Jason Chaytor, PhD
I work on a variety of marine geological and geohazard topics including sedimentary processes and geochronology of submarine slope failures, deep-sea sedimentary systems, submarine geomorphology, and neotectonics in marine and near-shore environments.
Dr. Jason Chaytor is a research geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey at the USGS Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center. Jason conducts research on issues related to marine geohazards including submarine landslides, tsunamis, earthquakes, and plate tectonics and shallow- and deep-water sedimentary processes on Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and Pacific margins of the U.S. and in the northeast Caribbean. He is the current principle scientist for the USGS Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center Sediments Laboratory.
Research Interests
Marine Geohazards
Marine geohazards are sudden and extreme geologic events that affect coastal areas and seabed infrastructure on regional and transoceanic scales. The hazards include submarine earthquakes, submarine slope failures, and tsunami generation. The sediment record of past offshore and coastal hazardous events is generally more complete in the marine environment than on land and can be investigated with geological and geophysical tools. My research involves the identification and characterization of areas of the seafloor and subseafloor within and adjacent to the U.S. EEZ that record a history of fault movement or slope failure (or have the potential to be effected by these processes in the future). Included in this work is the development of conceptual models of seafloor movement and local/regional sedimentation patterns and supporting geochronological frameworks, formulation, planning and performance of field sampling and geophysical imaging activities and laboratory analyses, investigation of local and regional sedimentation processes, and communication of event characteristics to modelers and other stake holders to aid in developing hazard assessments.
Marine Sedimentation Processes and Framework Geology
I investigate dynamic shallow-water (< 200 m) and deep-water sedimentary environments to characterize physical properties affecting acoustic propagation (ONR Mud Patch Project), to evaluate the hazard of recurring seafloor motion to critical offshore infrastructure, and in the development of regional geologic analysis of surfical geologic processes across multiple potential areas of interest in to the U.S. Extended Continental Shelf Project.
Education and Certifications
2006-2009: Postdoctoral Scholar, Department of Geology and Geophysics, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, MA
2006: PhD, Geological Oceanography, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon,
Science and Products
Filter Total Items: 45
Mapping, exploration, and characterization of the California continental margin and associated features from the California-Oregon border to Ensenada, Mexico
Priority Geographic Area: Both within and outside US Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). California continental margin. This area includes and continues south of the geographic area captured in the Watt et al. white paper. Description of Priority Area: The California continental margin, from the narrow shelf to abyssal depths, contains diverse seafloor features that influence benthic community types, b
Authors
Amanda Demopoulos, Nancy G. Prouty, Daniel S. Brothers, Janet Watt, James E. Conrad, Jason Chaytor, Chris Caldow
Short and long-term movement of mudflows of the Mississippi River Delta Front and their known and potential impacts on oil and gas infrastructure
Mudflows on the Mississippi River Delta Front (MRDF) are recognized hazards to oil and gas infrastructure in the shallow (20 – 300 m water depth) Gulf of Mexico. Preconditioning of the seafloor for failure results from high sedimentation rates coupled with slope over-steepening, under-consolidation, and abundant biogenic gas production. Catastrophic failure of production platforms and pipelines du
Authors
Jason Chaytor, Wayne E. Baldwin, Samuel J. Bentley, Melanie Damour, Douglas Jones, Jillian Maloney, Michael Miner, Jeff Obelcz, Kehui Xu
Geoacoustic inversion for a New England mud patch sediment using the silt-suspension theory of marine mud
This article provides an application of the silt-suspension theory to a Bayesian-inference inversion for the geo-acoustic parameters in marine mud. The theory, with consequences that have been developed recently, postulates a suspension of water and clay mineral card-houses that supports moderately dilute concentrations of silt particles. The approach is an example of a physically based model inve
Authors
Elisabeth M. Brown, Ying-Tsong Lin, Jason Chaytor, William L. Siegmann
Maximum entropy derived statistics of sound speed structure in a fine-grained sediment inferred from sparse broadband acoustic measurements on the New England continental shelf
Marginal probability distributions for parameters representing an effective sound-speed structure of a fine-grained sediment are inferred from a data ensemble maximum entropy method that utilizes a sparse spatially distributed set of received pressure time series resulting from multiple explosive sources in a shallow-water ocean environment possessing significant spatial variability of the seabed.
