Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center—2023 Annual Report
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Coastal and Marine Science Based in Woods Hole, Massachusetts
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center (WHCMSC) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, is one of three centers serving the mission of the USGS Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program (CMHRP). Since its authorization by Congress in 1962, the CMHRP has served as the primary Federal program for marine geology and physical science research and is responsible for the Nation’s entire coastal and marine landscape. The center’s staff of about 100 conducts scientific research across the United States and internationally to describe and understand processes shaping coastal and marine systems, from the deep sea to the continental shelf, beaches, salt marshes, and the Great Lakes. The center’s research products are used by Federal agencies, State and local entities, private organizations, and the public to manage risks posed by natural hazards, promote safer and more productive coastal communities, and improve stewardship of natural resources.
The WHCMSC annual report summarizes the work of the center and highlights accomplishments from fiscal year 2023—October 1, 2022–September 30, 2023.
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists Chuck Worley and Seth Ackerman and USGS intern Maeve Munnelly sampling sediment from the SeaBed Observation and Sampling System (SEABOSS) after a deployment aboard the research vessel Connecticut in Long Island Sound, summer 2023.
Stern view from the research vessel Pelican of oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, during a geophysical research effort to characterize the sea floor offshore of the Mississippi River Delta front, September 2023.
Map showing multibeam bathymetric data collected during a geophysical research effort to characterize the sea floor offshore of the Mississippi River Delta front, Louisiana, September 2023.
Marsh Island, New Bedford, Massachusetts. This well-constrained tidal inlet will allow for accurate estimates of water and constituent fluxes used to study how restored marshes react over decadal timescales.
A salt marsh along the Herring River at the National Park Service’s Cape Cod National Seashore in Massachusetts. U.S. Geological Survey scientists and partners are applying the mineral olivine to the marsh to study its role in capturing carbon dioxide in tidal wetlands.
Sara Zeigler mapping vegetation at North Core Banks, Cape Lookout National Seashore in North Carolina.
Coastal and Shelf Geology
Shifting shorelines are the most visible result of a continually changing coastal system that extends from shallow estuaries across wetlands and beaches and into adjacent ocean waters.
The Coastal and Shelf Geology group conducts mapping, modeling, and data analysis to better understand and describe underlying geology and processes that shape these environments. The group applies modern technologies, such as high-resolution sea-floor mapping systems and uncrewed aircraft systems (UASs, or drones), to characterize the coast above and below the water. Detailed maps of the coastal landscape created from this research are used to improve forecasts of coastal change and identify hazards in areas vulnerable to storms, erosion, and sea-level rise.
State of Our Nation’s Coast
The State of Our Nation’s Coast project began in 2019 to increase internal capacity for more deliberate and planned stakeholder engagement within the CMHRP, as well as to solicit feedback from internal and external partners to inform development of the program’s web-based platform. Project objectives include: (1) growing in-house capacity for sustained stakeholder engagement and fostering a transdisciplinary physical and social science partnership within the three coastal and marine science centers in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, St. Petersburg, Florida, and Santa Cruz, California; (2) exploring innovative delivery of scientific information to stakeholders; and (3) developing a comprehensive visualization tool and related products to serve as a functional outreach component for the USGS Coastal Change Hazards programmatic focus.
Highlights of 2023
Published the USGS Coastal Science Navigator
The USGS Coastal Science Navigator, an online gateway intended to improve the visibility of USGS scientific products through guided and filtered search functions, was publicly released. Prior to its release, the navigator prototype was refined with internal feedback from project staff and with external feedback from users through one-on-one interviews and a demonstration at Coastal GeoTools 2023. The public rollout, coordinated with the Stakeholder Engagement and Communications team, included a live demonstration of the navigator. A video recording of the rollout was published via the USGS YouTube channel.
https://www.usgs.gov/apps/coastalsciencenavigator/index.html
Published Scientific Investigations Report
The project team published a scientific investigations report on findings from listening sessions with users and stakeholders about their coastal science data needs.
Presented Lessons Learned in Several Forums
Project staff presented lessons learned and other insights from the USGS Coastal Science Navigator development and stakeholder engagement process in several forums. These forums included the USGS Natural Hazards Mission Area Risk Research and Applications Community of Practice monthly meeting, a seminar at the USGS Fort Collins Science Center, and an invited presentation at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO–OPS) seminar series.
Future Landscape Adaptation and Coastal Change
The effects of future climate change on our coastal landscapes will be far reaching and have significant environmental and socioeconomic consequences. Scientific predictions of these effects are needed to support effective coastal management planning. The Future Landscape Adaptation and Coastal Change (FLACC) project provides critical information to coastal planners by integrating emerging understanding of individual hazards with multidisciplinary probabilistic assessments. The research focuses on areas requiring improved understanding, observations, modeling, and management. Specifically, work to predict climate-change-related hazards driven by sea-level rise and storms directly addresses pressing needs for improved understanding and projections of multidecadal coastal change processes and their effects on landscape change. FLACC’s predictive modeling and projections of integrated coastal hazards also incorporate feedback between coastal processes and landscape response. Landscape change predictions meet the needs of coastal planners, including habitat and species management objectives; natural, cultural, and archeological resource preservation concerns; infrastructure and design strategies; and community resilience.
https://www.usgs.gov/centers/whcmsc/science/coastal-change-likelihood
Highlights of 2023
Published the Coastal Change Likelihood Assessment
The FLACC team, in partnership with the National Park Service through the Natural Resources Preservation Program, developed the Coastal Change Likelihood assessment to determine the future likelihood of coastal change along U.S. coastlines in the next decade. The Northeast United States, from Maine to Virginia, was selected for a proof-of-concept pilot study. The Coastal Change Likelihood data report, a data release, and a geonarrative that allows users to explore the data in interactive maps were each released in 2023—all of which can be accessed through the FLACC web page.
Launched Powell Center-Funded Research Project
The FLACC team launched a multidisciplinary research project, funded by the USGS John Wesley Powell Center for Analysis and Synthesis, to synthesize what is known about coastal physical and ecological change. This project can help identify monitoring opportunities based on early warning signs of impending change, as well as inform and improve the ability to anticipate future change on coastal barrier islands. FLACC’s overarching hypothesis is that landscape change in coastal systems can be better anticipated when oceanographic, geological, and ecological processes are considered simultaneously.
Presented FLACC Research
Project staff were invited to brief U.S. Senate appropriations staff, USGS Natural Hazards Mission Area leadership, and the Secretary of the Interior on FLACC project work during a series of center visits. Project staff presented at various events, such as a 2023 U.S. Department of the Interior’s Office of Policy Analysis seminar, the 2023 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Piping Plover and Least Tern Workshop, and four conferences, including the 2023 Community Surface Dynamics Modeling System Annual Meeting and 2023 Coastal GeoTools; and gave guest lectures at King’s College, Notre Dame, and Tennessee State University. They also presented to students at Berklee, at the Conservatory Lab Charter School, and through a Virtual Classroom Visit organized by the USGS Youth and Education in Science program. The project team supported internal and interagency coordination, such as by representing USGS on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Sea-Level Change Team practitioner board and by coauthoring the Fifth National Climate Assessment “Coastal Effects” chapter.
Coastal Change Hazards Technical Capabilities and Applications
The Coastal Change Hazards programmatic focus was established to address societally relevant coastal issues through research and products that assist the Nation with coastal change hazard challenges. Multiple research projects rely on core technical capabilities to further scientific progress. Assembling a cross-center collaborative technical team to promote data sharing and exchange knowledge can help researchers efficiently advance science on coastal change hazards that is in demand and applicable at the national scale.
The Coastal Change Hazards Technical Capabilities and Applications (TCA) project leverages technical talent across the CMHRP to bridge capability, expertise, and collaboration between the centers. The project maintains high-visibility, public-facing platforms for delivering coastal change hazard products while keeping the underlying assessments relevant and current. The TCA group advises other USGS Coastal Change Hazards projects on how to expand existing assessments and incorporate new assessments into the coastal change hazards portfolio. This advisement helps ensure that all assessments contribute to a cohesive national story.
Highlights of 2023
Updated Shoreline Position Databases and Change Rate Products
The USGS maintains data on historical shoreline positions for the U.S. coasts. The TCA project team used the USGS Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS) software to update shoreline position databases and shoreline change-rate products for South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia. The team also began to expand shoreline change products to include Long Island Sound.
https://doi.org/10.5066/P9HYNUNV
Updating and Maintaining DSAS and the Coastal Change Hazards Portal
The team started updating DSAS—software that enables users to calculate rate-of-change statistics from observed shoreline positions. Plans for the update include a stand-alone version of the software, providing users open access to import their data, run the tool, and export to the geographic information system (GIS) software of choice. The TCA project team also continued to maintain the USGS Coastal Change Hazards Portal, a web visualization tool that allows users to view and download important coastal data.
Published Journal Article and Geonarrative on Shoreline Forecasting
Coastal management decisions, like where to build structures near the shore, are often based on simple calculations using a method called linear regression. WHCMSC scientists published a journal article in Ocean & Coastal Management showing that the accuracy of these forecasts depends on how much the observed shoreline measurements vary. A complementary geonarrative was developed to serve as an accessible tutorial, with interactive visual components, about shoreline forecasting and its limitations in Massachusetts. (These publications are also highlighted in the section on the Massachusetts Integrated Coastal Studies project.)
