Oceanographic Observations in the Hudson Shelf Valley, December 1999 - April 2000

Metadata:

• Identification_Information
• Data_Quality_Information
• Distribution_Information
• Distribution_Information
• Metadata_Reference_Information

Identification_Information:

Citation:

Citation_Information:

Originator: Bradford Butman

Originator: P. Soupy Alexander

Originator: Courtney K. Harris

Originator: Peter A. Traykovski

Originator: Marilyn B. ten Brink

Originator: Frances S. Lightsom

Originator: Marinna A. Martini

Publication_Date: 2003

Title:

Oceanographic Observations in the Hudson Shelf Valley, December 1999 - April 2000

Geospatial_Data_Presentation_Form:

Time series data are provided in NetCDF, ASCII, and Matlab format.

Series_Information:

Series_Name: USGS Open File Report

Issue_Identification: OF 02-217

Publication_Information:

Publication_Place: Reston, VA

Publisher: U.S. Geological Survey

Description:

Abstract:

This data report presents oceanographic observations made in the Hudson Shelf Valley, offshore of New York, between December 1999 and April 2000. These observations were made by the U.S. Geological Survey as part of a program to investigate the transport and fate of sediment and associated contaminants in the coastal waters offshore of the New York - New Jersey metropolitan region.

Purpose:

The report presents a description of the field program and instrumentation, an overview of the data through summary plots and statistics, and the data in NetCDF, ASCII, and Matlab format. The objective of this report is to make the data available in digital form, and to provide summary plots and statistics to facilitate browsing of the data set.

Time_Period_of_Content:

Time_Period_Information:

Range_of_Dates/Times:

Beginning_Date: 19991204

Ending_Date: 20000416

Currentness_Reference: Publication Date

Status:

Progress: Complete

Maintenance_and_Update_Frequency: As needed

Spatial_Domain:

Bounding_Coordinates:

West_Bounding_Coordinate: -74.0

East_Bounding_Coordinate: -72.833

North_Bounding_Coordinate: 40.667

South_Bounding_Coordinate: 39.667

Keywords:

Theme:

Theme_Keyword_Thesaurus: None

Theme_Keyword: Current

Theme_Keyword: Sediment transport

Theme_Keyword: Temperature

Theme_Keyword: Salinity

Theme_Keyword: Beam attenuation

Theme_Keyword: Optical backscatter

Theme_Keyword: Acoustic backscatter (ABS)

Theme_Keyword: Acousctic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP)

Theme_Keyword: ADCP

Theme_Keyword: Oceanographic observations

Theme_Keyword: Suspended sediment concentration

Place:

Place_Keyword_Thesaurus: None

Place_Keyword: Hudson Shelf Valley

Place_Keyword: New York Bight

Place_Keyword: New York Harbor

Place_Keyword: mid-Atlantic Bight

Access_Constraints:

These data were prepared by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, make any warranty, expressed or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed in this report, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference therein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. Any views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof. Although all data have been used by the USGS, no warranty, expressed or implied, is made by the USGS as to the accuracy of the data and/or related materials. The act of distribution shall not constitute any such warranty, and no responsibility is assumed by the USGS in the use of these data or related materials.

Use_Constraints:

These data were prepared by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, make any warranty, expressed or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed in this report, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference therein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. Any views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof. Although all data have been used by the USGS, no warranty, expressed or implied, is made by the USGS as to the accuracy of the data and/or related materials. The act of distribution shall not constitute any such warranty, and no responsibility is assumed by the USGS in the use of these data or related materials. Biological fouling may degrade the transmission measurements after several months of deployment. Organisms grow on the lenses and gradually block light transmission, which results in a gradual upward drift of the beam attenuation coefficient. The attenuation data nor the optical backscatter data have not been corrected for biological fouling and should be interpreted with care.

