D. Reide Corbett

East Carolina University | ECU · Department of Coastal Studies

Beach nourishment is a popular engineering-with-nature (EWN) strategy used globally for shoreline stabilization and coastal storm damage reduction. Large-scale projects require dredging from offshore sand borrow sources. However, suitable sands for nourishment are not ubiquitous offshore, especially in sediment-starved southern NC. In 2015, >300 na...

On September 16, 2015, a Mw 8.3 earthquake struck the north-central Chile coast, triggering a tsunami observed along 500 km of coastline, between Huasco (28.5°S) and San Antonio (33.5°S). This tsunami provided a unique opportunity to examine the nature of tsunami deposits in a semi-arid, siliciclastic environment where stratigraphic and sedimentolo...

Sea-level budgets account for the contributions of processes driving sea-level change, but are predominantly focused on global-mean sea level and limited to the 20th and 21st centuries. Here we estimate site-specific sea-level budgets along the U.S. Atlantic coast during the Common Era (0–2000 CE) by separating relative sea-level (RSL) records into...

Coastal wetlands provide important ecosystem services, such as carbon and nitrogen sequestration and flood protection, but are vulnerable to increasing sea levels. We examined the vulnerability of coastal wetlands to rising sea levels using radioisotopes (210Pb and 137Cs) to estimate long-term (~100 years) soil accretion rates. We also estimated ca...

Building robust age–depth models to understand climatic and geologic histories from coastal sedimentary archives often requires composite chronologies consisting of multi-proxy age markers. Pollen chronohorizons derived from a known change in vegetation are important for age–depth models, especially those with other sparse or imprecise age markers....

Mangroves are encroaching into salt marshes throughout the world as a result of environmental change. Previous studies suggest mangroves trap sediment more efficiently than adjacent salt marshes, providing mangroves greater capacity to adapt to sea level rise; this may occur by displacing salt marshes. However, sediment transport in adjacent marsh-...

During extreme storms, both wind‐driven changes in water levels and intense precipitation can contribute to flooding. Particularly on low‐lying coastal plains, storm‐driven flooding can cover large areas, resulting in major damage. To investigate the roles of rainfall and storm surge on coastal flooding, a coupled flow‐wave model (Delft3D‐SWAN) tha...

The transformation of two intertidal environments from northern Spain during the last 150 years shows an evolution from a tidal flat into a salt marsh environment, with an intermediate transitional stage. The environment of deposition was reconstructed based on benthic foraminifera and sand content. Sediments were put into a temporal framework usin...

Forty-two mineral sand samples from vibracores, collected offshore of Georgia (GA), South Carolina (SC), and North Carolina (NC), were investigated to determine the rare earth element (REE) concentration and corresponding rare earth minerals (REM). Geochemical analyses indicate that REE are present in low concentrations in the samples. For example,...

Urbanization and human-led development have increased more rapidly along shorelines and in coastal watersheds than inland regions over the past century. The result of major land use changes for both urban tracts and agriculture to serve the urban areas, as well as infrastructure development is increased runoff carrying sediments, nutrients, polluta...

Submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) measurements have been limited along the Antarctic coast, although groundwater discharge is becoming recognized as an important process in the Antarctic. Quantifying this meltwater pathway is important for hydrologic budgets, ice mass balances and solute delivery to the coastal ocean. Here, we estimate the comb...

Three sequences of well‐documented, major ~M7+ earthquakes (1811–1812, ~1450, and ~900 CE) in the New Madrid seismic zone, USA, contribute significantly to seismic hazard in the region. However, it is unknown whether this <550‐year recurrence interval has been constant throughout the Holocene given limited geomorphic evidence of prior earthquakes....

We investigated the mangroves of Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia, to assess their potential as proxies for reconstructing sea level during the Holocene. Initial investigations confirmed that the mangrove species demonstrate zonations parallel to the shoreline and are dominated by the family Rhizophoraceae with Avicennia, Heritiera and Sonneratia also...

Barrier islands are found around the world and are important environmentally and economically. With accelerated sea level rise and relentless storms, their evolution is complex but important to understand, especially from a coastal planning and managing perspective. In this study, shoreline change estimates from aerial photography (1949, 1974, 2006...