Aerial Imaging and Mapping
Uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) technology provides a rapid, low-cost method for mapping coastal environments and assessing short- and long-term changes. The interdisciplinary nature of the data collected and the breadth of its applications make UAS technology applicable to multiple scientific investigations. The center’s Aerial Imaging and Mapping Group (AIMG) is developing the capability to provide operational remote-sensing support, using UAS technology, to coastal, estuarine, and lacustrine research. Group responsibilities include data acquisition, data processing, and publishing UAS-collected data products. The AIMG also works collaboratively with other UAS operators in the U.S. Department of the Interior to explore new UAS technology, sensor development, and new techniques of data acquisition. This capability supports the Remote Sensing Coastal Change project, the Coastal Change Hazards programmatic focus, the national UAS project office, and other Bureau-wide remote-sensing projects. The group also leads the USGS Northeast Region small uncrewed aircraft system (sUAS) capability team. High-resolution imagery and elevation maps created from the remote-sensing data are used in change-detection studies (for example, to detect coastal erosion), hurricane damage assessments, and natural disaster responses and for creating imagery and maps to support situational awareness for emergencies. Collecting data remotely by UAS technology is an efficient and often safer alternative to collecting data by hand.
https://www.usgs.gov/centers/whcmsc/science/aerial-imaging-and-mapping
Highlights of 2023
Collected Field Data at Various Locations
The AIMG completed the first of a series of sUAS data collections documenting changes in the Lower Darby Creek Area Superfund site and the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge in Pennsylvania as part of a larger ongoing project led by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to remediate contaminated areas and monitor changes throughout the Superfund site. The AIMG also conducted drone flights and Global Positioning System (GPS) surveys to capture beach profile changes at Nauset Light Beach in Nauset, Massachusetts, before and after Hurricane Lee—allowing scientists to visualize sediment movement along the beach. Additionally, fieldwork was done in Assateague Island National Seashore in Maryland and Virginia to identify phragmites; Black Beach in Falmouth, Massachusetts, and Trout Creek in Sanders County, Montana, to collect lidar data; and Marsh Creek in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and North Core Banks, North Carolina, to collect other coastal imagery.
https://www.usgs.gov/centers/whcmsc/news/monitoring-change-lower-darby-creek-area-superfund-site
Participated in Outreach Events
The AIMG gave UAS demonstrations, showcased UAS technology, and explained the value of the group’s work during visits from the Secretary of the Interior and the USGS Associate Director of the Natural Hazards Mission Area, as well as at the Woods Hole Science Stroll in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. The AIMG also participated in GIS Day at Bridgewater State University and in the national Pecora Conference to present advancements in vegetation identification and artificial intelligence vegetation mapping. In addition, the group helped the USGS National Uncrewed Systems Office teach introductory classes on drone operation in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Published Two Data Releases
The first published data release includes low-altitude digital images taken over Plum Island estuary and Parker River National Wildlife Refuge in Massachusetts to help document marsh stability over time and quantify sediment movement. The second data release includes low-altitude aerial images collected over five areas of interest within Assateague Island National Seashore to generate photogrammetric projects in support of science and data needs of National Park Service managers attempting to locate invasive Phragmites australis (common reed) expansion.
https://doi.org/10.5066/P9PP35F4
https://doi.org/10.5066/P916LRZN
Small uncrewed aircraft system pilots from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center (WHCMSC) and the New York Water Science Center capturing light detection and ranging (lidar) data to monitor cleanup of the landfill and surrounding coastal ecosystems at the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge and Lower Darby Creek Area Superfund site in Pennsylvania. The project is supported and coordinated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Pictured from left to right—Sandy Brosnahan, Jin-Si Over, Jen Cramer (WHCMSC), Chris Gazoorian (USGS New York Water Science Center), Josh Barber (EPA), and Seth Ackerman (WHCMSC).
Sea-Floor Mapping
The Sea Floor Mapping Group (SFMG) maintains a centerwide capability supporting many of the center’s projects and works closely with the other two CMHRP science centers in St. Petersburg, Florida, and Santa Cruz, California. The SFMG is a team of geologists, engineers, electronics technicians, physical scientists, and geographers with expertise in the acquisition, processing, and analysis of marine, coastal, and lacustrine geophysical and geologic data. Working across diverse environments, the technical team uses acoustic techniques to collect detailed information about the sea floor, such as its shape, sediment composition and distribution, and underlying geologic structure and sediment. Sea-floor video, photographs, sediment cores, and samples are also collected to validate the acoustics and provide a comprehensive foundation for studying sediment and contaminant transport, landslide and tsunami hazards, gas hydrates and methane and carbon flux, benthic habitat quality, sediment availability, shoreline change, and coastal evolution. Managers, policymakers, and other stakeholders can use the map products derived from these studies to inform coastal and ocean resource-management decisions.
https://www.usgs.gov/centers/whcmsc/science/sea-floor-mapping-group
Highlights of 2023
Mapped Long Island Sound and Supported Other Mapping Efforts
The WHCMSC entered into a collaborative agreement with the University of Connecticut for work on phase IV of the Long Island Sound Mapping and Research Collaborative. They completed an 8-day sampling survey using the newly redesigned SEABed Observation and Sampling System (SEABOSS 2.0) to study the benthic habitat, biota, and surficial substrate of central Long Island Sound. Sea-floor photographs, video, and sediment samples were collected at 91 sites in the survey area. The SFMG also supported several other mapping efforts to (1) investigate sediment and stratigraphic properties related to mass transport processes along the U.S. Atlantic margin; (2) characterize the sea floor and subsurface of Nantucket Sound; (3) identify active methane seepage along the mid-Atlantic margin; and (4) characterize the sea floor offshore of the Mississippi River Delta front.
Collaborated With Information Technology Group to Develop Offsite Data Storage and Backup
The SFMG collaborated with the Information Technology group to develop a methodology for offsite data storage and backup. Approximately 140 terabytes of USGS data collected during WHCMSC programs over several decades are now stored both at the center and in the cloud. The data can be retrieved at any time, providing backup for USGS geophysical and geologic data.
Introduced New Seismic-Processing Computer, Acquisition Log, and Research Vessel
After 2 years of planning, the SFMG introduced a portable high-performance seismic-processing computer. It enables continuously recorded, near real-time processing of high-resolution multichannel seismic data from quality assurance and quality control to stacked migration. The SFMG also designed and created a new, automated acquisition log to improve at-sea documentation of system configurations and settings—improving and standardizing documentation and communication. The SFMG oversaw the building and fabrication, as well as provided assessment of, the new shallow-water research vessel (R/V) O’Brien, which the group designed to replace the center’s aging R/V Rafael. The new vessel builds on the capabilities of the R/V Rafael while increasing efficiency, ergonomics, and safety.
2023 By the Numbers
The Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center’s Sea Floor Mapping Group is mapping the sea floor and sub-sea floor of Nantucket Sound as part of a long-term collaboration with the State of Massachusetts. This is an image of Nantucket Sound's sea floor. It is dominated by sand waves. Data are collected at such quality that even the ripples on top of the sand waves can be resolved. These bedforms indicate a very mobile and sandy sea floor.
Geologic Mapping: Links to Coastal Vulnerability and Hazards
The objective of the geologic mapping project is to characterize a region’s resources and potential coastal hazards through understanding of the region’s geologic framework. This work provides baseline datasets and derivative interpretive maps that offer a geospatial basis for scientific research and provide critical information to planners and decision makers who oversee the management of resources and mitigation of hazards in the coastal ocean. Geologic Mapping project scientists also conduct scientific analysis and develop methodologies to examine these data and later communicate their results to the scientific community and the public.
Currently the project consists of two tasks, the Delmarva regional study and Lake Superior stamp sands work.
Highlights of 2023
Published Data Release on Underlying Geology of the Delmarva Continental Shelf
A data release was published that describes the underlying geology of the Delmarva continental shelf. These geospatial data layers can be used for resolving paleolandscapes (landscapes as they were in ancient times), siting infrastructure related to offshore wind energy, and identifying sand resources.
Started and Continued Collaborative Partnerships
The Geologic Mapping project began a new partnership with the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement to identify geohazards associated with offshore wind lease areas and cable corridors. The project team continued to work closely with colleagues at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Marine Minerals Program to aid in the identification of potential sand resources. Project staff also became active in broader discussions with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers regarding those agencies’ Regional Sediment Management activities. Additionally, the center’s longstanding relationship with the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe deepened as the project team participated in the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s summer youth camp and presented at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 1 Tribal Environmental Conference.
Coastal Change Hazards and Sea-Floor Mapping Project: Massachusetts Integrated Coastal Studies
The USGS, in partnership with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, initiated the Massachusetts Integrated Coastal Studies project in 2018 to investigate processes controlling sediment movement in Cape Cod Bay. Through this multitiered research initiative, USGS scientists are developing and applying a coupled ocean-wave-sediment transport model for the bay at different scales by using our Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere-Wave-Sediment Transport (COAWST) modeling system. This project includes comprehensive sea-floor mapping of the bay, numerical modeling of coastal processes and their effects on coastline stability, and improved shoreline change assessments with new capabilities for predicting shoreline change. This work can help coastal zone managers better understand how, where, and why sediment is transported in western Cape Cod Bay.
https://www.usgs.gov/centers/whcmsc/science/massachusetts-integrated-coastal-studies-mics
Highlights of 2023
Conducted Sea-Floor Mapping in Nantucket Sound and Published Related Data Release
The project team returned to Nantucket Sound offshore Massachusetts to collect geophysical and sampling data to complete a survey near Horseshoe Shoal that began in 2022. Sea-floor video, high-resolution photographs, and sediment samples were collected at 60 sites within the survey area by using the newly redesigned SEABed Observation and Sampling System (SEABOSS 2.0). A data release was published sharing the 680 kilometers of sea-floor mapping data collected in Nantucket Sound in 2022. These data can be used to help locate potential sand sources, delineate habitat, improve navigation charts, aid in maritime safety, and determine potential renewable energy infrastructure placement.
Published Journal Article and Data Release on Spatial Variability of Storm Impacts Along the Cape Cod Coast
A paper was published in the Coastal Sediments 2023 proceedings (World Scientific) that uses results from geophysical surveys, shoreline change analysis, and numerical modeling—using the COAWST modeling system—to investigate where and why storm impacts occur along Cape Cod Bay, Massachusetts. A corresponding data release was also published that shares COAWST model simulations, run for Cape Cod Bay, of ocean circulation, waves, and sediment transport.
Published Journal Article and Geonarrative on Shoreline Forecasting
In 2022, data from different parts of the Massachusetts coast were used to study two methods of predicting future shoreline position. Forecasts created by these methods were tested against observed shoreline positions to determine their accuracy. WHCMSC scientists published a journal article in Ocean & Coastal Management that examines two shoreline forecasting methods and resolves techniques to estimate uncertainty. A complementary geonarrative was published to serve as an accessible tutorial, including interactive visual components, about shoreline forecasting and its limitations in Massachusetts. (These publications are also highlighted in the section on the Coastal Change Hazards Technical Capabilities and Applications project.)
Gas Hydrates and Geohazards
Gas hydrates and geohazards research at the center is focused on three themes: gas hydrates (naturally occurring icelike deposits made of water and gas), earthquake and tsunami hazards, and the sea floor beyond 200 nautical miles from shore, known as the extended continental shelf (ECS).
USGS scientists work together to study the formation and distribution of gas hydrates in nature, the potential of hydrates as an energy resource, and the possible environmental effects of gas hydrates when they break down and release methane (a potent greenhouse gas) into sediments, the ocean, or the atmosphere. The USGS works closely with other Federal agencies on implementing national gas hydrate research priorities and has been a leader in gas hydrates research for more than three decades.
Underwater earthquakes can generate tsunamis that cause hazards for coastal communities. Scientists at the center study the recent history of underwater earthquakes and tsunamis and evaluate the future potential and probable impacts of such events on a regional basis. Their research results are used to evaluate earthquake risk zoning, public disaster education and preparedness, and engineering and building codes.
