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Mark Buckley, Ph.D.

Mark Buckley is a Research Oceanographer at the St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center.

As a Research Oceanographer at the St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center, Mark Buckley studies nearshore environments through field, laboratory, and numerical modelling techniques. A primary focus of Mark’s research is on understanding nearshore wave dynamics and how the structure and roughness of coral reefs effects these processes.

Professional Experience

  • 2020-present Research Oceanographer, U.S. Geological Survey, St. Petersburg Coastal & Marine Science Center, St. Petersburg, FL

  • 2018-2020 Research Assistant Professor, The University of Western Australia,

  • 2016-2018 Mendenhall Research Fellow, U.S. Geological Survey, Pacific Coastal & Marine Science Center, Santa Cruz, CA

  • 2007-2011 Oceanographer, U.S. Geological Survey, Pacific Coastal & Marine Science Center, Santa Cruz, CA

Education and Certifications

  • 2016 Ph.D., Physical Oceanography, The University of Western Australia

  • 2009 M.S., Ocean Engineering, University of Rhode Island

  • 2006 B.A., Physical Oceanography, University of San Diego

Science and Products

National Assessment of Hurricane-Induced Coastal Erosion Hazards: Puerto Rico

These datasets contain information on the probabilities of hurricane-induced erosion (collision, inundation, and overwash) for each 100-meter (m) section of the Puerto Rico open-ocean coastline for category 1-5 hurricanes. The analysis is based on a storm-impact scaling model (Sallenger, 2000; https://www.jstor.org/stable/4300099) that uses observations of beach morphology combined with sophistica
By
St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center

Grain-Size Data from Upper Florida Keys: Crocker Reef, FL

Sediment samples were collected from undisturbed sections of the seafloor around Crocker Reef, Florida which is a senile, degrading barrier reef located in the northern portion of the Florida Reef Tract (Figure 1). Samples were collected from November 2017 to April 2019. The sediment sample locations were near instruments deployed during the same period to record time series of ocean currents, wav
By
Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center

Water level and velocity measurements from the 2012 University of Western Australia Fringing Reef Experiment (UWAFRE)

This data release contains water level and velocity measurements from wave runup experiments performed in a laboratory flume setting. Wave-driven water level variability (and runup at the shoreline) is a significant cause of coastal flooding induced by storms. Wave runup is challenging to predict, particularly along tropical coral reef-fringed coastlines due to the steep bathymetric profiles and l
By
Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center
A yellow buoy with solar panels floats in the water next to a research vessel
R/V Sallenger and an oceanographic buoy
R/V Sallenger and an oceanographic buoy
A yellow buoy with solar panels floats in the water next to a research vessel

R/V Sallenger and an oceanographic buoy

R/V Sallenger and an oceanographic buoy

A solar-powered Sofar spotter buoy floats in the water next to the R/V (Research Vessel) Sallenger.

By
Natural Hazards, Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center
A yellow buoy with solar panels floats in the water next to a research vessel

R/V Sallenger and an oceanographic buoy

R/V Sallenger and an oceanographic buoy

A solar-powered Sofar spotter buoy floats in the water next to the R/V (Research Vessel) Sallenger.

By
Natural Hazards, Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center
A yellow buoy with solar panels floats in the water near a boat
R/V Sallenger and an oceanographic buoy
R/V Sallenger and an oceanographic buoy
A yellow buoy with solar panels floats in the water near a boat

R/V Sallenger and an oceanographic buoy

R/V Sallenger and an oceanographic buoy

A solar-powered Sofar spotter buoy floats in the water next to the R/V (Research Vessel) Sallenger.

By
Natural Hazards, Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center
A yellow buoy with solar panels floats in the water near a boat

R/V Sallenger and an oceanographic buoy

R/V Sallenger and an oceanographic buoy

A solar-powered Sofar spotter buoy floats in the water next to the R/V (Research Vessel) Sallenger.

By
Natural Hazards, Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center
A yellow buoy with solar panels floats in the water with a boat in the background
Oceanographic buoy near the R/V Sallenger
Oceanographic buoy near the R/V Sallenger
A yellow buoy with solar panels floats in the water with a boat in the background

Oceanographic buoy near the R/V Sallenger

Oceanographic buoy near the R/V Sallenger

A solar-powered Sofar spotter buoy floats in the water next to the R/V (Research Vessel) Sallenger.