Estuaries contain vital habitats and it is important to understand how these areas respond to human activities and natural processes such as sea-level rise and wave attack. As estuarine shorelines erode or become modified with hard structures, there is potential for significantly altering the availability of sediment and the filling of coastal syst...

The surface waters of the Southern Ocean play a key role in the global climate and carbon cycles by promoting growth of some of the world’s largest phytoplankton blooms. Several studies have emphasized the importance of glacial and sediment inputs of Fe that fuel the primary production of the Fe-limited Southern Ocean. Although the fertile surface...

The Earth's continents and islands are bordered by shallow ocean plains that are arguably the most environmentally, economically and politically important parts of the sea. Yet in spite of this, they remain poorly defined and understood. A quantitative approach is employed here to map and analyze these plains, or shelves. The Earth's ocean bathymet...

Many shoreline studies rely on historical change rates determined from aerial imagery decades to over 50 years apart to predict shoreline position and determine setback distances for coastal structures. These studies may not illustrate the coastal impacts of short-duration but potentially high-impact storm events. In this study, shoreline change ra...

A multi-proxy approach based on benthic foraminifera, sand content, short-lived radioisotope activities, heavy metal concentrations and aerial photography was developed to characterise the process of human disturbance on the intensely impacted eastern Cantabrian coast (N. Spain) over the last two centuries. Analysis of two 50 cm long sediment cores...

The frequency of anthropogenic seasonal hypoxia on the continental shelf west of the Mississippi Delta (the Louisiana Bight) has increased since the middle of the 20th century. This study applies the PEB index, a proxy for hypoxia, to four ~2 m kasten cores taken southwest of Southwest Pass of the Mississippi Delta. The PEB index is defined as the...

Barrier islands are found around the world, and their geomorphic evolution is related to ocean and estuarine processes. More research is needed on back-barrier areas being affected by an array of processes. Rodanthe, North Carolina is a town on the Outer Banks that is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean and Pamlico Sound. The Rodanthe back-barrier coast...

As development continues within the coastal zone of the southeastern U.S., the vulnerability of populations to shoreline erosion and flooding/inundation are becoming more of a focus of scientists and managers. Recently, a new software tool was developed called AMBUR-HVA (Hazard Vulnerability Assessment) to assess these threats while also incorporat...

Storms and sea-level rise continue to impact coastlines around the world. In North Carolina many communities are conducting or planning beach nourishment in an effort to minimize future storm impacts. These projects are costly and must be completed properly based on accurate geological and geophysical data to have the best chance for success. The p...

To identify priority information needs for sea-level rise planning, we conducted workshops in Florida, North Carolina, and Massachusetts in the summer of 2012. Attendees represented professionals from five stakeholder groups: federal and state governments, local governments, universities, businesses, and nongovernmental organizations. Over 100 peop...

A fundamental goal of the Earth Science community is to understand how perturbations on Earth's surface are preserved in the stratigraphic record. Recent Source to Sink (S2S) studies of the Waipaoa Sedimentary System (WSS), New Zealand, are synthesized herein to provide a holistic perspective of the processes that generate, transport and preserve s...

The fallout radionuclides 210Pb and 137Cs have been extensively used to calculate rates of sediment accumulation and provide estimates of age with depth in a sediment column. Developing a geochronology based on these isotopes requires some basic understanding of the environment in which the samples were collected. This chapter provides the backgrou...

We investigated foraminiferal assemblages contained within known deposits of Hurricanes Ivan (2004), Katrina (2005), and Rita (2005) on the continental shelf west of the Mississippi Delta to determine: 1) whether they differ significantly from assemblages of non-hurricane units and of a unit deposited by a river flood event, and 2) whether assembla...

Sea-level reconstructions based on foraminiferal assemblage data are common for temperate salt-marsh settings. In comparison, the widespread mangrove swamps of equatorial to subtropical settings have received considerably less attention due to enhanced taphonomic loss of specimens, extensive bioturbation, abundant infaunal foraminifera and irregula...

Foraminiferal assemblages, sediments, and δ13C, δ15N, and C:N ratios are used to investigate how aquaculture in the Setiu estuarine-lagoonal system (SEL) in Terengganu, Malaysia has affected environmental quality since the mid-1970s. Three cores were collected beneath floating fish-cage sites, two (S43 and S40) from the lagoon and one (S9A) from th...