The Gas Hydrates and Geohazards group also works with other Federal agencies to explore and define the limits of the U.S. ECS. Further understanding of the resource potential of these vast areas in the Arctic, Atlantic, and Pacific Oceans will improve natural resource management and promote economic prosperity.
Gas Hydrates Project
Naturally occurring gas hydrate is an icelike combination of water and (usually) methane gas that forms in sediments below the sea floor and in areas of continuous permafrost when pressure and temperature conditions are appropriate. Gas hydrates trap a large quantity of the methane in the global system. The USGS Gas Hydrates Project includes scientists at four USGS centers: the WHCMSC; the Central Energy Resources Science Center in Denver, Colorado; the Earthquake Science Center at Moffett Field, California; and the Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center in Santa Cruz, California. In evaluating the resource potential of gas hydrate and the environmental effects of methane released from the sea floor, USGS Gas Hydrates Project scientists address questions related to the production and fate of methane. Many of the project’s efforts are supported by the U.S. Department of Energy.
https://www.usgs.gov/centers/whcmsc/science/us-geological-survey-gas-hydrates-project
Highlights of 2023
Global Database of Bottom Simulating Reflections Released
The USGS Gas Hydrates Project publicly released the first-ever global compilation of bottom simulating reflections (BSRs) culled from the scientific literature. BSRs are seismic features that mark the phase transition between gas hydrate and underlying gas bubbles in marine sediments. Detecting a BSR indicates that gas hydrate is present somewhere in the vertical column of sediment above the BSR (though hydrate often exists in places where no BSRs are found). The database highlights marine margins that merit more intense surveying for BSRs and serves as a guide to the international hydrates community as researchers analyze factors controlling global gas hydrate distribution.
Patented Geochemical Instrumentation Expands Greenhouse Gas Analytical Capabilities
Scientists and engineers within the USGS Gas Hydrates Project were granted a U.S. patent for a “discrete sample introduction module (DSIM) for gas analysis by laser absorption spectroscopy.” The DSIM allows scientists to obtain concentration and stable carbon isotopic measurements in real time at the field site using single samples of gas collected from sediment pore waters, ocean waters, or gas pockets in sediments. The DSIM eliminates the months-long process of sending samples out for stable carbon isotopic analyses once a field program has been completed and could have widespread applications for greenhouse gas studies in estuaries and wetlands, at wellheads, and in other settings.
https://image-ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-public/print/downloadPdf/11674892
Alaska North Slope: Pressure-Coring Expedition Retrieves Gas Hydrate From Below Permafrost
USGS Gas Hydrates Project scientists participated in a month-long expedition that acquired samples of sediment and gas hydrate from below the base of permafrost (more than 1,500 feet deep) on the Alaskan North Slope. Scientists are now measuring the strength and other properties of hydrate-bearing sediments still contained within pressure cores, using instruments at the Hydrate Pressure Core Analysis Laboratory at the center. These measurements, combined with those from collaborators at the U.S. Department of Energy and Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, are being used to build gas hydrate reservoir models that can predict how much natural gas can be produced by tapping hydrate deposits.
Gulf of Mexico: Deepwater Drilling of Gas Hydrates in Sand-Rich Reservoirs
Project scientists participated in a summer 2023 expedition to sample gas hydrates from sand-rich layers over 1,000 feet below the sea floor of the northern Gulf of Mexico. The expedition, led by the University of Texas at Austin and sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, focused on the sampling of dipping, hydrate-bearing sand layers trapped between clay-rich layers that were identified during a site-selection process led by the USGS Gas Hydrates Project more than a decade ago. Project scientists led pressure core analysis, gas sampling, and curation during the offshore expedition. During the postexpedition phase, the Gas Hydrates group led sampling of all recovered core material and started analyses of the sediments and gases retrieved during drilling.
Law of the Sea—Outer Limits of the U.S. Continental Margins
The USGS Law of the Sea project is part of a Federal interagency effort to identify the regions beyond 200 nautical miles from shore where the United States can manage resources found on and below the sea floor. These areas, called the ECS, are determined by scientific and legal criteria set forth in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. U.S. interests are served by knowing the outer limits of its ECS and where these limits may overlap with neighboring countries. The main goal of the interagency project is to develop a submission package that describes the outer limits of the U.S. ECS.
This effort is led by the U.S. Department of State. The USGS contributes knowledge of geology and sediment thickness, and NOAA contributes knowledge about the morphology and bathymetry of the U.S. continental margins. The USGS participated in or led 10 major research expeditions between 2007 and 2016, during which more than 28,000 kilometers of multichannel seismic reflection data were acquired along the U.S. margins.
https://www.usgs.gov/science/usgs-law-sea
Highlights of 2023
Public Release of ECS Outer Limit Coordinates
Much of 2023 was focused on the public release of the U.S. ECS outer limit coordinates. This public release is the culmination of the last 20 years of ECS work to define these limits using customary international law. The project team received clearances from the U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of the Interior, and NOAA for the materials of the release and to develop the necessary information and documentation for the press release, the website, and the Federal Register notice. The three agencies assembled a media package, fact sheet, and U.S. Department of State web page. The USGS web presence was also updated.
Gave Two Major Briefings to USGS Leadership
The project team gave briefings on the ECS to USGS leadership of the Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program and the Natural Hazards Mission Area in Santa Cruz, California, and Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Topics for these presentations included the project’s strategic plan and timeline, the role of USGS and the value of our work, the importance of the project, the U.S. ECS submission package, detailed information about the maintenance phase of the project, expectations for the future, and more.
Continued Maintenance Activities
The USGS continued to archive data, intermediate reports, maps, and digital files, as well as document this archiving task through memos to file. The project team also continued to act as the data steward for all physical samples involved in the ECS project, including both cores and dredges, primarily from the Arctic.
Transferred Leadership from Woods Hole to Santa Cruz
The USGS ECS work finished transitioning from an independent project to an embedded task in the Global Marine Mineral Resources project, thus transferring leadership of the ECS work from the WHCMSC, where it has resided since the project’s inception, to the Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center.
Marine Geohazards Sources and Probability
The Marine Geohazards Sources and Probability project has three primary objectives: (1) quantify the probability of marine hazards, such as earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis, and volcanoes, in marine and coastal environments by using geological and geophysical data, interpretations, and models; (2) understand the underlying processes of these marine hazards to inform hazard estimations; and (3) develop reliable deterministic and probabilistic estimates of possible hazards and the probability of occurrence to be used by engineers and policymakers.
https://www.usgs.gov/science/science-explorer/ocean/marine-geohazards
Highlights of 2023
Participated in Multichannel Seismic Survey and Piston Coring Along U.S. Atlantic Margin
WHCMSC scientists participated in a collaborative multichannel seismic survey and piston-coring effort along the U.S. Atlantic margin, near the Cape Fear Slide, aboard the R/V Langseth. Research goals were to investigate sediment and stratigraphic properties related to mass transport processes.
Coastal and Estuarine Dynamics
Coastal systems are dynamic—they change continually as sediment moves due to waves, wind, currents, and tides as well as storms and sea-level rise. The ability to predict how the coast will respond to these forcing conditions can mitigate vulnerabilities to hazards, such as loss of infrastructure, declines in tourism and recreational use, and effects on marine habitats. Scientists at the center use cutting-edge oceanographic equipment to observe and measure sediment transport processes within the coastal ocean. These observations are used to develop computer models to better understand the past, present, and future states of coastal systems. The models developed at the center vary in scale—ranging from local estuaries or barrier islands to the entire U.S. Atlantic coast—and take advantage of modern high-performance computing. This combination of observations and modeling improves hazard and resource assessments that provide coastal managers with important information on the coastal system for making decisions.
Cross-Shore and Inlets Processes
Understanding the exchange of water, sediment, and biological particles between the inner shelf and back-barrier estuaries is critical for determining extreme water levels, the formation and maintenance of inlets, barrier island evolution, and pollutant and larval transport. These connections are controlled by cross-shore processes, including wave-driven inner-shelf and nearshore processes, dune overtopping, breaching, transport through existing and new inlets, and estuarine circulation. The Cross-Shore and Inlets Processes project objectives are to further our understanding of the coast, from estuaries to the continental shelf, and increase our ability to predict its evolving form and shape. To help fulfill these objectives, scientists within this project lead the development of the Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere-Wave-Sediment Transport (COAWST) modeling system.
The Cross-Shore and Inlets project plays an integral role in the National Oceanographic Partnership Program (NOPP) Hurricane Coastal Impacts project. NOPP facilitates partnerships between Federal agencies, academia, and industry to advance ocean science research and education. Through this collaboration, Federal agencies can leverage resources, investing in priorities that fall between agency missions or that are too large for any single agency to support. The purpose of the Hurricane Coastal Impacts project is to improve hurricane model predictions by improving and enhancing the model input parameters and ground truth data (topographic/bathymetric elevations, waves and water levels, sediment type, vegetation cover, and infrastructure). The goal is to provide hurricane forecasts 5 days before landfall and updated boundary conditions for storms during each of the 2022–24 hurricane seasons along the Gulf of Mexico and eastern Atlantic coastlines.
https://www.usgs.gov/centers/whcmsc/science/cross-shore-and-inlets-csi-processes
Highlights of 2023
Produced Forecasts and Hindcasts of Two Hurricanes To Improve Model Performance
Researchers at the WHCMSC worked to improve regional-scale models of coastal-ocean response to hurricanes, including currents, waves, and water levels, and create forecasts of beach erosion, overwash, and damage to infrastructure. They forecast the impacts of Hurricanes Ian and Lee as each hurricane approached the coast and did hindcast simulations to evaluate and improve model performance.
https://www.usgs.gov/programs/cmhrp/news/hurricane-ians-scientific-silver-lining
Collected Real-Time Measurements During Hurricane Lee
The WHCMSC’s rapid response to Hurricane Lee (described under the Total Water Level and Coastal Change [TWL&CC] project) included collecting real-time measurements of the hurricane. In addition to deploying prestorm and poststorm sensors along the Cape Cod coast, the WHCMSC, in coordination with researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, deployed 11 buoys into the Gulf of Maine from a U.S. Navy P–3 Orion aircraft in advance of Hurricane Lee. The buoys measured waves, temperature, and physical ocean properties during the storm. The data were transmitted in real time and provided two-dimensional wave spectra, which were compared with numerical wave models.
https://www.usgs.gov/centers/whcmsc/news/monitoring-storm-usgs-coastal-response-hurricane-lee
Total Water Level and Coastal Change
The Next-Generation Total Water Level and Coastal Change (TWL&CC) Forecast project is a collaborative effort between all three USGS Coastal and Marine Science Centers (in Woods Hole, Massachusetts; St. Petersburg, Florida; and Santa Cruz, California) to validate, improve, and expand forecasts and uncertainty estimates from the USGS TWL&CC Forecast Viewer. The TWL&CC Forecast Viewer is a web-based platform that includes a multiday forecast based on model simulations of tides, storm surge, offshore wave conditions, and local coastline characteristics. The model is deployed on approximately 4,700 kilometers of open, sandy coastline on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, with ongoing expansion to the Pacific coast and nonsandy environments. It is the only national-scale, real-time model for coastal change. Scientists from each of the three centers aim to (1) assess forecast skill by comparing the forecasts to observations, (2) improve forecasts by incorporating new data and theory into the model, (3) develop spatially varying and ensemble versions of the model that include uncertainty estimates, and (4) improve quantification of coastal hazards. Model improvements are incorporated into the TWL&CC forecasts developed jointly by the USGS and NOAA and into the TWL&CC Forecast Viewer.
