Publications

At marine methane seeps, vast quantities of methane move through the shallow subseafloor, where it is largely consumed by microbial communities. This process plays an important role in global methane dynamics, but we have yet to identify all of the methane sinks in the deep sea. Here, we conducted a continental-scale survey of seven geologically diverse seafloor seeps and found that...

Introduction Structure from motion (SFM) has become an integral technique in coastal change assessment; the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) used Agisoft Metashape Professional Edition photogrammetry software to develop a workflow that processes coastline aerial imagery collected in response to storms since Hurricane Florence in 2018. This report details step-by-step instructions to create...

In southern California, plate boundary motion between the North American and Pacific plates is distributed across several sub-parallel fault systems. The offshore faults of the California Continental Borderland (CCB) are thought to accommodate ~10-15% of the total plate boundary motion, but the exact distribution of slip and the mechanics of slip partitioning remain uncertain. The...

The persistence of coastal marsh is dependent on its ability to maintain elevation relative to sea level, particularly for marshes experiencing high rates of shoreline erosion due to wave-attack, storms, and sea level rise. Sediments eroded at the marsh edge are either delivered onto the marsh platform or into the estuary, the latter resulting in a net loss of marsh sediments and soil...

The increasing pressure on Earth's ecosystems due to climate change is becoming more and more evident and the impacts of climate change are especially visible on coral reefs. Understanding how climate change interacts with the physical environment of reefs to impact coral growth and reef development is critically important to predicting the persistence of reefs into the future. In this...

Rip currents can move unsuspecting swimmers offshore rapidly and represent a significant risk to beach users worldwide, including along the northern coast of Prince Edward Island (PEI), Canada. Although many rip currents are ephemeral and/or spatially variable in response to changes in the nearshore bar morphology and wave and tidal forcing, it is possible for rip channels to be...

Executive Summary On June 24, 2019, Congressman Raul Grijalva of Arizona, Chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources, sent a letter to the directors of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey to request their assistance in answering questions regarding coastal sediment resource management within the Coastal Barrier Resources System as defined by the...

Hurricanes are known to play a critical role in reshaping coastlines, but often only impacts on the open ocean coast are considered, ignoring seaward-directed forces and responses. The identification of subaerial evidence for storm-induced seaward transport is a critical step towards understanding its impact on coastal resiliency. The visual features, found in the National Oceanic and...

Hurricane Florence (2018) devastated the coastal communities of the Carolinas through heavy rainfall that resulted in massive flooding. Florence was characterized by an abrupt reduction in intensity (Saffir-Simpson Category 4 to Category 1) just prior to landfall and synoptic-scale interactions that stalled the storm over the Carolinas for several days. We conducted a series of numerical...

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists and technical staff deployed instrumented underwater platforms and buoys to collect oceanographic and atmospheric data at two sites near Matanzas Inlet, Florida, on January 24, 2018, and recovered them on April 13, 2018. Matanzas Inlet is a natural, unmaintained inlet on the Florida Atlantic coast that is well suited to study inlet and cross-shore...

Increasing the resilience of coastal communities while decreasing the risk to them are key to the continued inhabitance and sustainability of these areas. Low-lying coral reef-lined islands are experiencing storm wave-driven flood events that currently strike with little to no warning. These events are occurring more frequently and with increasing severity. There is a need along the...

Grand Bay estuary in coastal Mississippi and Alabama (USA) has undergone significant geomorphic changes over the last few centuries as a result of anthropogenic (bridge, road, and hardened shoreline construction) and climatic (extreme storm events) processes, which reduce freshwater input, sediment supply, and degrade barrier islands. To investigate how geomorphic changes may have...