Skip Navigation Links

USGS Logo & link to USGS homepage
U.S. Geological Survey - Biology | Geography | Geology | Water || Connections - BLM | FWS | MMS | NPS

 

USGS Geological Research Activities with U.S. Minerals Management Service

Marine Sand and Gravel

img: wave crashing
Sand and gravel resources are essential to all coastal communities. These resources provide materials to construct roads and buildings and also to renourish beaches. The coastal communities of the U.S. are faced with several issues:

  • Coastal erosion and land loss affect 80 to 90 percent of the U.S. regions over the long term;
  • Future climate change is likely to increase storminess and accelerate sea-level rise, which results in increased coastal vulnerability to erosion and flooding;
  • Beach nourishment is increasingly used as a means of mitigating coastal erosion, providing flood protection, and restoring degraded coastal ecosystems;
  • Large volumes of high quality sand are needed for a beach nourishment project to be successful; marine sand bodies on the inner to mid-shelf are attractive targets for sand dredging;
  • The geologic character and distribution of sand bodies are often highly variable depending on the complex shelf history and processes of marine transgressions over the past 20,000 years.

Regional-scale and detailed maps and profile cross-sections depicting seafloor and sub-bottom sedimentary character and texture are not readily available and accessible to scientists, engineers, and managers. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and MMS state contracts have produced significant results and products from several shelf regions, but the data are scattered and often gray literature.

The USGS Marine Aggregates Project is a partnership of USGS, MMS, USACE, NOAA, State agencies, and academia to assess marine sand and gravel and to map the Nation's seaflooAugust 6, 2007ze:

img: Schematic of topographic highs or shoals as borrow areas
  • Marine geologic and geophysical legacy data compilation;
  • Scientific evaluation and synthesis of existing maps and reports;
  • Understanding processes of marine sand body history, development, and evolution;
  • Data integration into GIS systems, interpretation and public dissemination for scientists, engineers, and managers.
img: Schematic diagram of coastal plain surface exposures as borrow areas img: Schematic diagram of ancestral stream channels as borrow areas

To accomplish the four goals, the Marine Aggregates project will conduct regional assessments for New York Bight; Louisiana; Oahu, Hawaii; and Gulf of Maine.

img: Map of the United states. The Marine Aggregates project will conduct regional assessments for New York Bight; Louisiana; Oahu, Hawaii; and Gulf of Maine.

img: Locations of data set for New York Bight
Locations of data set for New York Bight
img: Distribution of Surficial Sediment in the Gulf of Maine

img: Map showing sand & gravel deposits in the Mississppi delta.

img: Ship Shoal Isopach Map

Sand body character and evolution in Louisiana. All of the past reports and maps and both sedimentary and geophysical datasets have been identified, compiled, and evaluated. The sediment data sets are being loaded into the US SEABED system.

img: Transgressive Mississippi Delta Barrier Model

img: reef platform
USGS will conduct regional assessments of the large sediment deposits on the reef platform and reef front as a potential sand and gravel resource.

In addition, the project will also work on development of US SEABED as a national GIS-system for seafloor sedimentary data.

usseabed map and text - Click on image for a transcription of the text contained in the image.

The usSEABED system, a sophisticated and robust GIS, is being populated with a wide variety of data types from published reports, maps, gray literature, and unpublished data from all available sources (USGS, MMS, NOAA, Navy, EPA, NSF) and private enterprises.

The major products of the project will be a series of interpretative maps and reports of the seafloor and sub-bottom sedimentary character in the above regions, including summary assessments of the sand and gravel resources on the shelf. The information can be applied to meet the needs for managing coastal resources, including beach renourishment.