Highlights of 2023
Collected Prestorm and Poststorm Data for Hurricane Lee
The TWL&CC team conducted a rapid response to Hurricane Lee, which passed offshore of Cape Cod in late September 2023. The team used GPS to measure prestorm and poststorm beach profiles and deployed pressure sensors to measure total water levels at four sites along the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, including Sandwich Marsh tidal creek, Head of the Meadow Beach, Marconi Beach, and Nauset Light Beach. The team also measured prestorm and poststorm topography at Nauset Light Beach with assistance from the Aerial Imaging and Mapping Group.
https://www.usgs.gov/centers/whcmsc/news/monitoring-storm-usgs-coastal-response-hurricane-lee
Maintained CoastCams and Improved Imagery Analysis Software
The team continued to maintain two CoastCams on outer Cape Cod and generated topographic and bathymetric maps of those sites using aerial imagery from a helium-filled kite and echo-sounder data from an autonomous, surf-capable boat. In a parallel effort, the team continued to improve the software used for analyzing CoastCam imagery by working with academic and other Federal colleagues, as well as the Coastal Imaging Research Network, to provide open-source workflows for image processing.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.softx.2022.101215
Worked to Improve Accuracy of Forecasts
Project scientists are developing new runup models using long-term water-level hindcasts to do statistical analyses of total water level. They are also examining the source of uncertainty in total water-level forecasts. Much of these efforts was reported in multiple presentations at the biannual Coastal Sediments 2023 meeting in New Orleans.
Maps and Data Used in NOPP Project
The CoastCam site maps, along with the rapid-response beach profiles and water-level measurements, were used by the team’s Deltares (Netherlands) collaborators in the NOPP Hurricane Coastal Impacts project as input to models of beach change during Hurricane Lee.
Waves break on the outer bar at Head of the Meadow Beach, Cape Cod National Seashore, Massachusetts, during Hurricane Lee.
Marie Bartlett removes a fencepost used to mount a pressure sensor to measure water levels at Marconi Beach in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, during Hurricane Lee.
Robert Bales attaches a pressure sensor to post in the Sandwich Marsh tidal creek in Sandwich, Massachusetts, to measure the water level during Hurricane Lee.
Remote Sensing Coastal Change
The Remote Sensing Coastal Change project began in 2017 as a multicenter collaboration intended to advance USGS Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program applications of remote-sensing techniques to coastal change problems. Work at the center has focused on rapid response to coastal events, advancing the capability to process imagery by using structure-from-motion photogrammetry (a technique used to create high-resolution digital models of surface elevation), developing USGS Cloud Hosting Solutions, and investigating the integration of machine learning into workflows.
https://www.usgs.gov/index.php/centers/pcmsc/science/remote-sensing-coastal-change
Highlights of 2023
Produced Orthomosaic Imagery and Digital Elevation Models for Two Major Hurricanes
The Remote Sensing Coastal Change team responded to Hurricanes Idalia (August 2023) and Ian (September 2022), conducting aerial surveys before and after the storms using structure-from-motion photogrammetry to produce accurate orthomosaics and digital elevation models of the affected parts of the Florida coast. The Hurricane Ian data were disseminated as an emergency release product.
Continued To Document Recovery of North Core Banks
The team continued to collect periodic aerial imagery of the Outer Banks of North Carolina to document the recovery of North Core Banks after Hurricane Dorian (September 2019). The team conducted a week of field measurements using uncrewed aircraft systems (drones) and a small, remote-controlled boat to map the barrier island topography and bathymetry of the ponds that now occupy channels incised during Dorian. Team members also mapped vegetation and installed ground-control points to help the aerial surveys. They plan to incorporate these measurements into the analysis of island evolution. These studies were supported in part by a collaborative agreement with the National Park Service, Cape Lookout National Seashore. With the encouragement of the National Park Service, the project team developed a geonarrative that describes the dynamic nature of Cape Lookout National Seashore, North Carolina.
https://geonarrative.usgs.gov/dynamicsandsofncb/
Estuarine Processes, Hazards, and Ecosystems
Estuaries are dynamic environments where complex interactions between the atmosphere, ocean, watershed, ecosystems, and human infrastructure take place. They serve as valuable ecological habitat and provide numerous ecosystem services and recreational opportunities. However, they are modified by physical processes such as storms and sea-level rise, and effects of human activity such as nutrient loading threaten ecosystem function within estuaries. The Estuarine Processes, Hazards, and Ecosystems project team collects basic observational data on these physical processes and anthropogenic effects, develops numerical models from these data, and applies models to understand the past, present, and future states of estuaries. Collaborative endeavors are led from the WHCMSC and include participation from other USGS offices, other Federal and State agencies, and academic institutions.
https://www.usgs.gov/centers/whcmsc/science/estuarine-processes-hazards-and-ecosystems
Highlights of 2023
Published Conterminous-U.S.-Wide Collection of Key Tidal Wetland Metrics
The project team published the first collection of key tidal wetland metrics for the conterminous United States in a collection of geonarratives. The collection provides the data necessary to assess the health status of coastal wetlands throughout the contiguous United States and to understand the current and future services provided by these ecosystems. It enables users to access three national datasets at 30-m resolution: relative tidal elevation, unvegetated-vegetated marsh ratio (UVVR), and aboveground biomass. There is also a coastal wetlands geonarrative that details the importance of wetlands, the threats they face, and related USGS research. Additionally, project scientists are working with the Technical Capabilities and Applications project and plan to develop a regular update cycle for national scale UVVR, aboveground biomass, and normalized marsh elevation.
https://geonarrative.usgs.gov/us_coastal_wetland_collection/
Served as Mentor for Rising TIDES Program
A project member served as a mentor for the 18-month Rising TIDES (Toward an Inclusive, Diverse, and Enriched Society) program of the Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation. Rising TIDES supports students from backgrounds underrepresented in coastal and estuarine disciplines.
Published Three Journal Articles and One Book Chapter
Two journal articles were published in Estuaries and Coasts. The first article presents a critical advance in reconciling vertical and horizontal dynamics by assessing the relationship between elevation change, relative tidal elevation, and UVVR across coastal wetland complexes in the southeastern United States. The second article describes a new spatially comprehensive dataset for Chesapeake Bay salt marshes, which includes UVVR, elevation metrics, and sediment-based lifespan. The third article was published in Earth’s Future and presents an interdisciplinary research agenda for gated storm surge barriers, an increasingly prevalent modification to the coastal zone. The book chapter in “Climate Change and Estuaries” provides a basic framework of estuarine sediment transport. Readers can apply this framework to a specific system, under a predicted future state of climate, and develop testable hypotheses on future estuarine geomorphology and function.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-023-01275-x
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-023-01221-x
Environmental Geoscience
Our coasts include a range of environments that provide essential habitat for a variety of plants and animals. From wetlands to estuaries to coastal margins, these ecosystems deliver critical benefits and services to society. Research by the Environmental Geosciences group at the center is focused on key ecosystem functions and drivers of ecosystem change. Knowledge gained through fieldwork and sample analysis is used to model and map the effects of changing environmental conditions caused by sea-level rise and climate change, as well as the effects of expanding coastal infrastructure on critical ecosystems. This work provides data, products, and decision support to Federal, State, and local organizations and individuals tasked with managing these vital ecosystems for future resilience. The Core Laboratories project provides the analytical and technical infrastructure necessary to accomplish project objectives.
Sea-Level Rise and Carbon Cycle Processes in Managed Coastal Wetlands
Our coasts are a patchwork of degraded and healthy, resilient and nonresilient salt marshes and mangroves. The persistence of these critical habitats in the 21st century depends on relatively near-term decisions regarding transportation infrastructure and our response to sea-level-rise hazards. Degraded wetlands behind roads and dikes can become a source of greenhouse gases, rather than a carbon sink. The WHCMSC and cooperating organizations are working with Federal land management agencies, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service, as well as State government agencies in Massachusetts and in other States, to inform decision makers of the role of coastal wetlands in climate change mitigation and adaptation. This collaborative work includes assessing opportunities for soil carbon sequestration and methane emissions reduction and for integrating coastal ecosystems within programs for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Highlights of 2023
Celebrated Start of Herring River Restoration at Groundbreaking Event
Since 2015, the USGS has been an active collaborator in the Herring River Restoration Project, conducting blue carbon research to determine the carbon cycle response to rising sea levels under both restored and diked wetland scenarios. On March 31, Federal and State officials, project partners, and members of the community came together to celebrate the start of construction of the Chequessett Neck Road bridge, the first and largest infrastructure component of the Herring River Restoration Project.
Evaluated Geochemical Changes in Duck Harbor
An overwash event in 2021 in the Duck Harbor region of the Herring River in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, resulted in salinization of relict peat moss and subsequent vegetation changes, with pine forest, fresh shrub, and emergent vegetation all dying in the affected area. An increase in salt marsh vegetation was observed in summer 2022 and spring 2023. The overwash area is being used as a test bed for several of the planned restoration activities across the larger Herring River. In summer 2023, USGS scientists evaluated the geochemical changes occurring in the rewetted peat. The results are the first site-specific restoration data for the Herring River.
Published Journal Article on Mapping Methane Reduction Potential of U.S. Tidal Wetland Restoration
The project team published an article in Communications Earth & Environment that provides a new assessment of coastal methane reduction opportunities for the contiguous United States by combining multiple publicly available map layers, reassessing greenhouse gas emissions datasets, and applying scenarios informed by geospatial information systems and by surveys of coastal managers. A map of 1,796 parcels with the potential for tidal reconnection is provided. Additionally, a data release and four other articles were published in Wetlands, Limnology and Oceanography, Estuaries and Coasts, and Biogeosciences.
