Noreen Buster
I am a member of a team that studies the geology of coastal margins, specifically how sediment availability and fluxes influence coastal evolution over a variety of time and space scales. Our work, which spans the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, supports coastal management by providing insight into modern and future coastal behavior.
Science and Products
Coastal Sediment Availability and Flux (CSAF) Capabilities
As part of the Coastal Sediment Availability and Flux project, we use innovative technology and integrate a variety of techniques to characterize barrier island environments, reconstruct their past history, and predict their future vulnerability.
Shoreface Morphology and Geology
Exchanges of sediment between the shoreface and barrier islands allow barrier islands to adjust to changes in water level, such as those associated with storms or sea-level rise. Characterizing shoreface morphology and geology allows us to explore how past and present processes have impacted modern barrier island sediment transport and what that means for future barrier island evolution.
Barrier Island Sensitivity to Changes in Sediment Supply
Observations and models show that maintaining barrier islands requires a balance between sea-level rise and sediment supply. However, most estimates of sediment supply are not based on modern conditions, which could result in less accurate predictions of sediment fluxes. We explore how natural and human alterations impact modern sediment fluxes, or changes, on barrier islands – research that...
Storm-Related Barrier Island Morphological Evolution
Storms quickly and dramatically alter barrier island environments by changing adjacent seafloor morphology, eroding beaches, scarping or leveling dunes, and sometimes creating new inlets. Measuring the magnitude of barrier island sediment movement during and after storms allows us to track rates of beach recovery, dune growth, and inlet-related alterations to barrier island sediment supply....
Coastal Sediment Availability and Flux (CSAF)
Sediments are the foundation of coastal systems, including barrier islands. Their behavior is driven by not only sediment availability, but also sediment exchanges between barrier island environments. We collect geophysical, remote sensing, and sediment data to estimate these parameters, which are integrated with models to improve prediction of coastal response to extreme storms and sea-level...
Geology and Sediment Availability - Coastal System Change at Fire Island, New York
Sediment supply is a critical control on barrier island vulnerability and resilience over a variety of time scales (e.g., storms to sea level rise). Past work at Fire Island and elsewhere has demonstrated a link between inner shelf sediment availability and barrier island evolution over geologic and historical time scales. However, there have been few opportunities to explore nearshore...
Morphological Behavior - Coastal System Change at Fire Island, New York
Sand is constantly exchanged between beaches, dunes, and the submerged shoreface, which includes the nearshore sand bar system. We use specialized vessels and equipment to understand the feedbacks between nearshore morphology changes and coastal change to improve predictions of future impacts.
Nearshore - Coastal System Change at Fire Island, New York
The nearshore is the submerged portion of the shoreface between the inner shelf and the shoreline and includes the surf zone, where waves break. Along with beaches and dunes, nearshore morphology and geology adjusts to changes in waves, sediment supply, human alterations, and sea level rise. By measuring nearshore morphologic and geologic variations, we can understand how quickly beaches and...
Barrier Island Comprehensive Monitoring
Historical and newly acquired data were used to assess and monitor changes in the aerial and subaqueous extent of islands, habitat types, sediment properties, environmental processes, and vegetation composition.
Geologic and Morphologic Evolution of Coastal Margins
A combination of geophysics, sediment sampling, and chronology techniques are used to characterize the regional geomorphologic response of coastal systems to environmental changes.
Seafloor change around the Mississippi barrier islands, 1920 to 2016—The influence of storm effects on inlet and island morphodynamics
The Mississippi Barrier Islands in the northern Gulf of Mexico experienced high rates of spatial change over recorded history. Wave-induced sediment transport induced island migration, landward retreat, and inlet evolution. These processes can be measured using repeat bathymetric surveys to analyze elevation change over time. This study analyzes...
Flocks, James G.; Buster, Noreen A.; Brenner, Owen T.
Application of sediment end-member analysis for understanding sediment fluxes, northern Chandeleur Islands, Louisiana
We analyzed grain-size distributions (GSDs) from a time-series of sediment samples to evaluate sediment transport following anthropogenic sand-berm emplacement at the northern Chandeleur Islands, Louisiana. End-member analysis (EMA) was applied to compare the end-member (EM) GSD of a known sediment source to GSDs from surrounding environments and...
Bernier, Julie C.; Miselis, Jennifer L.; Buster, Noreen A.; Flocks, James G.
Sediment data from vibracores collected in 2016 from Fire Island, New York
Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) conducted a long-term coastal morphologic-change study at Fire Island, New York, prior to and after Hurricane Sandy impacted the area in October 2012. The Fire Island Coastal Change project objectives include understanding the morphologic evolution of the barrier island system on a...
Buster, Noreen A.; Bernier, Julie C.; Brenner, Owen T.; Kelso, Kyle W.; Tuten, Thomas M.; Miselis, Jennifer L.
Nearshore coastal bathymetry data collected in 2016 from West Ship Island to Horn Island, Gulf Islands National Seashore, Mississippi
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center, in cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile District, conducted bathymetric surveys of the nearshore waters surrounding Ship and Horn Islands, Gulf Islands National Seashore, Mississippi. The objective of this study was to establish base-level...
