Recent Coastal and Marine Fieldwork - April-July 2020
Much of the USGS fieldwork has been delayed, postponed, or canceled in the face of COVID-19. USGS Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program (CMHRP) scientists were able to safely venture out to collect beach elevations; biogeochemistry samples; water, soil, and meteorological data; and coral and algal samples, in San Francisco, Florida, Massachusetts, and the US Virgin Islands.
Kissimmee River Aquifer Storage and Recovery (KRASR) treatment facility, Okeechobee, FL: Collected samples for geochemistry, biogeochemistry, microbial diversity, microbial productivity, and nutrient cycling, in order to characterize microbial biogeochemistry of groundwater systems, April 1
Ocean Beach, San Francisco, CA: Collected base GPS and beach elevation data and Structure-from-Motion digital photos, to monitor changes in beach sand volume and distribution, April 6, June 10, July 8
Madeira Beach, FL: Collected GPS beach elevation data following the passage of Tropical Storm Cristobal and in support of long-term monitoring at Madeira Beach and the total water level (TWL) model, June 10, July 10
Martin and Brevard Counties, FL: Collected beach elevation profiles and mapped sea turtle nesting locations to assess nesting response on different template designs for nourished beaches and how these differ from a "natural beach", Summer 2020
Buck Island Reef National Monument, St. Croix, USVI (BUIS): Visited coral calcification monitoring stations to measure coral and algal calcification rates, and extended the coral-calcification assessment network to include BUIS, June 15-19
Herring River Estuary, Cape Cod, MA: Continuous monitoring of surface water and pore-water depth, salinity, and temperature, soil temperature and meteorological data in Herring River estuary to examine environmental geochemistry and health of the estuary, ongoing from June through October