Analytical Laboratories
The analytical facilities of the WHCMSC provide high-quality data through modern analytical techniques in support of a range of research groups and projects. The analytical laboratories include the Geochemistry, Sediment Analysis, Core Processing, and Gas Hydrates Project Physical Properties, Biogeochemistry, and Hydrate Pressure Core Analysis Laboratories.
The Core Laboratories Project is a research support service of the center, providing analytical and technical infrastructure and supporting a range of projects associated with coastal biogeochemical processes, coastal groundwater, climate-hydrates interactions, and sedimentology. Support includes technician time, as well as the procurement of general equipment and consumables needed to operate and maintain the analytical spaces and instrumentation. Laboratory methods and techniques are continually refined and developed to meet project objectives and to provide new capabilities.
https://www.usgs.gov/centers/whcmsc/science/analytical-facilities
Highlights of 2023
Geochemistry Laboratory: Supported Herring River Restoration and Acquired New Gamma Detector
The Geochemistry Laboratory provided analytical support for ongoing collaborative projects for the Herring River salt-marsh restoration in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, including a multiagency pilot study using innovative soil-amendment techniques to enhance carbon dioxide removal in salt marshes. The Geochemistry Laboratory also acquired a new gamma detector to replace one of several that have exceeded their lifespan. Laboratory members also welcomed a new staff member to the team.
Sediment Analysis Laboratory: Continued To Support WHCMSC Projects
The Sediment Analysis Laboratory continued to support WHCMSC science by providing analytical resources to projects related to the marine geohazards, gas hydrates, coastal change hazards, sea-floor mapping, and coastal and estuarine dynamics. The capabilities and productivity of the Sediment Analysis Laboratory during 2023 greatly benefited from the addition of new team members—bringing the laboratory back to full strength.
Preserved Coastal Wetland Sediment Samples for Future Science
The Environmental Geochemistry group, with support from the USGS National Geological and Geophysical Data Preservation Program, inventoried, archived, and incorporated 4,919 coastal wetland soil samples into the WHCMSC Samples Repository for long-term preservation and future use in research. Access to the preserved samples is now possible for any interested researcher or group. These samples were collected over the past decade from numerous sites in Cape Cod, Massachusetts; Tampa Bay, Florida; and southern New England. A comprehensive suite of USGS analyses were completed for these samples, including highly accurate geospatial data, soil carbon content, and age models and associated vertical and carbon accretion rates. The resulting data have been published in various data releases. For more information about the collections management aspect of this work, see the “Information Science” section.
The U.S. Geological Survey celebrating the groundbreaking of the Herring River restoration in Wellfleet, Massachusetts. From left to right, Meagan Eagle, Marcel Belaval, Kevin Kroeger, Rob Thieler, Jennifer O’Keefe-Suttles, and Sophie Kuhl.
Information Science
Data collected for analysis by USGS scientists are used by scientists at other agencies and universities; resource managers and policymakers at Federal, State, and local levels; and the public. The Information Science group at the center is responsible for managing and maintaining the scientific data, ensuring that they are readily available in a variety of formats and online systems. The group also assists stakeholders in understanding their data needs and locating useful products.
Additionally, members of this group produce physical and electronic information products, manage social media accounts, highlight research efforts by writing articles and social media posts, organize and participate in outreach activities, and maintain the center’s web presence.
Data Management and Preservation
Good data management is vital for sharing and reusing data collected and published by USGS scientists. Good data management also reduces data redundancy and costs in terms of time and money. Well-documented data that are easily accessed may be integrated readily into new projects or datasets. Best practices of data management attempt to define, document, and use consistent standards and procedures. The goal is to provide the information resources needed for efficient program operations. Staff at the WHCMSC collaborate with the other Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program (CMHRP) centers to provide consistency within data management activities.
The Data Library at WHCMSC preserves and makes available a rich repository of scientific data spanning many decades of USGS research in Woods Hole. In addition, the Data Library includes records that document project activities and provide contextual information for the data that were produced. These include field notes, cruise logs, navigation records, and photographs.
Highlights of 2023
Continued Management of Compass and the Metadata Repository
The Information Science group continued to manage Compass, an online database that holds information about CMHRP fieldwork and data collection. The group worked on requirements, design, and documentation for a new searchable interface intended to publicize information about scientific projects and the data and publications they produce. The group also continued to maintain an online repository of metadata records that enables finding, accessing, and using scientific data produced by CMHRP.
Updated the Imagery Data System
The center received funding from the National Geological and Geophysical Data Preservation Program to add historical data collections to the Imagery Data System—a system developed by scientific and information staff to standardize how images are organized, cataloged, archived, and made available.
Preserved At-Risk Data
Data Library staff partnered with long-tenured researchers to preserve at-risk data on modern online data systems. They focused on 8-millimeter tapes containing QMIPS sonar data and seismic raw data. Also, funds from the National Geological and Geophysical Data Preservation Program were used to improve the Data Library’s resistance to mold to safeguard historical paper and digital data records. The improvements include fresh paint, better air circulation, and systems for automatic monitoring of temperature and humidity.
Developed New Workflow and Updated Collections Inventory for Samples Repository
A workflow was developed to document the process of preparing soil samples from coastal wetlands for transfer from an active research asset to inclusion in the Samples Repository for archiving and promoting access to future research. This workflow is used by the Environmental Geochemistry group and can be adapted for use by other projects. Also, the local copy of the collections inventory was updated, and version 2.0 of the inventory data release was published. The updated inventory is publicly accessible online, and the collections metadata were uploaded to the USGS Registry of Scientific Collections (ReSciColl).
Science Communications
Coastal communities and practitioners need scientific information to support decisions regarding public safety, development, economics, and environmental health. To ensure these stakeholders are aware of the science, data, and tools available through USGS, effective communications strategies must be deployed to increase their visibility and accessibility.
At the WHCMSC, a variety of communications methods and platforms are used to share information, including social media, email marketing campaigns, media pitches, science stories and news briefs for USGS web pages and newsletters, videos, handouts for specific events, and other promotional products. Communications, stakeholder engagement, and social science experts from across the CMHRP also work together to further promote USGS science, engage with stakeholders, and interpret their unique needs so those needs can be incorporated into science planning and product deliverables.
Highlights of 2023
Organized and Participated in Woods Hole Science Stroll
The WHCMSC helped organize the annual Woods Hole Science Stroll—a free event hosted by the science organizations based in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. This event brings together scientists, students, and the local community to learn more about coastal, ocean, and climate science. At the USGS booth, visitors watched aerial drone demonstrations, learned how drone technology is used to map short- and long-term changes in coastal environments, used virtual reality goggles, explored operational ocean and coastal dynamics forecasts, and more. The USGS also hosted the Woods Hole Diversity Initiative booth.
Became Editor of Sound Waves Newsletter
Center communications staff began serving as editor of the Sound Waves Newsletter. The newsletter shares coastal and marine research news from across the USGS. It has nearly 3,500 subscribers.
Won Shoemaker Award for Communications Product of Excellence
The Coastal Change Hazards video won the 2022 Shoemaker Award for Communications Product Excellence in the audio/visual product category. The video explains how USGS scientists identify and address the Nation’s coastal change hazards problems.
Continued to Colead Stakeholder Engagement and Communications Project
The Stakeholder Engagement and Communications project is a cross-center project that provides the Coastal Change Hazards programmatic focus with the resources necessary to successfully connect with stakeholders, analyze and implement user input, and communicate coastal hazards information. Notable highlights from 2023 include leading outreach and branding for the Coastal Science Navigator and starting a project, funded by the Community for Data Integration, focused on developing a better understanding of use and usability for USGS science products by establishing a metrics tracking guide.
2023 By the Numbers
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Woods Hole
At the WHCMSC, we are committed to improving diverse representation and equity in science for the long haul. We invest time and resources to routinely identify and address blind spots to build an inclusive culture. Our proactive stance is crucial to the future vitality and viability of the USGS as an earth science agency serving the Nation.
The WHCMSC has long promoted diversity, equity, and inclusion in its many forms. In 2004, the six Woods Hole science institutions formed the Woods Hole Diversity Initiative1 and committed to attracting and retaining a more diverse workforce. The Woods Hole Diversity Initiative in turn established the Woods Hole Diversity Advisory Committee, made up of representatives from each organization, to recommend how the institutions can make the village of Woods Hole more diverse and inclusive. The committee plans events for Black History Month, Native American Heritage Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, and Juneteenth; hosts community discussions; supports events of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex, asexual/ally, plus more (LGBTQIA+) community; and more.
In 2023, the WHCMSC helped plan and host the initial Building Resilient Alliances for Inclusion and Diversity (BRAID) workshop in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. BRAID workshops are designed to foster new research and educational partnerships between 8 U.S. minority-serving institutions with programs in marine and climate science and 6 predominantly white institutions in these disciplines located in Woods Hole. These 14 institutions, along with a Racial Equity Research team, facilitators, affiliates, and evaluators, form the BRAID–CMC Alliance2 (Bringing Together Allies in Diversifying Climate and Marine Careers). The alliance aims to cocreate strategies for broadening participation and improving representation of the faculty, students, and workforces who remain underrepresented in these disciplines. The 2023 workshop was the first step in catalyzing new, concrete partnerships within the BRAID–CMC Alliance. These new partnerships can be used to develop National Science Foundation proposals that increase minority-serving institutions faculty and student access to the national marine and climate science resources.
Additionally, several WHCMSC staff members continue to represent the USGS Peer Support Worker Program. This program was created to promote awareness and provide outreach and education on topics and policies related to antiharassment, discrimination, biases, and scientific integrity.
Participants of the Building Resilient Alliances for Inclusion and Diversity (BRAID) Workshop at the Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center. Photograph by David Rider, https://davidrider.photoshelter.com/about, May 22, 2023. Copyrighted; used with permission.
The Building Resilient Alliances for Inclusion and Diversity (BRAID) Workshop. Photographs by David Rider, https://davidrider.photoshelter.com/about, May 22, 2023. Copyrighted; used with permission.
2023 Diversity Activity Highlights
BRAID–CMC Alliance Workshop
The first BRAID workshop involved activities to develop partnerships by defining each alliance organization’s goals, roles, and needs, using a series of guided, participatory sessions facilitated by the Toolbox Dialog Initiative. This workshop also involved training and dialogue toward a stronger shared understanding of the current scholarship in racial equity, facilitated by BRAID–CMC’s Racial Equity Research team. This year-one activity helped formalize alliance partnerships, refine initial working groups, and launch proposal‐writing efforts for National Science Foundation programs having deadlines before BRAID’s second workshop in 2024.
