Recent Coastal and Marine Fieldwork - October-December 2019
By Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program
December 30, 2019
USGS scientists visited numerous locations to set up and remove long-term monitoring instruments, to collect samples, and to monitor and map beaches, rivers, marshes, ocean habitats, and offshore areas. Here’s a quick overview of some fieldwork by our scientists.
This article is part of the October-December 2019 issue of the Sound Waves newsletter.
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- Santa Cruz to Moss Landing, California: Collected nearshore bathymetry and beach topography as part of seasonal, ongoing studies of climate impacts. October.
https://cmgds.marine.usgs.gov/fan_info.php?fan=2019-657-FA
- Offshore of San Francisco Bay, California: Collected seismic reflection profiles, sediment for grain size analysis, and magnetic field intensity, to assess sand resources offshore. October.
https://cmgds.marine.usgs.gov/fan_info.php?fan=2019-649-FA
- St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge, Florida: Collected sediment cores along elevation profiles, mapped beach topography, and collected separate sediment cores for analysis of remineralization rates. October.
https://cmgds.marine.usgs.gov/fan_info.php?fan=2019-366-FA
- Klamath River estuary, Redwood National Park, northern California: Collected surface samples of sediment in Klamath estuary, to characterize salmonid habitat. October.
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- Ocean Beach, San Francisco, California: Collected base GPS and beach elevation data and Structure-from-Motion digital photos to monitor changes in sub-tidal sand volume and distribution. October and November.
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Offshore Morro Bay, California: Collected sediment cores and seismic data to assess sediment ages and slip rates along the Hosgri Fault Zone. October.
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- Potomac River from Shepherdstown, West Virginia to Leesburg, Virginia: Used an unmanned aircraft system to collect multispectral imagery and GPS data; goal is to assess the accuracy, limitations, and performance of bathymetric lidar in the study of substrate, depth, submerged aquatic vegetation, turbidity, and flow of a riverine system. October.
https://cmgds.marine.usgs.gov/fan_info.php?fan=2019-038-FA
- Cape Cod National Seashore, Wellfleet, Massachusetts: Deployed time-series instruments to measure water velocity, water quality, water level, and seabed change; and collected water samples for laboratory analysis of suspended sediment concentration and organic content or calibration of time-series optical turbidity measurements. October.
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Recovered time-series instruments and collected final water samples in November.
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- Biscayne National Park, Fowey Rocks Light (Homestead, Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary), Crocker Reef (Islamorada, Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary) , Sombrero Reef (Marathon, Florida) Dry Tortugas National Park (Key West, Florida): Site visit to coral calcification monitoring stations to measure coral and algal calcification rates. October-November.
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- Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, California: Conducted aerial and topographic mapping of Whiskeytown Reservoir using GPS and UAS Structure-from-Motion aerial images. October-November.
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- South central California: Collected video from remotely operated vehicle (ROV), collecting cores for grain size, foram age dating, XRD, and 210Pb, ground-truthing to determine habitats. November.
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- Buck Island Reef National Monument, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands: Collected video and water temperatures and measured coral and algal calcification rates at monitoring stations. November.
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- Tampa Bay, Florida: Collected porewater chemistry for microbial analyses. November.
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- Little Holland Tract, Rio Vista, California: Recorded thermal data in fish habitat using a thermal camera mounted on a UAS. November.
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- Puget Sound and Hood Canal, Washington: Collected water-level data to study winter storms across the region. November.
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- Bellingham Bay, Washington: Collected time-series data of currents, waves, and water quality for sediment-transport studies related to coastal habitats. November.
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- Jasper Ridge Biological Reserve, Stanford, California: Collected cores of sediments retained behind the Searsville Lake Dam and in Upper Lake for earthquake and ecological studies. November.
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- Northern San Francisco Bay, California: Collected bed sediment samples for grain size, bulk density, and carbon content analyses, to determine temporal variability in bed sediment erodibility and to investigate causes. November.
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- Looe Key, Florida: Collected three sediment push cores from Looe Key reef for grain size and 210Pb analyses. December.
https://cmgds.marine.usgs.gov/fan_info.php?fan=2019-362-FA
- Offshore of Tampa Bay, Florida: Monitoring and assessment of an autonomous carbonate system (Ocean Carbon System or OCS) deployed 60 miles offshore.
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- Head of the Meadow beach, Truro, Massachusetts: Calibrated and tested video cameras for future installation; imagery from cameras is used to study coastal change. December.
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- Indian Rocks Beach, Florida: Collected water samples for temperature and salinity, and measured water level, to assess monitoring wells. December.
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