By
Natural Hazards, Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center
A yellow buoy with solar panels floats in the water with a boat in the background

Oceanographic buoy near the R/V Sallenger

Oceanographic buoy near the R/V Sallenger

A solar-powered Sofar spotter buoy floats in the water next to the R/V (Research Vessel) Sallenger.

By
Natural Hazards, Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center
A man holds a round, yellow object with a cord in front of a brick building
Dr. Mark Buckley holds a buoy used to collect oceanographic data
Dr. Mark Buckley holds a buoy used to collect oceanographic data
A man holds a round, yellow object with a cord in front of a brick building

Dr. Mark Buckley holds a buoy used to collect oceanographic data

Dr. Mark Buckley holds a buoy used to collect oceanographic data

Dr. Mark Buckley of the USGS St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center holds a new Sofar Smart Mooring and Spotter Buoy that will be used to deliver high-fidelity, real-time wave, water level, and wind data.

By
Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center
A man holds a round, yellow object with a cord in front of a brick building

Dr. Mark Buckley holds a buoy used to collect oceanographic data

Dr. Mark Buckley holds a buoy used to collect oceanographic data

Dr. Mark Buckley of the USGS St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center holds a new Sofar Smart Mooring and Spotter Buoy that will be used to deliver high-fidelity, real-time wave, water level, and wind data.

By
Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center
Filter Total Items: 18

Wave runup and inundation dynamics on a perched beach

Sandy beaches perched over rocky shore platforms are common globally, yet their mixed sand and rocky morphology present challenges for quantifying and predicting wave runup and inundation. For typical linear beach profiles, simple relationships can be made between vertical runup and horizontal inundation based on beach slope. However, as topographic irregularities increase, substantial deviations
Authors
Carly Portch, Michael Cuttler, Mark L. Buckley, Jeff Hansen, Ryan Lowe
By
Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center

Carbonate sediment transport across coral reefs: A comparison of fringing vs. barrier reefs

Considerable uncertainty remains in the budgets of carbonate sediment on reef lined coasts, particularly with respect to the supply of sediment to a reef flat that is then transported throughout a reef system. In this study, we re-examine two recent studies, one on a barrier reef bounded by channels that incise the reef, and one on a fringing reef without channels. Results indicate that the presen
Authors
Kurt J. Rosenberger, Curt Storlazzi, Olivia Cheriton, Mark L. Buckley, Andrew Pomeroy, Ryan Lowe, Jeff Hansen
By
Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center

Modeling total water level and coastal change at Pea Island, North Carolina, USA

The DUring Nearshore Event eXperiment (DUNEX) was carried out on Pea Island, North Carolina, USA between September-October 2021. We use a coupled numerical model (Windsurf) to hindcast the evolution of the DUNEX transect and produce a time series of hourly water levels at the shoreline from the model output. In addition to assessing the ability of Windsurf to reproduce TWL, we use model output pai

Authors
Michael Christopher Itzkin, Margaret Louise Palmsten, Mark L. Buckley, Christopher R. Sherwood, Jenna A. Brown, Jin-Si R. Over, Peter A. Traykovski
By
Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center, Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Wave-scale observations of sediment resuspension and subsequent transport across a fringing reef flat

During a 3-month deployment on a broad, fringing reef flat in Moloka’i, Hawai’i, we observed over 28,000 wave-driven resuspension (WDR) events of coarse-grained sediment in order to identify major factors. These events were short-lived (2-11 s) and distinct from the longer-duration patterns of water-column backscatter. The wave-driven transport of WDR events was onshore, but the net cross-shore tr
Authors
Olivia Cheriton, Curt Storlazzi, Kurt J. Rosenberger, Joshua B. Logan, Andrew W. M. Pomeroy, Mark L. Buckley, Jeff E. Hansen, Ryan J. Lowe
By
Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center

Wave-scale observations of coarse-grained sediment resuspension and subsequent transport across a fringing reef flat, Molokaʻi, Hawaiʻi, USA

During a 3-month deployment on a broad, fringing reef flat in Moloka’i, Hawai’i, we observed over 28,000 wave-driven resuspension (WDR) events of coarse-grained sediment in order to identify major factors. These events were short-lived (2-11 s) and distinct from the longer-duration patterns of water-column backscatter. The wave-driven transport of WDR events was onshore, but the net cross-shore tr
Authors
Olivia Cheriton, Curt Storlazzi, Kurt J. Rosenberger, Joshua B. Logan, Andrew W. M. Pomeroy, Mark L. Buckley, Jeff E. Hansen, Ryan J. Lowe
By
Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center, St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center