Point_of_Contact:

Contact_Information:

Contact_Person_Primary:

Contact_Person: Bradford Butman

Contact_Organization: U.S. Geological Survey

Contact_Position: Oceanographer

Contact_Address:

Address_Type: mailing and physical address

Address:

U.S. Geological Survey 384 Woods Hole Road

City: Woods Hole

State_or_Province: MA

Postal_Code: 02543-1598

Country: USA

Contact_Voice_Telephone: 508-457-2212

Contact_Electronic_Mail_Address: bbutman@usgs.gov

Browse_Graphic:

Browse_Graphic_File_Name: f1_arraya.jpg

Browse_Graphic_File_Description:

Map showing location of moored array stations occuppied from December 1999 to April 2000.

Browse_Graphic_File_Type: jpg

Data_Set_Credit:

Bradford Butman and Courtney Harris were co-principal investigators for the Hudson Shelf Valley experiment. Soupy Alexander processed the hydrographic data, prepared the data figures and tables, and did the report layout. Fran Lightsom processed the time-series data. Marinna Martini led the instrument preparation, deployment and recovery. Marilyn Buchholtz ten Brink and Ellen Mecray did the suspended sediment observations. Peter Traykovski was responsible for the Acoustic Backscatter Sensors (ABS) system deployments and data processing. We thank the captains and crews of the Research Vessels Oceanus, Endeavor, and Connecticut for their outstanding logistical support for this measurement program. Erin Galvin, Ben Gutierrez, Bob Barton, Dann Blackwood, JonBorden, Michael Casso, Jessica Cote, Jane Denny, Joanne Fierra, Jason Hyatt, Ellen Mecray, Andre Ramsey, Sunita Shah, Rick Rendigs, and Dave Walsh carried out the work at sea, ashore and in the laboratory. Jon Borden and Marinna Martini led the successful effort to recover the tripod from Station B using an ROV owned by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and skillfully operated by Andy Girard. Donna Newman made the HTML compliant with USGS standards. This research was supported by the U. S. Geological Survey Coastal and Marine Geology Program.

Data_Quality_Information:

Attribute_Accuracy:

Attribute_Accuracy_Report:

After data were decoded and calibrated, they were carefully checked for instrument malfunctions and then edited. The beginning and end of each data series were truncated and wild points deleted. Short data gaps (less than about 8 data values, which is half an hour for Seacats and tripods) were filled by linear interpolation. The data were carefully checked at each stage of processing. After editing, the basic version of the data file includes all variables recorded at the basic sampling interval.

Logical_Consistency_Report: Data is consistent

Completeness_Report:

Data are complete. Some of the time series have gaps that can be identified by viewing the time series plots.

Positional_Accuracy:

Horizontal_Positional_Accuracy:

Horizontal_Positional_Accuracy_Report: Mooring and station locations were determined using GPS.

Vertical_Positional_Accuracy:

Vertical_Positional_Accuracy_Report:

Water depths were determined sonically and are accurate to a few meters.

Lineage:

Process_Step:

Process_Description:

Field Experiment

Moored Array

Measurements were made at 6 stations, four along the axis of the valley (Stations A, B, C and F), and two on the shelf to the east and west (Stations D and E). The moored array was deployed from the RV Oceanus between December 3-7, 1999, and recovered on RV Endeavor between April 14-18, 2000.

Hydrograhy

Conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) profiles were obtained on the moored array deployment cruise on RV Oceanus between December 5-7 1999, and on the instrument ecovery cruise on the RV Endeavor on April 15, 2000. Measurements were made with a Sea Bird SBE11 profiling conductivity-temperature-depth sensor. On the RV Oceanus cruise, profiles of light transmission and optical backscatter were also obtained and on the RV Endeavor cruise, profiles of light transmission and flourescence were obtained. Water samples were obtained at selected stations and depths and filtered through pre-weighed 0.4 micron Millipore filters to determine suspended matter concentration. The measured concentrations were used to determine calibrations for the OBS and transmission sensors.