Authors
David P. Knobles, Preston S. Wilson, J.A. Goff, L. Wan, M.J. Buckingham, Jason Chaytor, Mohsen Badiey
In situ measurements of compressional wave speed during gravity coring operations in the New England mud patch
This paper presents measurements of sediment sound-speed profiles measured in situ using the acoustic coring system (ACS). The reported measurements were obtained from seven gravity cores collected in the New England Mud Patch. The ACS uses two sets of transducers mounted below the penetrating tip of a sediment corer to make in situ measurements of geoacoustic properties as the corer penetrates th
Authors
Megan S. Ballard, Kevin M. Lee, Andrew R. McNeese, Preston S. Wilson, Jason Chaytor, John A. Goff, Allen H. Reed
The Santa Cruz Basin submarine landslide complex, southern California: Repeated failure of uplifted basin sediment
The Santa Cruz Basin (SCB) is one of several fault-bounded basins within the California Continental Borderland that has drawn interest over the years for its role in the tectonic evolution of the region, but also because it contains a record of a variety of modes of sedimentary mass transport (i.e., open slope vs. canyon-confined systems). Here, we present a suite of new high-resolution marine geo
Authors
Daniel S. Brothers, Katherine L. Maier, Jared W. Kluesner, James E. Conrad, Jason Chaytor
Characterizing the sponge grounds of Grays Canyon, Washington, USA
Deep-sea sponge grounds are relatively understudied ecosystems that may provide key habitats for a large number of fish and invertebrates including commercial species. Glass sponge grounds have been discovered from the tropics to polar regions but there are only a few places with high densities of dictyonine sponges. Dictyonine glass sponges have a fused skeleton, which stays intact when they die
Authors
Abby N. Powell, M. Elizabeth Clarke, Erica Fruh, Jason Chaytor, Henry M. Reiswig, Curt E. Whitmire
A consistent global approach for the morphometric characterization of subaqueous landslides
Landslides are common in aquatic settings worldwide, from lakes and coastal environments to the deep sea. Fast-moving, large-volume landslides can potentially trigger destructive tsunamis. Landslides damage and disrupt global communication links and other critical marine infrastructure. Landslide deposits act as foci for localized, but important, deep-seafloor biological communities. Under burial,
Authors
Michael Clare, Jason Chaytor, Oliver Dabson, Davide Gamboa, Aggeliki Georgiopoulou, Harry Eady, James Hunt, Christopher Jackson, Oded Katz, Sebastian Krastel, Ricardo León, Aaron Micallef, Jasper Moernaut, Roberto Moriconi, Lorena Moscardelli, Christof Mueller, Alexandre Normandeau, Marco Patacci, Michael Steventon, Morelia Urlaub, David Volker, Lesli Wood, Zane R. Jobe
The role of deep-water sedimentary processes in shaping a continental margin: The Northwest Atlantic
The tectonic history of a margin dictates its general shape; however, its geomorphology is generally transformed by deep-sea sedimentary processes. The objective of this study is to show the influences of turbidity currents, contour currents and sediment mass failures on the geomorphology of the deep-water northwestern Atlantic margin (NWAM) between Blake Ridge and Hudson Trough, spanning about 32
Authors
David C. Mosher, D.C. Campbell, J.V. Gardner, D.J.W. Piper, Jason Chaytor, M. Rebesco
Demersal fish assemblages on seamounts and other rugged features in the northeastern Caribbean
Recent investigations of demersal fish communities in deepwater (>50 m) habitats have considerably increased our knowledge of the factors that influence the assemblage structure of fishes across mesophotic to deep-sea depths. While different habitat types influence deepwater fish distribution, whether different types of rugged seafloor features provide functionally equivalent habitat for fishes is
Authors
Andrea M. Quattrini, Amanda W.J. Demopoulos, Randal Singer, Adela Roa-Varon, Jason D. Chaytor
Source characterization and tsunami modeling of submarine landslides along the Yucatán Shelf/Campeche Escarpment, southern Gulf of Mexico
Submarine landslides occurring along the margins of the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) represent a low-likelihood, but potentially damaging source of tsunamis. New multibeam bathymetry coverage reveals that mass wasting is pervasive along the Yucatán Shelf edge with several large composite landslides possibly removing as much as 70 km3 of the Cenozoic sedimentary section in a single event. Using GIS-based a
