Brian is a sedimentologist with the USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center who will serve as Chief Scientist aboard Healy during the joint U.S.-Canada extended-continental-shelf survey in August. He brings to the job more than 30 years of sea-going experience on 60-plus coring and geophysical cruises along the west coast of the United States, the Ross Sea (Antarctica), the North Pacific Ocean, and the Bering Sea. Brian specializes in sedimentary processes and stratigraphy, integrating insights gleaned from seafloor rock and sediment samples with information from remote-mapping products, such as close-up photographs of the seafloor, high-resolution bathymetric maps, and seismic-reflection profiles (sound "slices" through the seafloor that create an image like rocks exposed on the walls of the Grand Canyon). His recent studies have focused on how sediment moves from the land to the deep sea, processes controlling submarine landslides, saltwater intrusion into coastal aquifer systems, marine pollution, and seafloor habitats.
Menlo Park, CA
United States