Data Processing

Data processing was conducted using the WHOI-USGS Oceanographic Data //www.mathworks.com/), and keeps data in EPIC //www.pmel.noaa.gov/epic/). The ABS data were processed using Matlab.

After data were decoded and calibrated, they were carefully checked for instrument malfunctions and then edited. The beginning and end of each data series were truncated and wild points deleted. Short data gaps (less than about 8 data values, which is half an hour for Seacats and tripods) were filled by linear interpolation. The data were carefully checked at each stage of processing. After editing, the basic version of the data file includes all variables recorded at the basic sampling interval. An hour-averaged data file and a low-pass filtered data file were created from the basic version. The low-pass filter essentially removes all fluctuations having periods shorter than 33 hours (Flagg et al., 1976). Low-pass filtered data was subsampled every 6 hours.

Reference

Flagg, C.N., Vermersch, J.A., and Beardsley, R.C., 1976, 1974 M.I.T. New England Shelf The moored array: M.I.T. Report 76-1, Cambridge, MA, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Process_Date: 2001

Process_Contact:

Contact_Information:

Contact_Person_Primary:

Contact_Person: Fran Lightsom

Contact_Address:

Address_Type: mailing and physical address

Address: 384 Woods Hole Road

City: Woods Hole

State_or_Province: MA

Postal_Code: 02543-1598

Country: USA

Contact_Voice_Telephone: 508-457-2242

Distribution_Information:

Distributor:

Contact_Information:

Contact_Organization_Primary:

Contact_Organization: U.S. Geological Survey Information Services

Contact_Address:

Address_Type: mailing address

Address: Box 25286 Denver Federal Center

City: Denver

State_or_Province: Colorado

Postal_Code: 80225-0046

Country: USA

Contact_Voice_Telephone: 303.202.4700

Contact_Facsimile_Telephone: 303.202.4188

Hours_of_Service: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mountain Time

Resource_Description: USGS Open-File Report 02-217

Distribution_Liability:

These data were prepared by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, make any warranty, expressed or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed in this report, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference therein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. Any views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof. Although all data have been used by the USGS, no warranty, expressed or implied, is made by the USGS as to the accuracy of the data and/or related materials. The act of distribution shall not constitute any such warranty, and no responsibility is assumed by the USGS in the use of these data or related materials.

Distribution_Information:

Distributor:

Contact_Information:

Contact_Person_Primary:

Contact_Person: Bradford Butman, U.S. Geological Survey

Contact_Position: Oceanographer

Contact_Address:

Address_Type: mailing and physical address

Address: 384 Woods Hole Road

City: Woods Hole

State_or_Province: Massachusetts

Postal_Code: 02543-1598

Country: USA

Contact_Voice_Telephone: 508.548.8700x2212

Contact_Facsimile_Telephone: 508.457.2309

Contact_Electronic_Mail_Address: bbutman@usgs.gov

Hours_of_Service: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST

Distribution_Liability:

These data were prepared by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, make any warranty, expressed or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed in this report, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference therein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. Any views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof. Although all data have been used by the USGS, no warranty, expressed or implied, is made by the USGS as to the accuracy of the data and/or related materials. The act of distribution shall not constitute any such warranty, and no responsibility is assumed by the USGS in the use of these data or related materials.

Metadata_Reference_Information:

Metadata_Date: 20020500

Metadata_Contact:

Contact_Information:

Contact_Person_Primary:

Contact_Person: Bradford Butman

Contact_Organization: U.S. Geological Surveuy

Contact_Position: Oceanographer

Contact_Address:

Address_Type: mailing and physical address

Address:

U.S. Geological Survey 384 Woods Hole Road

City: Woods Hole

State_or_Province: MA

Postal_Code: 02543-1598

Contact_Voice_Telephone: 508-457-2212

Metadata_Standard_Name: FGDC Content Standards for Digital Geospatial Metadata

Metadata_Standard_Version: FGDC-STD-001-1998

Metadata_Access_Constraints: None

Metadata_Use_Constraints: None