Images

Exposed bedrock on the beach during very low (negative) tide at Isla Vista, California.

Dann Blackwood and Jon Borden inspect a current meter retrieved from the ocean using the research boat Muddy Waters near Wellfleet, Massachusetts.

The house with the USGS BeachCam is in the center of this image, taken Feb. 14, 2017 after a much smaller Noreaster. Visible in the foreground on the left are the remnants of the artificial dune (completely removed by the March 2018 storm), and on the right is the engineered protection put in place by private property owners. 

Exposed bedrock on the beach, below the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Installing large boulders as rip rap to armor the shore against further erosion at Goleta Beach in Southern California. The tide is very low (negative).

Exposed bedrock on the beach during very low (negative) tide at Isla Vista, California

Bedrock exposed at low tide along the beach at Isla Vista, California

Beach loss and armoring at Goleta Beach, very low (negative) tide

A net sedimentation tile (NST) is used by scientists to measure surface sediment deposition in wetlands over short time scales. Scientists installed several NSTs on the surface of the marsh to measure sediment deposition. The samples are retrieved and measured in the lab to identify short-term sediment deposition rates on the marsh surface.

USGS oceanographer Dan Hoover uses a GPS-equipped backpack to measure sand elevations near the mouth of the San Lorenzo River in Santa Cruz, California, January 12, 2017. Surveys like this make long-term studies of coastal change possible.

An atmospheric river, or narrow band of moisture moving from the tropics to the higher latitudes, hit California in early January and brought the first heavy rains of 2017. While these storms help a drought-stricken state, the onslaught of rain triggers floods and mudslides, and fills rising rivers with sediment and debris.

A sonar-equipped personal watercraft mapping the bathymetry underwater near Santa Cruz, Calif.

USGS scientists readying a sonar-equipped boat to map the ocean bottom near Santa Cruz, Calif.

USGS scientist Daniel Hoover mapping the beach at Santa Cruz with a GPS-equipped backpack unit.

 USGS scientists setting up a lidar scanner on the pier to map the beach near Capitola, California.

Graphic demonstrating how CoSMoS uses global climate models to forecast local coastal hazards.

Oceanographer Andy O’Neill spent 11 years providing oceanographic and meteorological analyses for the U.S. Navy in Japan before joining the USGS in 2012. Now she fine-tunes CoSMoS coastal hazard forecasts.

Mount Crillon in the backdrop during a multibeam bathymetry survey of the Queen Charlotte-Fairweather Fault, offshore southeastern Alaska.

Woods Hole Core Lab Manager, Brian Buczkowski,  giving a tour of the lab to local teachers participating in a professional development workshop

At Fire Island, estuarine, wetland, coastal, and oceanic processes interact, affecting natural and human communities. The CMHRP has been conducting scientific investigations at Fire Island in order to protect coastal infrastructure.

Participants at the September 2016 Argus Workshop at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Field Research Facility in Duck, North Carolina, including many of the scientists named in this article (labeled). Rob Holman (Oregon State University) took the photo with a drone.