| Description |
The Delmarva Peninsula is a 220-kilometer-long headland, spit, and barrier island complex that was significantly affected by Hurricane Sandy. This region includes valuable DOI assets such as Assateague Island National Seashore (ASIS), other DOI and Federal lands, a major private landowner (The Nature Conservancy; TNC) that has interests complementary to those of DOI, as well as heavily developed coastal municipalities. The sources, transport pathways, and deposition of sediment that support beaches and barrier islands in this region are poorly understood. Management of ASIS and the other valuable cultural and natural resources in the region (for example, Chincoteague NWR and the 14 barrier islands in TNC's Virginia Coast Reserve) can be improved by defining the region's geologic framework and sediment resources. In the near future, sediment availability and movement may be a significant constraint on natural beach response and engineering responses associated with recovery from Hurricane Sandy. Longer-term changes in storminess and sea-level rise will also affect future sediment movement and the response of beaches and dunes. Knowledge of a region’s antecedent geology, sediment type, distribution, deposit geometry, and transport pathways is lacking and is critical to address these coastal issues. Comprehensive inner continental shelf mapping efforts, including the collection and interpretation of sonar backscatter, swath bathymetric, and subbottom data, have proven highly valuable to the assessment and mitigation of coastal hazards (Schwab and others, 2013; Thieler and others, 2013) as well as to habitat characterization and identification of sites of cultural interest. At present, knowledge regarding the region’s geologic framework is substantially lacking. We propose to characterize the regions’ surficial sedimentary environment and underlying geologic framework through geophysical mapping of the inner continental shelf of the seaward portion of the barrier island complex (from outside the surf zone to 10 kilometers offshore). |
