This study investigates the impacts of extratropical cyclones on Lake Michigan dune complexes by integrating field measurements and meteorological data from sites along the southeastern shore. Surface changes and wind velocities were monitored at Hoffmaster State Park, Saugatuck Harbor Natural Area, and Mount Baldy at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore from October to April in 2010–2011 and 2011–2012. Over 70% of the events with wind speeds at least two standard deviations above the mean were associated with extratropical cyclones. The wind directions depended on the cyclone path, with westerly or southerly components most common. Local conditions moderated the effects of storm winds on surface change. The greatest surface changes measured in a trough blowout at Saugatuck Harbor Natural Area were associated with regional winds with a component blowing up the lee slope that produced bifurcated windflow within the trough. While the orientation of a given dune strongly influences the amount of surface change, it does not always follow a simple pattern deduced from dune geometry. Surface changes at Hoffmaster State Park and Saugatuck Harbor Natural Area during a normal winter (2010–2011) and an unusually warm winter (2011–2012) suggest that colder weather conditions inhibited net transfer of sand from the beach but had less impact away from the shore. Moisture also inhibited sand transport, but strong storm winds moved wet sand, sometimes over long distances at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Overall our results show that winds associated with extratropical cyclones play a vital role in the development of Lake Michigan dune complexes.

The Los Angeles Basin is a densely populated coastal area that significantly depends on groundwater. A part of this groundwater supply is at risk from saltwater intrusion—the impetus for this study. High-resolution seismic-reflection data collected from the Los Angeles–Long Beach Harbor Complex have been combined with borehole geophysical and descriptive geological data from four nearby ~400-m-deep continuously cored wells and with borehole geophysical data from adjacent water and oil wells to characterize the Pliocene to Holocene stratigraphy of the Dominguez Gap coastal aquifer system. The new data are shown as a north-south, two- dimensional, sequence-stratigraphic model that is compared to existing lithostratigraphic models of the Los Angeles Basin in an attempt to better understand pathways of saltwater intrusion into coastal aquifers. Intrusion of saltwater into the coastal aquifer system generally is attributed to over-pumping that caused the hydraulic gradient to reverse during the mid-1920s. Local water managers have used the existing lithostratigraphic model to site closely spaced injection wells of freshwater (barrier projects) attempting to hydraulically control the saltwater intrusion. Improved understanding of the stratigraphic relationships can guide modifications to barrier design that will allow more efficient operation. Allostratigraphic nomenclature is used to define a new sequence-stratigraphic model for the area because the existing lithostratigraphic correlations that have been used to define aquifer systems are shown not to be time-correlative. The youngest sequence, the Holocene Dominguez sequence, contains the Gaspur aquifer at its base. The Gaspur aquifer is intruded with saltwater and consists of essentially flat-lying gravelly sands deposited by the ancestral Los Angeles River as broad channels that occupied a paleovalley incised into the coastal plain during the last glacio-eustatic highstand. The underlying sequences are deformed into a broad anticlinal fold that occurs parallel to, but ~2 km north of, the axis of the Pliocene Wilmington anticline. The Dominguez sequence breaches the crest of the young anticline, cuts through the upper Pleistocene Mesa and Pacific sequences, and into the middle Pleistocene Harbor sequence. Saltwater migrates along channels within the Dominguez sequence and into the underlying sequences (composed mostly of shallow marine and tidal sands, silts, and clays) that contain the classically defined Gage and Lynwood aquifers. The newly recognized Pacific Coast Highway fault cuts through the core of this young fold and is downthrown on the northern side, thereby creating accommodation space for a thick succession of middle Pleistocene sediments that constitute the Upper Wilmington sequence. North of the Pacific Coast Highway fault, the Upper Wilmington sequence contains the classic Silverado aquifer (composed of fluviodeltaic deposits); the Silverado is the primary freshwater aquifer for the West Coast and Central Los Angeles Groundwater Basins. Pore fluid and electric log analyses show the upper part of this aquifer to be saline-intruded near the crest of the young fold. This relationship implies that some saltwater is migrating into deeper aquifers from above, across the regional unconformity that marks the base of the Harbor sequence (ca. 240–270 ka). This sequence-stratigraphic model provides new insight into the potential flow paths for saltwater intrusion, and as such, should allow improved characterization of fluid flow that will aid in transport model studies and in managing groundwater resources.

