Use of Federal Sand for Beach Nourishment and Shore Protection Projects

Coastal shoreline protection and beach nourishment are significant issues for coastal states along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. In some areas, there is a critical need to identify suitable sources of sand for possible use in public works projects for coastal protection. The continental shelf contains large resources of sand and gravel that could be used to support such projects. The U.S. Department of the Interior's (DOI) Minerals Management Service (MMS) provides policy direction and guidance for development of the resources located on the federal portion of the continental shelf. This article highlights the MMS's Sand Program, focusing on its cooperative resource and environmental studies with several coastal states, significant milestones and accomplishments, and anticipated activities in 1998 and beyond. Management of sand resources on the federal portion of the continental shelf has been made easier by a federal state partnership concept. Using this cooperative concept, joint projects are being conducted to investigate offshore sand resources, potential sites, extraction methods, and related environmental conditions. The MMS has procedures for negotiating sand agreements under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) and ensuring that the resources are developed in an environ mentally sound manner. The authority to negotiate with project sponsors, an important recent change in the OCSLA, also resides with the MMS. This 1992 change in OCSLA facilitates the use of Outer Continental Shelf (OCS)resources for public projects. Further, the MMS is authorized to assess a fee based on the value of the resource and the public interest served. The MMS has worked with local sponsors and authorized the use of OCS sand for two projects. However, additional resource and environmental projects, as well as negotiated agreements, are anticipated within the near future with states and local governments along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.     

Jacobi Dynamics And The N-Body Problem With Variable Masses

An appropriate generalization of the Jacobi equation of motion for the polar moment of inertia I is considered in order to study the N-body problem with variable masses. Two coupled ordinary differential equations governing the evolution of I and the total energy E are obtained. A regularization scheme for this system of differential equations is provided. We compute some illustrative numerical examples, and discuss an average method for obtaining approximate analytical solutions to this pair of equations. For a particular law of mass loss we also obtain exact analytical solutions. The application of these ideas to other kind of perturbed gravitational N-body systems involving drag forces or a different type of mass variation is also considered. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Comparison of surface wind stress characteristics over the Tropical Atlantic (10°N–40°S) in fields derived from the UWM/COADS, NCEP/NCAR and QuikSCAT datasets

A comparison of monthly wind stress derived from winds of NCEP/NCAR (National Centers for Environmental Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research) reanalysis and UWM/COADS (The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee/Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set) dataset (1950–1993), and of NCEP/NCAR reanalysis and satellite-based QuikSCAT dataset (2000–2006), is made over the South Atlantic (10°N–40°S). On a mean seasonal scale, the comparison shows that these three wind stress datasets have qualitatively similar patterns. Quantitatively, in general, from about the equator to 20°S in the mid-Atlantic the wind stress values are stronger in NCEP/NCAR data than those in UWM/COADS data. On the other hand, in the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) area the wind stress values in NCEP/NCAR data are slightly weaker than those in UWM/COADS data. In the South Atlantic, between 20° S–40°S, the QuikSCAT dataset presents complex circulation structures which are not present in NCEP/NCAR and UWM/COADS data. The wind stress is used in a numerical ocean model to simulate ocean currents, which are compared to a drifting-buoy observed climatology. The modeled South Equatorial Current agrees better with observations between March–May and June–August. Between December–February, the South Equatorial Current from UWM/COADS and QuikSCAT experiments is stronger and more developed than that from NCEP/NCAR experiment. The Brazil Current, in turn, is better represented in the QuikSCAT experiment. Comparison of the annual migration of ITCZ at 20° and 30°W in UWM/COADS and NCEP/NCAR data sources show that the southernmost position of ITCZ at 30°W in February, March and April coincides with the rainy season in NE Brazil, while the northernmost position of ITCZ at 20°W in August coincides with the maximum rainfall of Northwest Africa.     

Changes of cloud microphysical properties during the transition from supercooled to mixed-phase conditions during CIME

A ground-based seeding experiment using carbon dioxide and propane sprayed from pressurized bottles was carried out under supercooled cloud conditions on a small spatial and short time scale. Water vapor deposition on the artificially generated dry ice and propane ice germs as the main ice formation process (nucleation and growth) is consistent with the experimental results. After nucleation, diffusional growth of the ice particles, partly at the expense of evaporating small droplets, was identified during the mixing of the seeding line with the ambient supercooled cloud. Within the seeding plume, ice water contents up to 80% of the total condensed water are observed, although the size of the formed ice particles did not exceed 25 μm. From the changes of the ice and supercooled liquid phase with time under mixed-phase conditions, liquid water content (LWC) evaporation, ice water content (IWC) formation, and ice crystal growth rates are estimated, which are not affected by the artificial nucleation process. Thus, these rates are assessed to be applicable for a growing ice phase of small ice particles in a young mixed-phase cloud, where other growth mechanisms, like riming or aggregation, are negligible.     