Mashpee Wampanoag Preserving Our Homelands Summer Camp
The WHCMSC hosted 25 children and culture keepers from the Mashpee Wampanoag Preserving Our Homelands summer camp. Children rotated through four hands-on learning stations that introduced concepts relating to Cape Cod geology, dynamic sea level, coastal erosion processes, and wetland ecology. They also took a guided field trip of glacial landforms viewable from the Trunk River beach access.
Woods Hole Diversity Advisory Committee
The Woods Hole Diversity Advisory Committee organized numerous events in 2023, including the following:
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• A Juneteenth celebration, including a film screening followed by Juneteenth-themed trivia, a lecture by Kenneth Turner from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, and a contemplative freedom walk.
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• The Ambrose Jearld, Jr. Lecture, titled “Geosciencing While Black: 20 Years of Unsettling Racial Discrimination and the White Gaze in Earth Sciences Research and Workforce Preparation,” by Dr. Vernon Morris, Foundation Professor and Associate Dean of Knowledge Enterprise and Strategic Outcomes in the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University.
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• A series of events in celebration of Black History Month, including a screening of the film “Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power” in partnership with the Woods Hole Film Festival and lectures such as “Love as a Movement” presented by Jeneé Osterheldt, “Exploring the History of Race and Redemption Through Fiction” given by Ousmane Power-Greene, and “The Extraordinary Achievement of Black Segregated Schools” presented by Daniel Black. This year’s theme was Black Resistance.
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• Celebration of Native American Heritage Month, including a Wampanoag Nation Singers and Dancers event and a book discussion about “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants” by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
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• Celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, including a commemoration and community altar for Day of the Dead, a fiesta with a salsa (food) competition and salsa (dance) lessons, and a film screening in collaboration with the Woods Hole Film Festival.
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• Woods Hole Partnership Education Program Panel.
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• The Woods Hole Summer Student Barbecue.
2023 Student and Early Career Mentorships
Scientists at the center mentor students and recent college graduates through programs such as the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Summer Student Fellowship (SSF), the Woods Hole Partnership Education Program (PEP), the City College of New York/City University of New York partnership, and the USGS/National Association of Geoscience Teachers Cooperative Summer Field Training Program (CSFTP). Through these mentorships, students and early career scientists gain experience, advance skills, and interact socially and scientifically with their cohorts and the Woods Hole community.
Thanks to the dedication of the mentors and the directors of these programs, it was another successful season of student and early career mentorships. The Woods Hole Diversity Advisory Committee organized the Woods Hole Summer Student Barbecue, an event for the summer students, early career mentees, and their mentors working at all the science institutions throughout Woods Hole. It was a great opportunity for participants to make connections, reflect on their hard work, and have fun. Additionally, the center organized a Federal Career Panel for the mentees, in collaboration with the NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center. Multidisciplinary USGS and NOAA scientists at career stages ranging from less than a year in Federal service to over 20 years discussed various pathways to Federal science careers, as well as challenges and highlights of their work.
This year, the center also hosted a group of undergraduate students from St. Augustine’s University. The students and their faculty advisor toured the gas hydrates laboratory and walked to the shoreline to learn about coastal processes and how storms and sea-level change can impact local municipal infrastructure.
2023 Interns and Mentors
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· Sebastian Alvarez (SSF)
Mentor: Meagan Eagle
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· Mira Anderberg (CSFTP)
Mentor: Sara Ernst
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· Julia Hill (PEP)
Mentors: Chris Sherwood and Jin-Si Over
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· Jackie Sastry
Mentor: Seth Ackerman
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· Annabel Schreiber (SSF)
Mentors: John Pohlman and Ellen Lalk
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· Emily Tacke (CSFTP)
Mentors: John Pohlman and Ellen Lalk
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· Lily Traver (SSF)
Mentors: John Pohlman and Ellen Lalk
Meagan Eagle and Sebastian Alvarez at the 2023 Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) Conference.
U.S. Geological Survey scientists Seth Ackerman and Alfredo Aretxabaleta discussing coastal processes and how storms and sea level rise can impact local municipal infrastructure with a group of undergraduate students and their faculty advisor from Saint Augustine’s University—a private historically Black college in Raleigh, North Carolina. The students and advisor also received a tour of the laboratories at the Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center.
2023 Publications
Journal Articles (26)
Befus, K.M., Kurnizki, A.P.D., Kroeger, K.D., Eagle, M.J., and Smith, T., 2023, Forecasting sea level rise-driven inundation in diked and tidally restricted coastal lowlands: Estuaries and Coasts, v. 46, no. 5, p. 1157–1169, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-023-01174-1.
Canales, J.P., Miller, N.C., Baldwin, W., Carbotte, S.M., Han, S., Boston, B., Jian, H., Collins, J., and Lizarralde, D., 2023, CASIE21–OBS—An open‐access, OBS controlled‐source seismic data set for investigating the structure and properties of the Cascadia accretionary wedge and the downgoing Explorer‐Juan de Fuca‐Gorda plate system: Seismological Research Letters, v. 94, no. 4, p. 2093–2109, https://doi.org/10.1785/0220230010.
Carey, J.C., Kroeger, K.D., and Tang, J., 2022, Higher temperature sensitivity of ecosystem respiration in low marsh compared to high elevation marsh ecosystems: Journal of Geophysical Research. Biogeosciences, v. 127, no. 11, article e2022JG006832, 19 p., https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JG006832.
Chaytor, J.D., ten Brink, U.S., and Baxter, C.D.P., 2023, Late Pleistocene-Holocene age and stratigraphy of the Currituck Slide Complex, U.S. mid-Atlantic continental slope—Implications for landslide triggering: Marine Geology, v. 462, article 107080, 19 p., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.margeo.2023.107080.
Clare, M.A., Yeo, I.A., Bricheno, L., Aksenov, Y., Brown, J., Haigh, I.D., Wahl, T., Hunt, J.A., Sams, C., Chaytor, J., Bett, B.J., and Carter, L., 2023, Climate change hotspots and implications for the global subsea telecommunications network: Earth-Science Reviews, v. 237, article 104296, 22 p., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2022.104296.
Cook, S.E., Warner, J.C., and Russell, K.L., 2023, A numerical investigation of the mechanisms controlling salt intrusion in the Delaware Bay Estuary: Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, v. 283, article 108257, 16 p., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2023.108257.
Farris, A.S., Long, J.W., and Himmelstoss, E., 2023, Accuracy of shoreline forecasting using sparse data: Ocean and Coastal Management, v. 239, article 106621, 11 p., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2023.106621.
Ganju, N.K., Ackerman, K.V., and Defne, Z., 2023, Using geospatial analysis to guide marsh restoration in Chesapeake Bay and beyond: Estuaries and Coasts, [included in v. 47, no. 1, p. 1–17, January 2024], https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-023-01275-x.
Ganju, N.K., Defne, Z., Schwab, C., and Moorman, M., 2023, Horizontal integrity a prerequisite for vertical stability—Comparison of elevation change and the unvegetated-vegetated marsh ratio across southeastern USA coastal wetlands: Estuaries and Coasts, Special Issue: Wetland Elevation Dynamics, 11 p., https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-023-01221-x.
Gutierrez, B.T., Zeigler, S., Lentz, E., Sturdivant, E.J., and Plant, N., 2022, Integrating Bayesian networks to forecast sea‐level rise impacts on barrier island characteristics and habitat availability: Earth and Space Science, v. 9, no. 11, article e2022EA002286, 24 p., https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EA002286.
Holmquist, J.R., Eagle, M., Molinari, R.L., Nick, S.K., Stachowicz, L.C., and Kroeger, K.D., 2023, Mapping methane reduction potential of tidal wetland restoration in the United States: Communications Earth & Environment, v. 4, article 353, 11 p., https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-023-00988-y.
Hutchinson, D., Houseknecht, D.W., and Mosher, D., 2023, Canada Basin tectono-sedimentary element, Arctic Ocean: Geological Society, London, Memoirs, v. 57, no. 1, 13 p., https://doi.org/10.1144/M57-2022-49.
Johnson, J.J., Lin, Y., Newhall, A.E., Gawarkiewicz, G.G., Knobles, D.P., Chaytor, J., and Hodgkiss, W.S., 2023, Acoustic ducting by shelf water streamers at the New England shelfbreak: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, v. 3, no. 8, 5 p., https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0020348.
Joung, D., Ruppel, C., Southon, J., Weber, T.S., and Kessler, J.D., 2022, Negligible atmospheric release of methane from decomposing hydrates in mid-latitude oceans: Nature Geoscience, v. 15, no. 11, p. 885–891, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-01044-8.
Lang, G., and ten Brink, U.S., 2022, Quantifying permanent uplift due to lithosphere‐hotspot interaction: Tectonics, v. 41, no. 12, article e2022TC007448, 16 p., https://doi.org/10.1029/2022TC007448.
Luk, S., Eagle, M., Mariotti, G., Gosselin, K., Sanderman, J., and Spivak, A.C., 2023, Peat decomposition and erosion contribute to pond deepening in a temperate salt marsh: Journal of Geophysical Research. Biogeosciences, v. 128, no. 2, article e2022JG007063, 19 p., https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JG007063.
Lundine, M., Brothers, L.L., and Trembanis, A., 2023, Deep learning for pockmark detection—Implications for quantitative seafloor characterization: Geomorphology, v. 421, article 108524, 20 p., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2022.108524.
McCann, M., Anderson, D.L., Sherwood, C.R., Bruder, B., Bak, A.S., and Brodie, K., 2022, CoastalImageLib—An open-source Python package for creating common coastal image products: SoftwareX, v. 20, article 101215, 7 p., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.softx.2022.101215.
Naif, S., Miller, N.C., Shillington, D.J., Bécel, A., Lizarralde, D., Bassett, D., and Hemming, S.R., 2023, Episodic intraplate magmatism fed by a long-lived melt channel of distal plume origin: Science Advances, v. 9, no. 23, article eadd3761, https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.add3761.
Olabarrieta, M., Warner, J.C., and Hegermiller, C.A., 2023, Development and application of an infragravity wave (InWave) driver to simulate nearshore processes: Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, v. 15, no. 6, article e2022MS003205, 23 p., https://doi.org/10.1029/2022MS003205.
Orton, P.M., Ralston, D.K., van Prooijen, B.C., Secor, D., Ganju, N.K., Chen, Z., Fernald, S., Brooks, B., and Marcell, K., 2023, Increased utilization of storm surge barriers—A research agenda on estuary impacts: Earth’s Future, v. 11, no. 3, article e2022EF002991, 10 p., https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EF002991.