Abstract Beach compartments or littoral cells form the framework for our understanding of the sources, transport, sinks, and storage of sand in the nearshore zone. in general, along the California coast, beach sand is derived from rivers or bluff erosion, moves alongshore under the influence of prevailing wave conditions, and ultimately is lost either to a submarine canyon or dune field. The Santa Cruz Littoral Cell appears to extend as far north as San Francisco Bay and terminates downcoast at Monterey Submarine Canyon. Northwesterly waves drive littoral drift at a rate of about 200,000 to 250,000 m 3 /yr at the Santa Cruz Harbor. The major sources of sand within the Santa Cruz cell are coastal streams draining the Santa Cruz Mountains and 130 km of coastal bluffs. On the basis of the grain-size distribution of beach and nearshore sediments, a littoral cutoff diameter (0.18 mm) was established in calculating a sediment budget. Fluvial sediment transport measurements combined with flow-duration curves and grain-size distributions were employed to calculate input from coastal streams to the cell. Cliff height and length, sand content, and average long-term (50 to 75 years of aerial-photograph coverage) erosion rates were utilized to determine the littoral contribution from seacliff and bluff retreat. Coastal streams supply about 75 percent of the total littoral-sand input to the cell, bluff erosion contributes about 20 percent and the remaining 5 percent is from gully erosion and sand-dune deflation. Sediment input to the cell is highly episodic in response to large and infrequent erosional events. The processes that deliver sand to the cell (principally bluff erosion and high stream flow) may operate at different frequencies than those that move sand through the cell (longshore transport). An additional complexity arises from potential changes in sand storage, either on the beach or along the inner shelf, which are capable of producing significant volumes of sand due to the large areas involved.

Abstract Land subsidence due to fluid withdrawal has been reported from many parts of the world. It has de-veloped most commonly in overdrawn groundwater basins, but subsidence of serious proportions also has occurred in several oil and gas fields. Subsidence due to groundwater overdraft occurs in many places in Japan, where it has caused dangerous environmental conditions in several heavily populated areas. For example, in Tokyo, 2 million people in an area of 80 sq km now live below mean high-tide level; subsidence is only partially controlled, and the difficulties of achieving full control are great. The San Joaquin Valley in California is the area of the most intensive land subsidence in the United States. Subsidence, which affects 4,200 sq mi (10,875 sq km), reached 28 ft (8 m) in 1969. The total volume of subsidence to 1970 was about 15.5 million acre-ft. Surface-water imports to subsiding areas have reduced groundwater extractions and raised the artesian head, causing subsidence rates to decrease. In the Santa Clara Valley at the south end of San Francisco Bay, excessive pumping of groundwater between 1917 and 1967 caused as much as 180 ft (50 m) of artesian-head decline and maximum land subsidence of 13 ft (4 m). A fourfold increase in surface-water imports in 5 years has achieved a dramatic rise of artesian head—70 ft (20 m) in 4 years. Subsidence rates have decreased from as much as 1 ft (0.3 m) per year in 1961 to a few hundredths of a foot in 1970. Wilmington oil field, in the harbor area of Los Angeles and Long Beach, California, is not only the oil field of maximum subsidence (29 ft or 9 m) in the United States, but also the outstanding example of subsidence control by injection and repressuring. Large-scale repres-suring was begun in 1958 by use of injection water obtained from shallow wells. Subsidence of some bench marks was stopped by 1960. By 1969, when 1.1 million bbl of water per day was being injected into the oil zones, the subsiding area had been reduced from 20 to 3 sq mi (52 to 8 sq km) and parts of the area had rebounded by as much as 1 ft (0.3 m). Methods employed to measure the change in thickness of sediments compacting or expanding in response to change in effective stress include (1) depth-benchmark and counterweighted-cable or “free”-pipe extenso-meters with amplifying and recording equipment; (2) casing-collar logs run periodically in a cased well; and (3) radioactive bullets emplaced in the formation behind the casings at known depths and resurveyed by radioactive detector systems at a later time. In evaluation of potential land subsidence due to fluid withdrawal, an essential parameter is the compressibility of compactible beds. When effective (grain-to-grain) stress exceeds maximum prior (preconsolidation) stress, the compaction is primarily inelastic and nonrecoverable, and the virgin compressibility may be 50–100 times as large as the elastic compressibility in the stress range less than preconsolidation stress. If fluid pressures in a compacting, confined system are increased sufficiently to eliminate excess pore pressures in the fine-grained sediments, subsidence will stop. If fluid pressures continue to increase, the system will expand elastically and the land surface will rise.

This field trip is designed to illustrate the changes that have occurred in the last ten years to the large oil fields in the Los Angeles Basin. In 1973 Truex and others showed the importance of environmental issues when oil fields are developed in an urban setting. A Geologic Field Guide to the Long Beach Area (Clarke and Henderson, 1987) was published in conjunction with the National AAPG meeting in Los Angeles. This guide will build upon update, and complement that work with as little repeat as possible. Wright (1991) gives an excellent overview of the structural geology and tectonic evolution of the Los Angeles Basin.