Boundaries of the Historic Area Remediation Site, Offshore New York, USGS OFR 00-503

The purpose of this project is to map the surficial geology of the sea
floor of Historic Area Remediation Site (HARS) and changes in
surficial characteristics over time. This GIS project presents
multibeam and other data in a digital format for analysis and display
by scientists, policy makers, managers and the general public.

This project presents maps of the sea floor in GIS format of the
Historic Area Remedition Site (HARS), located offshore of New York and
New Jersey. The data were collected with a multibeam sea floor mapping
system on surveys conducted November 23 - December 3, 1996, October 26
- November 11, 1998, and April 6 - 30, 2000. The maps show sea floor
topography, shaded relief, and backscatter intensity (a measure of sea
floor texture and roughness) at a spatial resolution of 3 m/pixel, and
locations of dredged material placed on the sea floor. The sea floor
of the HARS, approximately 9 square nautical miles in area, is being
remediated by placing at least a one-meter of clean dredged material
on top of the existing surface sediments that exhibit varying degrees
degradation resulting from previous disposal of dredged and other
material. Comparison of the topography and backscatter intensity from
the three surveys show changes in topography and surficial sediment
properties resulting from placement of dredged material in 1996 and
1997 prior to designation of the HARS, as well as placement of
material for remediation of the HARS. This study is carried out
cooperatively by the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers.