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Four Submarine Canyons on U.S. East Coast Named for Marine Geologists
As part of a cooperative sea-floor-exploration project with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Rutgers University, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), four submarine canyons that cut the U.S. east coast continental slope northeast of the Hudson Submarine Canyon have been named for eminent marine geologists who studied the area and its geologic history and processes: Kenneth O. Emery and Elazar Uchupi of WHOI, William B.F. Ryan of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, and Robert L. McMaster of the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography. The four newly named canyons had been known to exist but had not been mapped in detail. In August 2002, USGS and Rutgers scientists aboard the NOAA ship Ronald H. Brown used the ship's multibeam echosounder to map a 110- by 205-km area about 200 km southeast of New York City, in water depths from about 500 to 4,000 m. The mapping applies to studies of the geologic history and the processes, both depositional and erosional, that have modified the sea floor, and to investigations of submarine gas hydrates. The new map shows complex details of canyon development, a topic studied by Emery. Terraced and recut canyons are visible, as are sites where large submarine overbank flows have created additional channels down the continental slope. Areas of large sheet landslides are evident along the continental slope, and landslide deposits at the base of the slope. Early studies of these features were conducted by Ryan and his students. Lobate sedimentary deposits detected in high-resolution bathymetric data from the continental shelf off New York City were recently reported by Uchupi and colleagues as evidence that large, catastrophic discharges of water from glacial lakes poured down the Hudson River valley and swept across the continental shelf near the close of the Pleistocene Epoch. Large lobes of probable debris-flow deposits visible in the new map on the continental rise may have resulted from similar flows from lakes in Long Island Sound and Block Island Sound, a drainage pattern first mapped by McMaster. Interpretation of this new data set will reshape our understanding of continental slope and rise processes, and we are pleased to be able to honor some pioneers of modern marine geology. The project was led by Peter Rona of Rutgers University and Brad Butman of the USGS. Other participants included Tammie Middleton (USGS), Tom Bolmer (WHOI), Laura Cottrell (State University of New York [SUNY], Stony Brook), and Kyle Kingman and Lisa Weiss (Rutgers University).
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in this issue:
Deltaic Habitats in Puget Sound Invasive Sea Squirt Flourishing
Students Learn About Coastal and Marine Science Hurricanes Focus Attention on USGS Research College Students Visit USGS Center in St. Petersburg Scientists Participate in Great-American Teach-In Scientists Interviewed About Invasive Sea Squirt Scientists Interviewed for HBO Program
Jeff Williams Reviews Storm Surge Model Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institutes Conference Suwannee River Basin and Estuary Integrated Science Workshop
Jingping Xu Joins Western Coastal and Marine Geology Team
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U. S. Department of the Interior | U.S. Geological Survey
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