DeWitt, Nancy T.; Stalk, Chelsea A.; Fredericks, Jake J.; Flocks, James G.; Kelso, Kyle W.; Farmer, Andrew S.; Tuten, Thomas M.; Buster, Noreen A.
Deepwater Program: Lophelia II, continuing ecological research on deep-sea corals and deep-reef habitats in the Gulf of Mexico
The deep sea is a rich environment composed of diverse habitat types. While deep-sea coral habitats have been discovered within each ocean basin, knowledge about the ecology of these habitats and associated inhabitants continues to grow. This report presents information and results from the Lophelia II project that examined deep-sea coral habitats...
Demopoulos, Amanda W.J.; Ross, Steve W.; Kellogg, Christina A.; Morrison, Cheryl L.; Nizinski, Martha S.; Prouty, Nancy G.; Bourque, Jill R.; Galkiewicz, Julie P.; Gray, Michael A.; Springmann, Marcus J.; Coykendall, D. Katharine; Miller, Andrew; Rhode, Mike; Quattrini, Andrea; Ames, Cheryl L.; Brooke, Sandra D.; McClain-Counts, Jennifer P.; Roark, E. Brendan; Buster, Noreen A.; Phillips, Ryan M.; Frometa, Janessy Coastal geophysical data collected in 2016 nearshore Cape Canaveral, Florida
Geophysical data including multibeam bathymetry and backscatter, side scan sonar, and chirp subbottom were collected by Coastal Carolina University (CCU) Center for Marine and Wetland Studies (CMWS), Conway, South Carolina, in June 2016 in collaboration with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center (SPCMSC...
Buster, Noreen A.; Miselis, Jennifer L.; Okano, Shinobu; Gayes, Paul T.; Hill, Jenna C.
Nearshore sediment thickness, Fire Island, New York
Investigations of coastal change at Fire Island, New York (N.Y.), sought to characterize sediment budgets and determine geologic framework controls on coastal processes. Nearshore sediment thickness is critical for assessing coastal system sediment availability, but it is largely unquantified due to the difficulty of conducting geological or...
Locker, Stanley D. ; Miselis, Jennifer L.; Buster, Noreen A.; Hapke, Cheryl J.; Wadman, Heidi M. ; McNinch, Jesse E. ; Forde, Arnell S.; Stalk, Chelsea A. Coastal interferometric swath bathymetry data collected in 2015 from the Chandeleur Islands, Louisiana
The U.S. Geological Survey St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center (USGS SPCMSC), collected swath bathymetry data at the Chandeleur Islands, Louisiana in September 2015. This USGS Data Release includes the resulting processed elevation point data (xyz) and an interpolated digital elevation model (DEM). For further information regarding...
Fredericks, Jake J.; Buster, Noreen A.; DeWitt, Nancy T.; Kelso, Kyle W.; Miselis, Jennifer L. Integrating geophysical and oceanographic data to assess interannual variability in longshore sediment transport
Despite their utility for prediction of coastal behavior and for coastal management, littoral sediment budgets are difficult to quantify over large regions of coastline and over short time scales. In this study, bathymetric change analysis shows differences in the magnitude and spatial location of erosion and accretion over three years; more net...
Miselis, Jennifer L.; Long, Joseph W.; Dalyander, P. Soupy; Flocks, James G.; Buster, Noreen A.; Mickey, Rangley C.
Sediment data collected in 2013 from the northern Chandeleur Islands, Louisiana
As part of the Barrier Island Evolution Research project, scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center collected sediment samples from the northern Chandeleur Islands in July 2013. The overall objective of this project, which integrates geophysical (bathymetric, seismic, and...
Buster, Noreen A.; Kelso, Kyle W.; Bernier, Julie C.; Flocks, James G.; Miselis, Jennifer L.; DeWitt, Nancy T.
Sediment data collected in 2012 from the northern Chandeleur Islands, Louisiana
As part of the Barrier Island Evolution Research project, scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center collected sediment samples from the northern Chandeleur Islands in March and September 2012. The overall objective of this project, which integrates geophysical (bathymetric, seismic, and topographic...
Bernier, Julie C.; Kelso, Kyle W.; Buster, Noreen A.; Flocks, James G.; Miselis, Jennifer L.; DeWitt, Nancy T.
Coastal bathymetry data collected in 2011 from the Chandeleur Islands, Louisiana
As part of the Barrier Island Evolution Research project, scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center conducted nearshore geophysical surveys off the northern Chandeleur Islands, Louisiana, in June of 2011. The overall objectives of the study are to better understand barrier-...
DeWitt, Nancy T.; Pfeiffer, William R.; Bernier, Julie C.; Buster, Noreen A.; Miselis, Jennifer L.; Flocks, James G.; Reynolds, Billy J.; Wiese, Dana S.; Kelso, Kyle W.
SPCMSC scientists to present at Coastal Sediments '19 conference
SPCMSC scientists Julie Bernier, Noreen Buster, Kara Doran, Karen Morgan, and Tim Nelson will present their research at the Coastal Sediments '19 conference, May 27–31, in St. Petersburg, Florida. Research Geologist Jennifer Miselis, co-author with Bernier and Buster, will also be attending.