USGS Research Presented at Cape Cod Natural History Conference


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USGS Research Presented at Cape Cod Natural History Conference

By Chris Polloni and Nancy Soderberg
June 2007

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Above: Walter Barnhardt providing information about his poster. Photograph by Chris Polloni. [larger version]

Above: Nancy Soderberg standing by the USGS display table. Photograph by Chris Polloni. [larger version]

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)'s Woods Hole Science Center was well represented at the 12th Annual Cape Cod Natural History Conference, held Saturday, March 17, 2007, at Cape Cod Community College. Sponsored by the Massachusetts Audubon Society (Mass Audubon)'s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary and Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank, the conference featured 16 speakers from academic, private research, and public environmental organizations and agencies in the Northeast, describing a range of topics focused on the Cape Cod-Nantucket-Martha's Vineyard region.

Scientists from the Woods Hole Science Center participated in three presentations and provided two table displays, all related to research in and around Cape Cod. Mary Carman, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, in collaboration with Page Valentine, USGS, presented a discussion on "Reducing the Impact of the Invasive Ascidian Didemnum sp. [a type of sea squirt] on the Shellfish Industry." Elizabeth Pendleton, USGS, talked about "Visualizing Coastal Vulnerability at Cape Cod National Seashore with Google Earth," and Walter Barnhardt, USGS, presented "The Seafloor Revealed: Geologic Mapping of the Massachusetts Inner Shelf."

The keynote presentation was given by Ivan Valiela of Boston University on "Global and Local Ecological Change on Cape Cod as Evidenced from Birds." Using migratory-bird-population data from the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Valiela demonstrated that migratory-bird populations in the United States were not affected by habitat changes in the Southern Hemisphere, whereas nonmigratory, native bird populations were reduced or displaced by expanding populations of Southern U.S. native species and the increasingly urban environment in the Northeastern United States.

Chris Polloni and Nancy Soderberg handled the logistics of USGS participation in the conference and organized and staffed the display tables, where they handed out numerous USGS Fact Sheets and exhibited several posters, including:

"Coastal Vulnerability Assessment of Cape Cod National Seashore to Sea-Level Rise," based on USGS Open-File Report 02-233 (URL http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2002/of02-233/) by Erika S. Hammar-Klose, Elizabeth A. Pendleton, E. Robert Thieler, and S. Jeffress Williams.

"Submarine Hydrogeology of a Glaciated Coastline: Cape Cod National Seashore" (abstract available at http://www.neers.org/main/library/abstracts/spring2005.pdf) [97 KB PDF] by John F. Bratton, VeeAnn Cross, David S. Foster, John F. Crusius, and Jeffrey H. List.

"Ecologic and Hydrogeologic Importance of Exposed Glaciodeltaic Sediments off Outer Cape Cod, Massachusetts" (abstract available at URL http://web.mit.edu/seagrant/GIS06/GIS06-AbstractBooklet.pdf [10.7 MB PDF]) by Lawrence J. Poppe, Valerie F. Paskevich, David S. Foster, William W. Danforth, and Seth D. Ackerman.

"Geologic Mapping of the Seafloor: Boston Harbor and Approaches," based on USGS Open-File Report 2006-1008 (URL http://woodshole.er.usgs.gov/pubs/of2006-1008/) by Seth D. Ackerman, Bradford Butman, Walter A. Barnhardt, William W. Danforth, and James M. Crocker.

USGS Participates in Multidisciplinary Cape Cod Natural History Conference
May 2004