-duration patterns of water-column backscatter. The wave-driven transport of WDR events was onshore, but the net...

Here we show how ultra-high resolution seabed mapping using new technology can help to understand processes that sculpt submarine canyons. Time-lapse seafloor surveys were conducted in the axis of Monterey Canyon, ∼50 km from the canyon head (∼1,840 m water depth) over an 18-month period. These surveys comprised 5-cm resolution multibeam bathymetry, 1-cm resolution lidar bathymetry, and...

The Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta (Delta) in California (USA) is an important part of the state’s freshwater system and is also a major source of agricultural and natural resources. However, the Delta is traversed by a series of faults that make up the easternmost part of the San Andreas fault system at this latitude and pose seismic hazard to this region. In this study, we use new high...

Bathymetric change analyses document historical patterns of sediment deposition and erosion, providing valuable insight into the sediment dynamics of coastal systems, including pathways of sediment and sediment-bound contaminants. In 2014 and 2015, the Office for Coastal Management, in partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office of Coastal...

The South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project (SBSPRP) encompasses over 6,000 hectares of former salt production ponds along the south edge of the San Francisco Bay and represents the largest wetland restoration effort on the west coast of North America. A series of studies associated with Phase 1 (2010–2018) restoration activities that are focused on a historically mercury contaminated...

Renewed interest in nearshore oil exploration and production in the shallow waters of the Central Beaufort Sea Shelf has created a need to advance our understanding of the past, current, and future atmospheric and oceanographic conditions that affect existing and planned infrastructure and nearshore ecosystems. At the time of writing this report, Hilcorp Alaska LLC has received BOEM...

We determine optimal on‐fault earthquake spatial distributions using a combinatorial method that minimizes the long‐term cumulative stress resolved on the fault. An integer‐programming framework was previously developed to determine the optimal arrangement of a millennia‐scale earthquake sample that minimizes the misfit to a target slip rate determined from geodetic data. The resulting...

Terrestrial sediment discharging from watersheds off West Maui, Hawaiʻi, has been documented as a primary stressor to local coral reefs, causing coral reef health to decline. The U.S. Geological Survey acquired and analyzed physical oceanographic and sedimentologic field data off the coast of West Maui to calibrate and validate physics-based, numerical hydrodynamic and sediment transport...

A high-resolution multibeam survey from a portion of the San Simeon Channel (offshore Morro Bay, California) captured a zone of recurring troughs and ridges adjacent to prominent submarine meander bends. Through an integrated study using surveying data, sediment core analysis, radiocarbon dating, and stable isotope measurements, we hypothesize that turbidity current event frequency was...

Satellite data are revolutionizing coastal science. A study revealing how the El Niño/Southern Oscillation impacts coastal erosion around the Pacific Rim shows what is possible.