FY2005 Field Work

Although this year's fieldwork has been relatively quiet compared to the past few years, the Sediment Transport Group(STG) is still involved in many projects and activities:

Massachusetts Baby Long Term Monitoring Program

Ongoing projects include the data that we collect to monitor the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority's new sewage outfall pipe for Boston. We deploy a mooring and a tripod near Boston and a mooring and a tripod off the coast of Scituate. These measurements have been continuous over the past decade.

Monterey Canyon

As follow-up to the Monterey Canyon deployment ending in December 2003, two moorings were deployed in May 2005. The STG is designing the moorings and preparing most of the instruments and equipment which was deployed by the USGS Menlo Park office. These moorings consist of Anderson sediment traps, Microcats, Seacats, Branker data loggers, transmissometers, and Worhorse ADCP's.

Martha's Vineyard Coastal Observatory

The STG is currently designing platforms and instrumentation to be deployed off the coast of Martha's Vineyard in September, 2005. Some of the focuses of this project are to compare the results serveral suspended sediment sensors, and test a developing recovery system for tripods.

Other Fieldwork Support

The STG is providing instrumentation support to many projects in the following areas: Seagrass-Puget Sound, Hood Canal, San Gabriel River, and San Fransisco Bay.

Sontek Hydra Toolbox

The STG is continuing development of a MATLAB toolbox for the Sontek Hydra data loggers in order to provide clean, accurate data to sediment transport modelling efforts. This toolbox will be similiar to the one that the STG developed for the ADCP.

Underwater Camera System

The STG continues to develop a time-series still camera system to replace exsisting camera systems that are mounted on benthic tripods. Two prototype systems have been tested this year.

Flourometer Technology

At the request of Massachusetts Water Resources Authority(MWRA), the STG continues to evaluate new flourometer technology for its suitability for their applications.

Tripod Recovery System

To reduce the number of times tripods must be recovered by divers or ROV, the STG is developing a new recovery system that won't be deterred by fouling trawling, tipping, and storm related problems.

Metadata, Data Archival and Processing Training Session

The STG is providing a training module for metadata collection, ADCP processing, and data archival to personnel from several other USGS field offices in August 2005.

International Conferences

The STG personell is attending the OCEANS conference in Brest France, and Current Measurement Technology Conference in Southampton, United Kingdom in June 2005.