Images

Tripod deployed on the reef flat off Jurabi, Ningaloo World Heritage Site, Western Australia, with instrumentation designed to measure tides, waves, currents, and sediment being transported across the reef.

Marinna Martini is deploying a weather buoy off the coast of Plymouth Ma.

A specialized wave buoy was deployed at the site farthest from shore to measure the height, period, and direction of surface waves and telemeter the data to the Coastal Data Information Program (CDIP)

Cerulean damselfish dart around lettuce coral off the Cape Range National Park along the Ningaloo Coast in Western Australia. USGS researchers combined forces with Australian colleagues in this UNESCO World Heritage Site to conduct the most extensive study of how erosion of reefs contribute sand to the beaches—a coast’s natural armor.

USGS scientists are working to model shorebird habitat availability both today and in the future, given processes like sea-level rise, in an effort to support the efficient management of beaches for both people and nesting shorebirds.

USGS scientists are working to model shorebird habitat availability both today and in the future, given processes like sea-level rise, in an effort to support the efficient management of beaches for both people and nesting shorebirds.

The beach-dependent shorebirds project at the Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center models current and future habitat availability for nesting shorebirds in an effort to map current and likely future habitat availability on a range of sites along the U.S. Atlantic coast.

USGS scientists are working to model shorebird habitat availability both today and in the future, given processes like sea-level rise, in an effort to support the efficient management of beaches for both people and nesting shorebirds.

Tripod holding instruments and cameras used to measure and study aspects of sediment movement in and around the reef.

USGS collaborators from Marine Biological Laboratory preparing to measure greenhouse gas flux from a salt marsh study site (Cape Cod, MA).

USGS scientists are working to model shorebird habitat availability both today and in the future, given processes like sea-level rise, in an effort to support the efficient management of beaches for both people and nesting shorebirds. This photo shows an area on Long Beach Island, NJ where high quality shorebird habitat has been closed off to beach recreation.

Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center scientists aboard the RV Rafael prepare to launch the Mini SEABOSS just off of Nantucket!  The Mini SEABOSS collects samples, photos and video of the seafloor. 

A map of the United States and its territories shows red dots at the locations where field work is planned for the months of June-July 2016.

Sampling seawater every 4 hours for a period of 72 hours required the team to work during the early hours of the day. Left to right: Chris Gallagher (Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center), Kim Yates (St.

The colored bands on this map of La Jolla, California, illustrate how far cliffs could erode in different sea level rise scenarios, according to CoSMoS forecasts.

Side view of the oceanographic research vessel (R/V) Meteor floating on the ocean, taken from a distance.

Thirty-five years after the data were originally collected as part of a study of glacial geology of the western Gulf of Maine, USGS seismic and sampling data are being used to assist coastal communities in locating offshore sand resources for mitigating coastal erosion.

An adult piping plover. The piping plover is a small migratory shorebird listed as endangered in Canada and the U.S. Great Lakes, and threatened throughout the remainder of its U.S. breeding and winter range. Recent surveys indicate that there are only about 8,000 adults in existence.

A 21-cm marsh peat auger sediment core containing a brown peat above a clayey silty gray sediment layer was collected in the field in the Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in May, 2016.

The light blue areas on this map of the Port of Los Angeles could flood during a 100-year storm with no sea level rise, according to CoSMoS forecasts. The port handled about \$270 billion of cargo in 2015.

According to CoSMoS forecasts, large parts of Long Beach, California, could flood during an intense El Niño storm (light blue areas).

Several factors affect sea cliff erosion including rain, rock strength, cliff toe height, wave energy, and coastal slope.