Sherwood, C.R., Ritchie, A.C., Over, J.R., Kranenburg, C.J., Warrick, J., Brown, J.A., Wright, W., Aretxabaleta, A., Zeigler, S., Wernette, P.A., Buscombe, D.D., and Hegermiller, C., 2023, Sound‐side inundation and seaward erosion of a barrier island during hurricane landfall: Journal of Geophysical Research. Earth Surface, v. 128, no. 1, article e2022JF006934, 32 p., https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JF006934.
Song, S., Wang, Z.A., Kroeger, K.D., Eagle, M.J., Chu, S.N., and Ge, J., 2023, High-frequency variability of carbon dioxide fluxes in tidal water over a temperate salt marsh: Limnology and Oceanography, v. 68, no. 9, p. 2108–2125, https://doi.org/10.1002/lno.12409.
ten Brink, U., Chaytor, J., Flores, C., Wei, Y., Detmer, S., Lucas, L., Andrews, B., and Georgiopoulou, A., 2023, Seafloor observations eliminate a landslide as the source of the 1918 Puerto Rico tsunami: Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, v. 113, no. 1, p. 268–280, https://doi.org/10.1785/0120220146.
ten Brink, U., Levi, E., Flores, C., Koulakov, I., Bronshtein, N., and Ben-Avraham, Z., 2023, Crustal structure across the central Dead Sea Transform and surrounding areas—Insights into tectonic processes in continental transforms: Tectonics, v. 42, no. 8, article e2023TC007799, 19 p., https://doi.org/10.1029/2023TC007799.
Williams, O.L., Kurtz, A.C., Eagle, M.J., Kroeger, K.D., Tamborski, J.J., and Carey, J.C., 2022, Mechanisms and magnitude of dissolved silica release from a New England salt marsh: Biogeochemistry, v. 161, no. 3, p. 251–271, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10533-022-00976-y.
Data Releases (30)
Ackerman, K.V., Defne, Z., and Ganju, N.K., 2023, Geospatial characterization of salt marshes on the Eastern Shore of Virginia: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9E6V0QK.
Andrews, B.D., Baldwin, W.E., Worley, C.R., Moore, E.M., Nichols, A.R., Danforth, W.W., Foster, D.S., Ackerman, S.D., and Brothers, L.L., 2023, High-resolution geophysical data collected in Nantucket Sound Massachusetts in the vicinity of Horseshoe Shoal, during USGS Field Activity 2022–001–FA: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9O5G5OT.
Baldwin, W.E., and Miller, N.C., 2023, High-resolution multichannel seismic reflection data collected along the New England outer continental shelf, slope, and rise south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, Massachusetts, U.S. Geological Survey Field Activity 2016–018–FA: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9R3VW5H.
Bartlett, M.K., Farris, A.S., and Weber, K.M., 2023, USGS national shoreline change—A GIS compilation of new lidar-derived shorelines (2010, 2017, and 2018) and associated shoreline change data for coastal South Carolina: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9LLAZYE.
Bartlett, M.K., Henderson, R.E., and Farris, A.S., 2023, USGS national shoreline change—A GIS compilation of vector shorelines and associated shoreline change data for coastal Virginia from the 1840s to 2010s: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9DHOFXU.
Boggess, A.A., Buczkowski, B.J., and Chaytor, J.D., 2023, Sedimentological and geotechnical analyses of marine sediment cores from the Currituck Landslide Complex and upper slope adjacent to Baltimore Canyon collected on USGS Field Activity 2012–007–FA: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9H74BAX.
Brooks, T.W., Eagle, M., Kroeger, K.D., Mann, A.G., Wang, Z.A., Ganju, N.K., O’Keefe Suttles, J.A., Brosnahan, S.M., Chu, S.N., Song, S., Pohlman, J.W., Casso, M., Tamborski, J.J., Morkeski, K., Carey, J.C., Ganguli, P.M., Williams, O.L., and Kurtz, A.C., 2021, Geochemical data supporting investigation of solute and particle cycling and fluxes from two tidal wetlands on the south shore of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, 2012–19 (ver. 2.0, October 2022): U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9MXLUZ1.
Buczkowski, B.J., Cross, V.A., and Schweitzer, P.N., 2018, Collections inventory for the U.S. Geological Survey Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center Samples Repository (ver. 2.0, September 2023): U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/F7319TT0.
Cook, S.E., and Warner, J.C., 2023, U.S. Geological Survey simulations of 3D-hydrodynamics in Delaware Bay (2016, 2018, 2021) to improve understanding of the mechanisms driving salinity intrusion: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9ANH82L.
Cramer, J.M., Evans, A.D., Brosnahan, S.M., Over, J.R., Ackerman, S.D., Lentz, E.E., and Hulslander, B., 2023, Topographic and multispectral reflectance products, aerial imagery, spectral reflectance profiles, vegetation surveys, and associated GPS data collected during uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) operations—Assateague Island National Seashore, Maryland, October 10–14, 2022: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P916LRZN.
Cramer, J.M., Huntley, E.C., Brosnahan, S.M., Ganju, N.K., Sturdivant, E.J., Pendleton, E.A., Ackerman, S.D., and Borden, J., 2022, Aerial imagery and ground control points collected during an uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) survey at Plum Island Estuary and Parker River NWR (PIEPR), November 14, 2017 and March 28, 2019: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9PP35F4.
Defne, Z., Ganju, N.K., and Ackerman, K.V., 2023, Lifespan of Chesapeake Bay salt marsh units: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9FSPWSF.
Defne, Z., Ganju, N.K., and Ackerman, K.V., 2023, Lifespan of Massachusetts salt marsh units: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9PL08GJ.
De Meo, O.A., Suttles, S.E., Ganju, N.K., and Marsjanik, E.D., 2022, Suspended-sediment concentrations and loss-on-ignition from water samples collected in the Herring River during 2018–19 in Wellfleet, MA (ver. 1.1, March 2023): U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9ZL2IPN.
De Meo, O.A., Suttles, S.E., Ganju, N.K., and Marsjanik, E.D., 2023, Water quality data from a multiparameter sonde collected in the Herring River during November 2018 to November 2019 in Wellfleet, MA: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9K3SCKY.
De Meo, O.A., Suttles, S.E., Marsjanik, E.D., and Sherwood, C.R., 2023, Meteorological data from Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, North Carolina, 9/13/2021 to 10/24/2021: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9RZTFCQ.
Foster, D.S., Brothers, L.L., Baldwin, W.E., and Pendleton, E.A., 2023, Geospatial data layers of shallow geology from the inner continental shelf of the Delmarva Peninsula, including Maryland and Virginia state waters: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9GQY0ZN.
Gutierrez, B.T., Heslin, J.L., Henderson, R.E., Sterne, T.K., and Sturdivant, E.J., 2023, Seabeach amaranth presence-absence and barrier island geomorphology metrics as relates to shorebird habitat for Assateague Island National Seashore—2008, 2010, and 2014: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9GKXN3H.
How, A.R., and Ruppel, C.D., 2023, Global compilation of published gas hydrate-related bottom simulating reflections: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9IW5CL7.
Mann, A.G., O’Keefe Suttles, J.A., Gonneea, M.E., Brosnahan, S.M., Brooks, T.W., Wang, Z.A., Ganju, N.K., and Kroeger, K.D., 2019, Time-series of biogeochemical and flow data from a tidal salt-marsh creek, Sage Lot Pond, Waquoit Bay, Massachusetts, 2012–2016 (ver. 2.0, July 2023): U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9STIROQ.
Nick, S.K., Defne, Z., and Kroeger, K.D., 2023, Inventory of managed coastal wetlands in Delaware and Delaware’s inland bays: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9VCYH3X.
O’Neal, Z.O., Meadows, M.C., Tokranov, A.K., Eagle, M.J., O’Keefe Suttles, J.A., Buczkowski, B., Repert, D.A., Greidanus, C., and LeBlanc, D.R., 2023, Concentrations of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in lake-bottom sediments of Ashumet Pond on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, 2020: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9DM4E66.
Over, J.R., Sherwood, C.R., Cramer, J.M., Evans, A.D., and Zeigler, S.L., 2023, Topographic, bathymetric, multispectral, vegetation, sediment, and supporting GPS data collected on North Core Banks, Cape Lookout National Seashore, North Carolina in October 2022, U.S. Geological Survey Field Activity 2022–034–FA: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P99IV3FC.
Over, J.R., Sherwood, C.R., and Traykovski, P.A., 2023, Topographic and bathymetric data, structure from motion imagery, and ground control data collected at Head of the Meadow Beach, Truro, MA in March and April 2023, U.S. Geological Survey Field Activity 2023–011–FA: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9FYVLCD.
Over, J.R., Sherwood, C.R., and Traykovski, P.A., 2023, Topographic and bathymetric data, structure from motion imagery, and ground control data collected at Marconi Beach, Wellfleet, Massachusetts in March 2023, U.S. Geological Survey Field Activity 2023–012–FA: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P99ST3LT.
Ruppel, C.D., Hutchinson, D.R., Lachenbruch, A.H., and Hall, J.K., 2019, Thermal data and navigation for T-3 (Fletcher’s) Ice Island Arctic Ocean heat flow studies, 1963–73 (ver. 1.1, December 2022): U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P97EPU2F.
Sterne, T.K., Pendleton, E.A., Lentz, E.E., and Henderson, R.E., 2023, Coastal change likelihood in the U.S. Northeast Region—Maine to Virginia: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P96A2Q5X.
Suttles, S.E., De Meo, O.A., Ganju, N.K., Bales, R.D., and Marsjanik, E.D., 2023, Time-series measurements of oceanographic and water quality data collected in the Herring River, Wellfleet, Massachusetts, USA, November 2018 to November 2019: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P95AE74D.
Valentine, P.C., and Cross, V.A., 2023, Sea-floor sediment samples, seabed and sample imagery, and CTD instrument data collected on Stellwagen Bank from September 2020 to August 2021: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9G7QARQ.
Warner, J.C., 2022, U.S. Geological Survey simulations of hydrodynamics and morphodynamics in Cape Cod Bay, MA: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9I45J6Z.
Conference Proceedings (7)
Aretxabaleta, A., Sherwood, C.R., Blanton, B.O., Over, J.R., Traykovski, P.A., and Sogut, E., 2023, Temporal variability of runup and total water level on Cape Cod sandy beaches, in Wang, P., Royer, E., and Rosati, J.D., eds., The proceedings of the Coastal Sediments 2023—New Orleans, LA, USA, 11–15 April 2023: Singapore, World Scientific, v. 1, p. 267–281, https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811275135_0024.