Authors
Jason D. Chaytor, Eric L. Geist, Charles K. Paull, David W Caress, Roberto Gwiazda, Jaime Urrutia Fucugauchi, Mario Rebolledo Vieyra
Assessment of canyon wall failure process from multibeam bathymetry and Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) observations, U.S. Atlantic continental margin
Over the last few years, canyons along the northern U.S. Atlantic continental margin have been the focus of intensive research examining canyon evolution, submarine geohazards, benthic ecology and deep-sea coral habitat. New high-resolution multibeam bathymetry and Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) dives in the major shelf-breaching and minor slope canyons, provided the opportunity to investigate th
Authors
Jason D. Chaytor, Amanda W.J. Demopoulos, Uri S. ten Brink, Christopher D. P. Baxter, Andrea M. Quattrini, Daniel S. Brothers
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- Publications
Filter Total Items: 45
Mapping, exploration, and characterization of the California continental margin and associated features from the California-Oregon border to Ensenada, Mexico
Priority Geographic Area: Both within and outside US Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). California continental margin. This area includes and continues south of the geographic area captured in the Watt et al. white paper. Description of Priority Area: The California continental margin, from the narrow shelf to abyssal depths, contains diverse seafloor features that influence benthic community types, bAuthorsAmanda Demopoulos, Nancy G. Prouty, Daniel S. Brothers, Janet Watt, James E. Conrad, Jason Chaytor, Chris CaldowShort and long-term movement of mudflows of the Mississippi River Delta Front and their known and potential impacts on oil and gas infrastructure
Mudflows on the Mississippi River Delta Front (MRDF) are recognized hazards to oil and gas infrastructure in the shallow (20 – 300 m water depth) Gulf of Mexico. Preconditioning of the seafloor for failure results from high sedimentation rates coupled with slope over-steepening, under-consolidation, and abundant biogenic gas production. Catastrophic failure of production platforms and pipelines duAuthorsJason Chaytor, Wayne E. Baldwin, Samuel J. Bentley, Melanie Damour, Douglas Jones, Jillian Maloney, Michael Miner, Jeff Obelcz, Kehui XuGeoacoustic inversion for a New England mud patch sediment using the silt-suspension theory of marine mud
This article provides an application of the silt-suspension theory to a Bayesian-inference inversion for the geo-acoustic parameters in marine mud. The theory, with consequences that have been developed recently, postulates a suspension of water and clay mineral card-houses that supports moderately dilute concentrations of silt particles. The approach is an example of a physically based model inveAuthorsElisabeth M. Brown, Ying-Tsong Lin, Jason Chaytor, William L. SiegmannMaximum entropy derived statistics of sound speed structure in a fine-grained sediment inferred from sparse broadband acoustic measurements on the New England continental shelf
Marginal probability distributions for parameters representing an effective sound-speed structure of a fine-grained sediment are inferred from a data ensemble maximum entropy method that utilizes a sparse spatially distributed set of received pressure time series resulting from multiple explosive sources in a shallow-water ocean environment possessing significant spatial variability of the seabed.AuthorsDavid P. Knobles, Preston S. Wilson, J.A. Goff, L. Wan, M.J. Buckingham, Jason Chaytor, Mohsen BadieyIn situ measurements of compressional wave speed during gravity coring operations in the New England mud patch
This paper presents measurements of sediment sound-speed profiles measured in situ using the acoustic coring system (ACS). The reported measurements were obtained from seven gravity cores collected in the New England Mud Patch. The ACS uses two sets of transducers mounted below the penetrating tip of a sediment corer to make in situ measurements of geoacoustic properties as the corer penetrates thAuthorsMegan S. Ballard, Kevin M. Lee, Andrew R. McNeese, Preston S. Wilson, Jason Chaytor, John A. Goff, Allen H. ReedThe Santa Cruz Basin submarine landslide complex, southern California: Repeated failure of uplifted basin sediment
The Santa Cruz Basin (SCB) is one of several fault-bounded basins within the California Continental Borderland that has drawn interest over the years for its role in the tectonic evolution of the region, but also because it contains a record of a variety of modes of sedimentary mass transport (i.e., open slope vs. canyon-confined systems). Here, we present a suite of new high-resolution marine geo
AuthorsDaniel S. Brothers, Katherine L. Maier, Jared W. Kluesner, James E. Conrad, Jason ChaytorCharacterizing the sponge grounds of Grays Canyon, Washington, USA
Deep-sea sponge grounds are relatively understudied ecosystems that may provide key habitats for a large number of fish and invertebrates including commercial species. Glass sponge grounds have been discovered from the tropics to polar regions but there are only a few places with high densities of dictyonine sponges. Dictyonine glass sponges have a fused skeleton, which stays intact when they dieAuthorsAbby N. Powell, M. Elizabeth Clarke, Erica Fruh, Jason Chaytor, Henry M. Reiswig, Curt E. WhitmireA consistent global approach for the morphometric characterization of subaqueous landslides
Landslides are common in aquatic settings worldwide, from lakes and coastal environments to the deep sea. Fast-moving, large-volume landslides can potentially trigger destructive tsunamis. Landslides damage and disrupt global communication links and other critical marine infrastructure. Landslide deposits act as foci for localized, but important, deep-seafloor biological communities. Under burial,AuthorsMichael Clare, Jason Chaytor, Oliver Dabson, Davide Gamboa, Aggeliki Georgiopoulou, Harry Eady, James Hunt, Christopher Jackson, Oded Katz, Sebastian Krastel, Ricardo León, Aaron Micallef, Jasper Moernaut, Roberto Moriconi, Lorena Moscardelli, Christof Mueller, Alexandre Normandeau, Marco Patacci, Michael Steventon, Morelia Urlaub, David Volker, Lesli Wood, Zane R. JobeThe role of deep-water sedimentary processes in shaping a continental margin: The Northwest Atlantic
The tectonic history of a margin dictates its general shape; however, its geomorphology is generally transformed by deep-sea sedimentary processes. The objective of this study is to show the influences of turbidity currents, contour currents and sediment mass failures on the geomorphology of the deep-water northwestern Atlantic margin (NWAM) between Blake Ridge and Hudson Trough, spanning about 32AuthorsDavid C. Mosher, D.C. Campbell, J.V. Gardner, D.J.W. Piper, Jason Chaytor, M. RebescoDemersal fish assemblages on seamounts and other rugged features in the northeastern Caribbean
Recent investigations of demersal fish communities in deepwater (>50 m) habitats have considerably increased our knowledge of the factors that influence the assemblage structure of fishes across mesophotic to deep-sea depths. While different habitat types influence deepwater fish distribution, whether different types of rugged seafloor features provide functionally equivalent habitat for fishes isAuthorsAndrea M. Quattrini, Amanda W.J. Demopoulos, Randal Singer, Adela Roa-Varon, Jason D. ChaytorSource characterization and tsunami modeling of submarine landslides along the Yucatán Shelf/Campeche Escarpment, southern Gulf of Mexico
Submarine landslides occurring along the margins of the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) represent a low-likelihood, but potentially damaging source of tsunamis. New multibeam bathymetry coverage reveals that mass wasting is pervasive along the Yucatán Shelf edge with several large composite landslides possibly removing as much as 70 km3 of the Cenozoic sedimentary section in a single event. Using GIS-based aAuthorsJason D. Chaytor, Eric L. Geist, Charles K. Paull, David W Caress, Roberto Gwiazda, Jaime Urrutia Fucugauchi, Mario Rebolledo VieyraAssessment of canyon wall failure process from multibeam bathymetry and Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) observations, U.S. Atlantic continental margin
Over the last few years, canyons along the northern U.S. Atlantic continental margin have been the focus of intensive research examining canyon evolution, submarine geohazards, benthic ecology and deep-sea coral habitat. New high-resolution multibeam bathymetry and Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) dives in the major shelf-breaching and minor slope canyons, provided the opportunity to investigate thAuthorsJason D. Chaytor, Amanda W.J. Demopoulos, Uri S. ten Brink, Christopher D. P. Baxter, Andrea M. Quattrini, Daniel S. Brothers - News