USGS Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center Technology Programs

Coastal Observatories - New technologies are now available that have the potential to inexpensively communicate field measurements from many sensors to a user in a few minutes. This technology can fill a niche between internally recording instruments and fixed location, relatively expensive, high data rate observatories. Development of low-cost systems has the potential to provide observations from distributed arrays with multiple sensors on a wide variety of spatial scales.

Gas-Hydrate Lab - Gas (primarily methane) and water can combine to form gas hydrate at the pressure and temperature conditions found in permafrost, continental margin sediments and deep inland seas (Fig. 1). The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) conducts and participates in marine (Fig. 2) and shore-based field studies (Fig. 3) to quantify how the properties and behavior of sediment change in response to gas hydrate formation. These parameters are critical for assessing the energy resource, geohazard and climate change potential of gas hydrate.

Geotech Lab - The geotechnical laboratory is dedicated to measuring physical properties of water-saturated natural or synthetic samples. The laboratory includes a constant rate of strain (CRS) consolidation cell and a TruePath triaxial cell. Each system is computer-controlled to allow relatively autonomous experimentation of geomechanical properties at low stresses (less than 3 MPa) and fluid pressures (less than 1.4 MPa). The laboratory equipment allows the constraint of elastic and plastic moduli, preconsolidation stress, Ko stress ratio, shear strength, stability envelope, and hydraulic conductivity of samples.

Hydrates from Ice - The HyFI test system is designed for measuring properties of sediments and pure-phase materials, with a particular focus on gas hydrates. The term "Hydrates From Ice" refers to a technique in which hydrate is formed by slowly warming granular ice in a pressurized atmosphere of the hydrate former (methane, for instance). This methodology was developed at the USGS (Menlo Park) by Dr. Stephen Kirby and Laura Stern [Stern et al., 1996; 1998].

Modeling - The U.S. Geological Survey and others are promoting the development of an open-source numerical model for sediment-transport in coastal regions. We are collaborating with other federal agencies, academic institutions, and private industry, with the goal of adopting and/or developing one or more models for use as scientific tools by the research community. We hope these models will evolve into standards for us, and possibly for use in applications by the broader community interested in coastal issues.

Ocean Bottom Seismometer - The Ocean Bottom Seismometer is a self contained data-acquisition system which free falls to the ocean floor and records seismic data generated by airguns and earthquakes. The Ocean Bottom Seismometer facility provides technical support for a variety of scientific investigations ranging from deep crustal structure to gas hydrate and surface sediments. As of 2002, the USGS has entered an agreement with the national OBS facility at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to build and maintain 16 short-period OBS within the facility. Five of these OBS and a modest amounts of funding are available for USGS and non-USGS investigators to be deployed in repsonse to an earthquake or volcanic activity in the coastal ocean and its vicinity.

Sea Floor Mapping - Our operational group provides the technical expertise and innovations to plan, acquire, process, interpret, archive, and publish Sea-floor Mapping products to support the USGS and WHSC's coastal, and inner-continental shelf geology, sediment transport, environmental geoscience, and energy/tectonics research programs.

Analytical Laboratories - This lab is equipped to determine the basic attributes of marine sediments. Grain size analysis equipment includes a rapid sediment analyzer, sieves, and sieve shakers to determine distributions within the coarse fraction, and a Coulter Counter, a constant temperature bath, and settling tubes to determine distributions within the fine fraction. Available computer software allows users to acquire, process, display, and archive the textural data. Camera-ready petrographic and binocular microscopes are available to facilitate compositional analysis.

Sediment Transport- The Sediment Transport Instrumentation Facility at the USGS Woods Hole Field Center maintains and deploys oceanographic instrumentation for the study of coastal and ocean circulation and sediment transport. The time-series observations are used in studies of regional circulation, to document and understand processes of sediment transport (including major storms and catastrophic events), and provide observations for circulation and sediment transport model testing and evaluation. Instruments are typically deployed for 1-12 months in spatial arrays as part of process or long-term monitoring studies.

SWASH - Despite the importance of this measure of coastal change, the methods available for collecting shoreline position data are very limited. The most commonly applied method-shoreline interpretation from aerial photography-is expensive, labor-intensive, and involves a considerable amount of subjectivity in identifying the shoreline. There is a significant need for a method that can provide an unambiguous and repeatable measure of shoreline position, can cover large sections of coast within a single low tide period, is inexpensive to operate, and can be used for both long-term monitoring and rapid-response surveys of storm impacts. In response to this need, theUSGSdevelopedSWASH, a vehicle-based system for measuring shoreline position which utilizes recent advances in the Global Positioning System (GPS).SWASHstands for "Surveying Wide-Area Shorelines."

USGS Woods Hole Science Center Technology Programs

USGS Coastal and Marine Geology Program

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