Gillen, M.N., Ashton, A.D., Miselis, J.J., Ciarletta, D.J., Wei, E.A., and Sherwood, C.R., 2023, Incorporating wave climate complexity into modeling lower shoreface morphology and transport, in Wang, P., Royer, E., and Rosati, J.D., eds., The proceedings of the Coastal Sediments 2023—New Orleans, LA, USA, 11–15 April 2023: Singapore, World Scientific, v. 5, p. 2862–2874, https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811275135_0260.
Itzkin, M.C., Palmsten, M.L., Buckley, M.L., Sherwood, C.R., Brown, J.A., Over, J.R., and Traykovski, P.A., 2023, Modeling total water level and coastal change at Pea Island, North Carolina, USA, in Wang, P., Royer, E., and Rosati, J.D., eds., The proceedings of the Coastal Sediments 2023—New Orleans, LA, USA, 11–15 April 2023: Singapore, World Scientific, v. 2, p. 698–710, https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811275135_0065.
Parlak, M.S., Ayhan, B.U., Warner, J.C., Kalra, T., and Safak, I., 2023, Wave asymmetry impacts on sediment processes at the nearshore of Fire Island, New York, in Wang, P., Royer, E., and Rosati, J.D., eds., The proceedings of the Coastal Sediments 2023—New Orleans, LA, USA, 11–15 April 2023: Singapore, World Scientific, v. 4, p. 1896–1901, https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811275135_0173.
Sherwood, C.R., Aretxabaleta, A., Traykovski, P.A., Over, J.R., Lyons, E., Foster, D.S., Miselis, J.L., Nelson, T., and Sogut, E., 2023, Contributions to uncertainty in runup forecasts, in Wang, P., Royer, E., and Rosati, J.D., eds., The proceedings of the Coastal Sediments 2023—New Orleans, LA, USA, 11–15 April 2023: Singapore, World Scientific, v. 1, p. 401–418, https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811275135_0037.
Sogut, E., Aretxabaleta, A., Ashton, A., Barnhardt, W., Doran, K., and Palmsten, M., 2023, Toward a total water level forecast of the Great Lakes, in Wang, P., Royer, E., and Rosati, J.D., eds., The proceedings of the Coastal Sediments 2023—New Orleans, LA, USA, 11–15 April 2023: Singapore, World Scientific, v. 1, p. 426–434, https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811275135_0039.
Warner, J.C., Brothers, L.L., Himmelstoss, E., Sherwood, C.R., Aretxabaleta, A., Foster, D.S., and Farris, A.S., 2023, Processes controlling coastal erosion along Cape Cod Bay, MA, in Wang, P., Royer, E., and Rosati, J.D., eds., The proceedings of the Coastal Sediments 2023—New Orleans, LA, USA, 11–15 April 2023: Singapore, World Scientific, v. 4, p. 1872–1883, https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811275135_0171.
U.S. Geological Survey Series Publications (7)
Andrews, B.D., Brothers, D.S., Dartnell, P., Barrie, J.V., Haeussler, P.J., Green, K.M., Greene, H.G., Miller, N.C., Kluesner, J.W., and ten Brink, U.S., 2022, Systematic mapping of the ocean-continent transform plate boundary of the Queen Charlotte fault system, southeastern Alaska and western British Columbia—A preliminary bathymetric terrain model: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2022–1085, 2 sheets, 7-p. pamphlet, https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20221085.
Buczkowski, B.J., 2022, Collections management plan for the U.S. Geological Survey Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center samples repository: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2022–5106, 13 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/sir20225106. [Supersedes U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Reports 2006–1187 and 2018–1100.]
De Meo, O.A., Ganju, N.K., Bales, R.D., Marsjanik, E.D., and Suttles, S.E., 2023, Calibrating optical turbidity measurements with suspended-sediment concentrations from the Herring River in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, from November 2018 to November 2019: U.S. Geological Survey Data Report 1180, 8 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/dr1180.
Gutierrez, B.T., and Lentz, E.E., 2023, Developing a habitat model to support management of threatened seabeach amaranth (Amaranthus pumilus) at Assateague Island National Seashore, Maryland and Virginia: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2023–5034, 62 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/sir20235034.
Liford, A.N., Andrews, C.M., Bamzai, A., Bard, J.A., Blehert, D.S., Bradford, J.B., Daniel, W.M., Eldridge, S.L., Engel, F., Ferrante, J.A., Gilmer, A.K., Hunter, M.E., Jones, J.M., Letcher, B., Lightsom, F.L., McDonald, R.R., Morgan, L.E., Reed, S.C., and Hsu, L., 2023, Community for Data Integration 2019 project report: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2022–1120, 17 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20221120.
Pendleton, E.A., Lentz, E.E., Sterne, T.K., and Henderson, R.E., 2023, Development and application of a coastal change likelihood assessment for the northeast region, Maine to Virginia: U.S. Geological Survey Data Report 1169, 56 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/dr1169.
Stoltz, A.D., Cravens, A.E., Lentz, E., and Himmelstoss, E., 2023, User engagement to improve coastal data access and delivery: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2023–5081, 29 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/sir20235081.
Geonarratives and Other Web Pages (6)
Defne, Z., Couvillion, B., Ganju, N.K., Woltz, V.I., Stagg, C.L., Byrd, K.B., Windham-Myers, L., Zhu, Z., Holmquist, J.R., Ackerman, K., and Rovai, A.S., 2023, U.S. Coastal Wetland Geospatial Collection: U.S. Geological Survey web page, https://geonarrative.usgs.gov/us_coastal_wetland_collection/.
Farris, A.S., Bartlett, M.K., Heslin, J.L., and Himmelstoss, E.A., 2023, Understanding shoreline forecasting: U.S. Geological Survey web page, https://geonarrative.usgs.gov/shorelineforecasting/.
Henderson, R.E., Pendleton, E.A., Sterne, T.K., Lentz, E.E., and Heslin, J.L., 2023, Coastal change likelihood—A synthesis of factors that determine future coastal change: U.S. Geological Survey web page, https://geonarrative.usgs.gov/ccl/.
Lentz, E., Snell, R., Himmelstoss, E.A., Cravens, A.E., Palmsten, M.L., Stoltz, A.D., Torres-Garcia, L., Bartlett, M.K., Hayden, M.K., Kotowicz, D.M., Nereson, A., Schreppel, H., Andrews, B.D., Defne, Z., Doran, K.S., Eagle, M., Hart, J.F., Parker, K., Toth, L.T., Barnard, P.L., Erickson, L., Frank-Gilchrist, D., Gibbs, A., Henderson, R., Smith, K., Sterne, T., Stockdon, H., Storlazzi, C., Brothers, L., and Passeri, D., 2023, USGS Coastal Science Navigator: U.S. Geological Survey web page, https://www.usgs.gov/apps/coastalsciencenavigator/index.html.
Over, J., and Sherwood, C., 2023, Dynamic sands of North Core Banks: U.S. Geological Survey web page, https://geonarrative.usgs.gov/dynamicsandsofncb/.
Warner, J., and Defne, Z., 2023, COAWST daily forecast: U.S. Geological Survey web page, https://geonarrative.usgs.gov/coawst_daily_forecast/.
Other Federal Government Series Report (1)
Colarusso, P.D., Libohova, Z., Shumchenia, E., Eagle, M.J., Christian, M., Vincent, R., and Johnson, B., 2023, The blue carbon reservoirs from Maine to Long Island, NY: Environmental Protection Agency Federal Government Series, 31 p., https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/70249411.
Book Chapter (1)
Ganju, N.K., 2023, Climatic drivers of estuarine sediment dynamics, chap. 13 of Kennish, M.J., Paerl, H.W., and Crosswell, J.R., eds., Climate change and estuaries: Boca Raton, Fla., CRC Press, 18 p., https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.1201/9781003126096-14/climatic-drivers-estuarine-sediment-dynamics-neil-ganju.
Abbreviations
AIMG
Aerial Imaging and Mapping Group
BRAID
Building Resilient Alliances for Inclusion and Diversity
BRAID–CMC
Bringing Together Allies in Diversifying Climate and Marine Careers [BRAID–CMC Alliance]
BSR
bottom simulating reflection
CSFTP
Cooperative Summer Field Training Program
CMHRP
Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program
COAWST
Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere-Wave-Sediment Transport [modeling system]
DSAS
Digital Shoreline Analysis System
DSIM
discrete sample introduction module
ECS
extended continental shelf
FLACC
Future Landscape Adaptation and Coastal Change
GIS
geographic information system
GPS
Global Positioning System
LGBTQIA+
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex, asexual/ally, plus more
lidar
light detection and ranging
NOAA
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
NOPP
National Oceanographic Partnership Program
PEP
Partnership Education Program
R/V
research vessel
SACNAS
Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science
SEABOSS
Seabed Observation and Sampling System
SFMG
Sea Floor Mapping Group
SSF
Summer Student Fellowship
sUAS
small uncrewed aircraft system
TCA
Technical Capabilities and Applications [project]
TIDES
Toward an Inclusive, Diverse, and Enriched Society [Coastal & Estuarine Research Federation Rising TIDES program]
TWL&CC
Total Water Level and Coastal Change
UAS
uncrewed aircraft system
USGS
U.S. Geological Survey
UVVR
unvegetated-vegetated marsh ratio
WHCMSC
Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center
Director, Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center
U.S. Geological Survey
384 Woods Hole Road
Quissett Campus
Woods Hole, MA 02543–1598
WHSC_science_director@usgs.gov
(508) 548–8700 or (508) 457–2200
or visit our website at
https://www.usgs.gov/centers/whcmsc
Publishing support provided by the Pembroke and Tacoma Publishing Service Centers
Disclaimers
All photographs and other images by the U.S. Geological Survey unless otherwise indicated.
Some text in this report has been retained, with or without modification, from previous annual reports of the Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center of the U.S. Geological Survey.
Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.
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Suggested Citation
Ernst, S., 2025, Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center—2023 annual report: U.S. Geological Survey Circular 1548, 38 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/cir1548.
ISSN: 2330-5703 (online)
ISSN: 1067-084X (print)
| Publication type | Report |
|---|---|
| Publication Subtype | USGS Numbered Series |
| Title | Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center—2023 annual report |
| Series title | Circular |
| Series number | 1548 |
| ISBN | 978-1-4113-4588-1 |
| DOI | 10.3133/cir1548 |
| Year Published | 2025 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | U.S. Geological Survey |
| Publisher location | Reston, VA |
| Contributing office(s) | Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center |
| Description | vi, 38 p. |
| Online Only (Y/N) | N |
| Additional Online Files (Y/N) | N |
| Google Analytic Metrics | Metrics page |