Foraminifera, grain size, and carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios and abundances were analyzed in surface-sediment samples collected from three floating fish-cage complexes to address how aquaculture has influenced the Setiu estuary and lagoon of northeast peninsular Malaysia. Two currently active floating fish-cage complexes, SET11-S43 and SET11-S4...

An ephemeral oceanic-flood deposit adjacent to a well-studied small mountainous river (SMR), the Waipaoa River in northeastern New Zealand, was characterized using multiple proxies, including radioisotopes (234Th, 7Be, and 210Pb), bulk organic carbon abundance and isotopic signature (%OC, δ13C), as well as a biomarker of terrigenous organic matter...

The stratigraphic record is the manifestation of a wide range of processes, interactions and responses to environmental drivers. Understanding the functioning of river sediment dispersal systems is necessary to determine the fate of sediment and associated material in the marine environment and differentiate key influences in the development of the...

An annually laminated stalagmite from the northern Yucatán peninsula contains mud layers from 256 cave flooding events over 2,240 years. This new conservative proxy for paleotempestology recorded cave flooding events with a recurrence interval of 8.3 years during the 20th century, with the greatest frequency during the 20th century and the least fr...

The mid to late Holocene coastal evolution of the Setiu estuary/lagoon (northeast peninsular Malaysia) has been studied using a multidisciplinary/multiproxy approach including sedimentologic, geomorphologic, and ground penetrating radar (GPR) data combined with optically stimulated luminescence (OSL), radiocarbon and Pb-210 age estimates to provide...

A high-resolution study of a marsh sedimentary sequence from the Minho estuary provides a new palaeoenvironmental reconstruction from NW Iberian based on geological proxies supported by historical and instrumental climatic records. A low salinity tidal flat, dominated by Trochamminita salsa, Haplophragmoides spp. and Cribrostomoides spp., prevailed...

We report stratigraphic evidence of land-level change and tsunami inundation along the Alaska-Aleutian megathrust during prehistoric and historical earthquakes west of Kodiak Island. On Sitkinak Island, cores and tidal outcrops fringing a lagoon reveal five sharp lithologic contacts that record coseismic land-level change. Radiocarbon dates, 137Cs...

This volume provides a state-of-the-art summary of biogeochemical dynamics at major river-coastal interfaces for advanced students and researchers. River systems play an important role (via the carbon cycle) in the natural self-regulation of Earth's surface conditions by serving as a major sink for anthropogenic CO2. Approximately 90 percent of glo...

Foraminifera, sediment grain-size, and carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios and abundances were analyzed in surface sediment samples collected from three floating fish cage complexes to address how aquaculture has influenced the Setiu estuary and lagoon of northeast peninsular Malaysia. Two currently active floating fish cage complexes, SET11-S43 and...

Marsh sediment accumulation is predominately a combination of in situ organic accumulation and mineral sediment input during inundation. Within the Pamlico River Estuary (PRE), marsh inundation is dependent upon event (e.g., storms) and seasonal wind patterns due to minimal astronomical tides (<10 cm). A better understanding of the processes contro...

The distribution and abundance of live (rose Bengalstained) and dead infaunal foraminifera have been documented in short cores taken at four locations representing a narrow range of salinity settings in the mangrove swamps of the Setiu wetland, Terengganu, peninsular Malaysia. Cores were taken at mud-rich sites, two in the mid-swamp and two in the...

Previous studies of shorelines have relied on satellite imagery or airplane-based aerial photography, which can be costly, of limited availability, and of restricted resolution. These factors limit the usefulness of such imagery for detailed shoreline-change measurements that require frequent observations with high spatial accuracy. Easily deployed...

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Foraminiferal assemblages of Caminha tidal marshes have been studied since 2002 revealing a peculiar dominance of brackish species, such as Haplophragmoides manilaensis, Haplophragmoides wilberti, Haplophragmoides sp., Pseudothurammina limnetis and Trochamminita salsa/irregularis in the high marshes of the Minho and the Coura lower estuaries. The a...