Facies characteristics and magma–water interaction of the White Trachytic Tuffs (Roccamonfina Volcano, southern Italy)

 The Quaternary White Trachytic Tuffs Formation from Roccamonfina Volcano (southern Italy) comprises four non-welded, trachytic, pyroclastic sequences bounded by paleosols, each of which corresponds to small- to intermediate-volume explosive eruptions from central vents. From oldest to youngest they are: White Trachytic Tuff (WTT) Cupa, WTT Aulpi, WTT S. Clemente, and WTT Galluccio. The WTT Galluccio eruption was the largest and emplaced ∼ 4 km³ of magma. The internal stratigraphy of all four WTT eruptive units is a complex association of fallout, surge, and pyroclastic flow deposits. Each eruptive unit is organized into two facies associations, Facies Association A below Facies Association B. The emplacement of the two facies associations may have been separated by short time breaks allowing for limited reworking and erosion. Facies Association A consists of interbedded fallout deposits, surge deposits, and subordinate ignimbrites. This facies association involved the eruption of the most evolved trachytic magma, and pumice clasts are white and well vesiculated. The grain size coarsens upward in Facies Association A, with upward increases of dune bedform wavelengths and a decrease in the proportion of fine ash. These trends could reflect an increase in eruption column height from the onset of the eruption and possibly also in mass eruption rate. Facies Association B comprises massive ignimbrites that are progressively richer in lithic clast content. This association involved the eruption of more mafic magma, and pumice clasts are gray and poorly vesiculated. Facies Association B is interpreted to record the climax of the eruption. Phreatomagmatic deposits occur at different stratigraphic levels in the four WTT and have different facies characteristics. The deposits reflect the style and degree of magma–water interaction and the local hydrogeology. Very fine-grained, lithic-poor phreatomagmatic surge deposits found at the base of WTT Cupa and WTT Galluccio could record the interaction of the erupting magma with a lake that occupied the Roccamonfina summit depression. Renewed magma–water interaction later in the WTT Galluccio eruption is indicated by fine grained, lithic-bearing phreatomagmatic fall and surge deposits occurring at the top of Facies Association A. They could be interpreted to reflect shifts of the magma fragmentation level to highly transmissive, regional aquifers located beneath the Roccamonfina edifice, possibly heralding a caldera collapse event. Received: 26 August 1996 / Accepted: 27 February 1998     

El Niño related interannual variations in biological production in the North Pacific as evidenced by satellite and ship data

A recently proposed method for estimating nitrate and new production from remotely sensed data (Goes and Goes) allowed us to observe significant deviations from the normal in the quantum of winter-time nitrate injected into the euphotic column and its consumption by phytoplankton in the North Pacific following the El Niño event of 1997. Results from this study allowed us to observe large differences in the ways in which the El Niño event affected the western and the eastern margins of the North Pacific basin. For the western North Pacific, a long-term (1972–1992) historical record of oceanographic data provided us with clear evidence supporting of our findings from satellite observations. In the eastern North Pacific Ocean also, our results compared well with those previously reported (Wong, Whitney, Matear, & Iseki, 1998). While it is clear from this study that El Niño/La Niña oscillations can have a major influence on interannual variations in biological processes in the North Pacific, these results also serve to highlight the value of remote sensing as a tool for studying large regional to basin-scale biological oceanographic events.     

Testing alternative erosivity indices to predict event soil loss from bare plots in Southern Italy

Methods for predicting unit plot soil loss for the ‘Sparacia’ Sicilian (Southern Italy) site were developed using 316 simultaneous measurements of runoff and soil loss from individual bare plots varying in length from 11 to 44 m. The event unit plot soil loss was directly proportional to an erosivity index equal to (Q_REI₃₀)^1·47, being Q_REI₃₀ the runoff ratio (Q_R) times the single storm erosion index (EI₃₀). The developed relationship represents a modified version of the USLE‐M, and therefore it was named USLE‐MM. By the USLE‐MM, a constant erodibility coefficient was deduced for plots of different lengths, suggesting that in this case the calculated erodibility factor is representative of an intrinsic soil property. Testing the USLE‐M and USLE‐MM schemes for other soils and developing simple procedures for estimating the plot runoff ratio has practical importance to develop a simple method to predict soil loss from bare plots at the erosive event temporal scale. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Heterogeneity and homogeneity of Southern Brazilian beaches: A morphodynamic and statistical approach

The characterization and beach morphodynamic differentiation along 620 km of Rio Grande do Sul state (RS) coastline has been principally done using beach profiles and their resulting morphometric parameters from the early 1990s through the present. The objective of the present work is to make a regional characterization, grouping the beaches with similar morphodynamic behavior along the RS coastline using multivariate statistical tools. For such purpose, a database containing topographic profiles and environment characteristics of 32 sites along the state coastline was built. A clustering analysis followed by a multidimensional scaling (MDS) analysis and an analysis of similarities (ANOSIM) was performed. The clustering and MDS results suggest that the data could be merged into six groups, one with dissipative tendencies, another with intermediate to reflective tendencies and three groups with intermediate characteristics. Each group showed distinct morphodynamic characteristics. Such differences are shown by the ANOSIM to be statistically significant. The three intermediate groups were differentiated in terms of beach mobility and percentage of medium-size sand, with higher mobility related to higher amounts of medium-size sand. The use of multivariate statistical techniques allowed a good differentiation between the RS beaches. Based on the results, it is suggested that the RS coastline can be segmented into seven different morphodynamic sectors. This approach can be used by management agencies to reduce potential oil spill impacts as well as decrease other beach hazards as well as for differentiate morphodynamical stages.