Surficial Sediment Data from the Gulf of Maine, Georges Bank, and Vicinity: A GIS Compilation

The Coastal and Marine Geology Program of the U.S. Geological Survey, in
cooperation with the University of Maine, University of New Hampshire, Boston
University, and Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, has compiled surficial
sediment data on the sea floor from off the northeastern U.S. These data, which
are presented herein and contain information on sediment grain size and
lithology for over 47,000 stations, were compiled as part of the U.S.
Geological Survey's National Benthic Habitats and Marine Aggregate Resources
and Processes Projects to updateGulf of Maine location image showing color
encoded shaded bathymetry and elevation the existent maps on surficial
sediment distribution available for this region (Schlee, 1973; Poppe and
others, 1989). The National Benthic Habitats Project addresses societal needs
by studying the interplay of geologic factors and species behavior that gives
rise to biologic habitats in general and to the specific habitats deemed
essential to the success of particular species. The principal objective of the
Marine Aggregate Resources and Processes Project is to produce a series of new
geologic maps and reports for regions such as the Gulf of Maine that will
provide scientific insights into the character and geologic development of U.S.
continental margins and assess the availability of offshore resources. These
maps and assessments are being done on a national scale using usSEABED
(Williams and others, 2003), and the sediment data compiled as part of this
report will be imported into the usSEABED data-mining software system.
Potential uses for these data include: (1) defining the geological variability
of the sea floor, one of the primary controls of benthic habitat diversity; (2)
improving our understanding of the processes that control the distribution and
transport of bottom sediments, benthic habitats, and associated infaunal
community structures; (3) locating aggregate resources for beach nourishment
and industrial applications; and (4) providing a detailed framework for future
research, monitoring, and management activities. Because the present
distribution of surficial sediment off the northeastern United States is shaped
from the deposits left by the last glaciation and reflects the cumulative
effects of sediment erosion, transport, sorting, and deposition by storm and
tidal currents during and since the Holocene eustatic rise in sea level, these
sediments also represent both a historical record of former conditions and a
guide to possible future sedimentary environments.

Most of the sediment data in this report are broken into data layers by their
original source project and are provided as single-point vector datasets with
sample identifiers, navigation, textural attribute information, and metadata.
Unpublished data or data from the gray literature that form parts of earlier
compilations, such the National Ocean Survey Hydrographic Database (National
Geophysical Data Center, 1987) or the Gulf of Maine Contaminated Sediment
Database (ten Brink and others, 2002), remain in datasets attributed to these
compilations. All data are intended to be GIS-ready inasmuch as the data should
not require any additional cleanup, formatting, or renaming of fields in order
to use the data in a Geographic Information System (GIS). This project employs
the Environmental Systems Research Institute's (ESRI) ArcView as it's GIS
mapping tool and contains several data layers (or themes) that are used to
create a geographic planar view of the margin off the northeastern U.S. These
vector data form a basemap comprised of polygon and line themes that include a
U.S. coastline (1:80,000), bathymetry contours (10-m shelf contours; 100-m
upper slope and rise contours), U.S. lakes, U.S. rivers, state boundaries,
Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) boundary, and provinces of Canada.

[Summary provided by the USGS.]