Free long wave transformation in the nearshore zone through partial reflections

Long waves play an important role in coastal inundation and shoreline and dune erosion, requiring a detailed understanding of their evolution in nearshore regions and interaction with shorelines. While their generation and dissipation mechanisms are relatively well understood, there are fewer studies describing how reflection processes govern their propagation in the nearshore. We propose a new ap
Authors
Stephanie Contardo, Ryan J. Lowe, Francois Dufois, Jeff E. Hansen, Mark L. Buckley, Graham Symonds
By
Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center

Dynamics of the wave-driven circulation in the lee of nearshore reefs

Nearshore rocky reefs with scales of order 10–100 m are common along the world's coastline and often shape wave-driven hydrodynamics and shoreline morphology in their lee. The interaction of waves with these reefs generally results in either two or four-cell mean circulation systems (2CC and 4CC, respectively), with diverging flows behind the reefs and at the shoreline in the 2CC case and flows th
Authors
Renan F. da Silva, Jeff Hansen, Ryan Lowe, Dirk P. Rijnsdorp, Mark L. Buckley
By
Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center

Wave-driven hydrodynamic processes over fringing reefs with varying slopes, depths, and roughness: Implications for coastal protection

Wave breaking on the steep fore-reef slopes of shallow fringing reefs is effective at dissipating incident sea-swell waves prior to reaching reef shorelines. However, wave setup and free infragravity waves generated during the sea-swell breaking process are often the largest contributors to wave-driven water levels at the shoreline. Laboratory flume experiments and a multi-layer phase-resolving no

Authors
Mark L. Buckley, Ryan L. Lowe, Jeff E. Hansen, Ap R. Dongeren, Andrew Pomeroy, Curt Storlazzi, Dirk P. Rijnsdorp, Renan F. Silva, Stephanie Contardo, Rebecca H. Green
By
Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center, St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center

The influence of submerged coastal structures on nearshore flows and wave runup

Engineered and natural submerged coastal structures (e.g., submerged breakwaters and reefs) modify incident wave fields and thus can alter hydrodynamic processes adjacent to coastlines. Although submerged structures are generally assumed to promote beach protection by dissipating waves offshore and creating sheltered conditions in their lee, their interaction with waves can result in mean wave-dri

Authors
Renan F. da Silva, Jeff Hansen, Dirk P. Rijnsdorp, Ryan Lowe, Mark L. Buckley
By
Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center

Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics simulations of reef surf zone processes driven by plunging irregular waves

As waves interact with the slopes of coral reefs and other steep bathymetry profiles, plunging breaking usually occurs where the free surface overturns and violent water motion is triggered. Resolving these surf zone processes pose significant challenges for conventional mesh-based hydrodynamic models, due to the rapidly-deforming nature of the free surface and associated flows. Yet the accurate p
Authors
Ryan J. Lowe, C. Altomare, Mark L. Buckley, Renan F. da Silva, Jeff E. Hansen, Dirk P. Rijnsdorp, J.M. Domínguez, A.J.C. Crespo
By
Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center

Predicting coastal impacts by wave farms: A comparison of wave-averaged and wave-resolving models

Wave energy converters (WECs) will have to be arranged into arrays of many devices to extract commercially viable amounts of energy. To understand the potential coastal impacts of WEC arrays, most research to date has relied on wave-averaged models given their computational efficiency. However, it is unknown how accurate wave-averaged model predictions are given a lack of validation data and their
Authors
Daniel R. David, Dirk P. Rijnsdorp, Jeff E. Hansen, Ryan J. Lowe, Mark L. Buckley
By
Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center

An efficient method to calculate depth-integrated, phase-averaged momentum balances in non-hydrostatic models

Analysis of the mean (wave-averaged) momentum balance is a common approach used to explain the physical forcing driving wave set-up and mean currents in the nearshore zone. Traditionally this approach has been applied to phase-averaged models but has more recently been applied to phase-resolving models using post-processing, whereby model output is used to calculate each of the momentum terms. Whi
Authors
Renan F. da Silva, Dirk P. Rijnsdorp, Jeff E. Hansen, Ryan J. Lowe, Mark L. Buckley, Marcel Zijlema
By
Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center
Next-generation real-time oceanographic instrumentation

Next-generation real-time oceanographic instrumentation

SPCMSC received their first Sofar Smart Mooring and Spotter Buoy to collect real-time oceanographic data.

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Science and Products