A study to assess the relationship between the record of high-marsh benthic foraminifera and the instrumental data of river flow and precipitation was undertaken in the Minho region since 1934. River flow has a positive correlation (0.72<R<0.85) with precipitation which longer record is more suitable to be applied to the interpretation of foraminif...

a b s t r a c t Environmental changes during the last 2 millennia in the Minho River tidal marsh (NW Portugal–Spain border) were reconstructed. Changes in the sources of organic matter (OM) delivered to the marsh were evaluated from elemental, isotopic and molecular composition using a 1 m sediment core. Carbon isoto-pic composition (d 13 C) and or...

Trochammina hadai Uchio, a benthic foraminifera native to Japanese estuaries, was first identified as an invasive in 1995 in San Francisco Bay and later in 16 other west coast estuaries. To investigate the timing of the arrival and expansion of this invasive species in Padilla Bay, Washington, we analyzed the distribution of foraminifera in two sur...

Foraminiferal assemblages were used to investigate the nature of sedimentation on the technically active Poverty continental margin (PCM) of New Zealand. Recent research around the world has been focused on understanding the sedimentary functioning of small mountainous rivers to the global sediment budget, and this study is part of a greater effort...

Passive acoustic monitoring can be a useful tool to include on Ocean Observing Systems. As an example, we describe the monitoring the acoustic environment in the coastal waters of North Carolina (USA) using an instrumented platform. The ECU Itpod (instrumented tripod) has been deployed in several locations in Pamlico Sound and river estuaries since...

The Setiu wetland of peninsular Malaysia is threatened by expansion of aquaculture. Water quality of the estuarylagoon complex is becoming affected by nutrients introduced into the system at floating fish cages and by the clear-cutting of large areas of fringing mangrove forest for the creation of land-based fish and shrimp pens. We report here on...

Increased sound production by fishes, which is used for communication during mating, in territorial defense, and possibly in echolocation, has been associated with decreased light and increased temperature and salinity (Luczkovich et al. 2008; Mok and Gilmore 1983). There has not been an attempt to associate changes in sound production with other e...

Radon-222 (222Rn) and ammonium (NH4+) were measured in interstitial water of the Neuse River Estuary (NRE), North Carolina, USA to determine the advective flux of NH4+ from sediments to the overlying water column. Porewater samples were collected over an annual cycle from multi-level piezometers installed in nearshore sites. NH4+ concentrations in...

Coastlines are constantly changing due to both natural and anthropogenic forces, and climate change and associated sea level rise will continue to reshape coasts in the future. Erosion is not only apparent along oceanfront areas; shoreline dynamics in sheltered water bodies have also gained greater attention. Additional estuarine shoreline studies...

A Post-Colonial settlement record of sedimentary black carbon (BC) from the Chesapeake Bay was used to reconstruct the impact of climate and anthropogenic activities on regional fire regime at multi-decadal time-scales. The abundance of BC in this sediment core varies between 0.21 - 0.75 % per gram of dry weight (gdw), while the abundance of OC var...

Improved knowledge of sediment dynamics within a lake system is important for understanding lake water quality. This research was focused on an assessment of the vertical sediment flux in Lake Jesup, a shallow (1.3 m average depth) hypereutrophic lake of central Florida. Sediment dynamics were assessed at varying time scales (daily to weekly) to un...

Foraminiferal analyses of 404 contiguous samples, supported by diatom, lithologic, geochronologic and seismic data, reveal both rapid and gradual Holocene paleoenvironmental changes in an 8.21-m vibracore taken from southern Pamlico Sound, North Carolina. Data record initial flooding of a latest Pleistocene river drainage and the formation of an es...

Fluctuations in sea-level rise rates are thought to dominate the formation and evolution of coastal wetlands. Here we demonstrate a contrasting scenario in which land-use-related changes in sediment delivery rates drive the formation of expansive marshland, and vegetation feedbacks maintain their morphology despite recent sediment supply reduction....

Foraminiferal assemblages preserved within salt-marsh sediment can provide an accurate and precise means to reconstruct relative sea level due to a strong relationship with elevation, which can be quantified using a transfer function. We collected a set of surface samples from two salt marshes in the Morbihan Golfe, France to determine foraminifera...

Continental margins with high sediment supply can produce thick sequences that contain detailed information on the controlling sedimentary processes; however, the stratigraphic record must be unraveled to understand the terrestrial and marine processes responsible. As part of a recently initiated NSF Margins Source-to-Sink project, strata construct...