Jonathan A. Warrick

Research Geologist

Contact info Education Research interests Active research Selected publications Curriculum Vitae Files for download Web links

Contact info

E-mail: jwarrick@usgs.gov
Phone: (831) 427-4793
Fax: (831) 427-4748
Address:
USGS Western Coastal and Marine Geology
Pacific Science Center
400 Natural Bridges Drive
Santa Cruz, CA 95060

Education

B.Sc., 1993, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
M.Sc., 1995, University Wisconsin-Madison
Ph.D., 2002, University of California, Santa Barbara

Research interests

• River plumes
• Coastal watersheds
• Transport and fate of sediment in the coastal ocean
• Coastal and fluvial geomorphology

Active research

• Sources and fate of sediment in coastal settings along active margins.

These studies incorporate research of the sources, transport and fate of sediment, nutrients and pollutants in the marine environment of active margin settings, including California, Oregon and Washington, with an emphasis on river sources. This region is an ideal location for this research due to the high natural rates of sediment input, impacts of land use change—including dams and rapid population growth—and intense marine resource needs. Further, the region is known to have climate driven river inputs, hyperpycnal (dense, plunging) river plumes, substantial marine pollution, and complex ocean bathymetry and circulation. Research is conducted with regional and national collaborators.

Selected publications

Some of these reports are available here in PDF format. You will need an application like Adobe Reader to view them. You may download a free copy of Reader from Adobe's web site; or contact me.

Warrick JA, GR Cochrane, Y Sagy, G Gelfenbaum, 2008. Nearshore substrate and morphology offshore of the Elwha River. Northwest Science, vol. 82, p. 153-163. [PDF 4678 K]

Hunsinger GB, Mitra S, Warrick JA, and Alexander CR. 2008. Oceanic loading of wildfire-derived organic compounds from a small mountainous river. Journal of Geophysical Research – Biogeosciences. v. 113, G02007, doi:10.1029/2007JG000476 [PDF 668 K]

Warrick JA, J Xu, M Noble, HJ Lee. 2008. Rapid formation of hyperpycnal sediment gravity currents offshore of a semi-arid California river. Continental Shelf Research. v. 28, p. 991-1009, doi:10.1016/j.csr.2007.11.002 [PDF 3098 K]

Farnsworth KL and Warrick JA. 2008. Sources, Dispersal and Fate of Fine-Grained Sediment for Coastal California. U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report: SIR 2007-5254. http://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2007/5254/

Warrick JA, PM DiGiacomo, SB Weisberg, NP Nezlin, M Mengel, BH Jones, JC Ohlmann, L Washburn, EJ Terrill and KL Farnsworth. 2007. River plume patterns and dynamics within the Southern California Bight. Continental Shelf Research, v. 27, p. 2427-2448, doi:10.1016/j.csr.2007.06.015 [PDF 2790 K]

Warrick JA and D Rubin. 2007. Suspended-sediment rating-curve response to urbanization and wildfire, Santa Ana River, California. Journal of Geophysical Research -- Earth Surface. 112, F02018, doi:10.1029/2006JF000662 [PDF 1130 K]

Warrick JA, Washburn L, Brzezinski MA, Siegel DA. 2005. Nutrient contributions to the Santa Barbara Channel, California, from the ephemeral Santa Clara River. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science. 62:559-574. doi:10.1016/j.ecss.2004.09.033 [PDF 840 K]

Warrick JA, Mertes LAK, Wasburn L, Siegel DA. 2004. A conceptual model for river water and sediment dispersal in the Santa Barbara Channel, California. Continental Shelf Research. 24(17):2029-2043. doi:10.1016/j.csr.2004.07.010 [PDF 757 K]

Warrick JA, Fong DA. 2004. Dispersal scaling from the world's rivers. Geophysical Research Letters. 34, L04301, doi:10.1029/2003GL019114. {2004 AGU Journal Highlight}. [PDF 485 K]

Warrick JA, Mertes LAK, Siegel DA, Wasburn L. 2004. Dispersal forcing of a southern California river plume, based on field and remote sensing observations. Geo-Marine Letters. 24:46-52. doi:10.1007/s00367-003-0163-9. [PDF 1108 K]

Warrick JA, Mertes LAK, Siegel DA, MacKenzie C. 2004. Estimating suspended sediment concentrations in turbid coastal waters of the Santa Barbara Channel with SeaWiFS. International Journal of Remote Sensing - Remote Sensing Letters. 25(10):1995-2002. doi:10.1080/01431160310001619535. [PDF 430 K]

Warrick JA, Milliman JD. 2003. Hyperpycnal sediment discharge from semi-arid southern California rivers - implications for coastal sediment budgets. Geology. 31(9):781-784. doi:10.1130/G19671.1. [PDF 242 K]

Warrick JA. 2002. Short-term (1997-2000) and Long-term (1928-2000) Observations of River Water and Sediment Discharge to the Santa Barbara Channel, California. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of California, Santa Barbara. 337 pp.

Mertes, LAK and JA Warrick. 2001. Measuring flood output from 110 coastal watersheds in California with field measurements and SeaWiFS. Geology. 29(7):659-662. [PDF 295 K]

Curriculum Vitae

Available as PDF document (40 K).

Files for download

The following files can be used to conduct 'Cobble Cam' grain size analyses on digital photographs as described in Warrick et al. (2009). Please see the read_me.rtf file for more information.

read_me.rtf
EyeballS_FINAL.m
AutoCorrS_Vert.m
ypix_JAW.txt
JAW_calibdata_150.txt
PlotGen_AC_Call.m
crop_jpg2tif.m
measure_mm2pix.m

Web links

• US Geological Survey's Western Coastal and Marine Geology
  http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/
• US Geological Survey's Coastal and Marine Geology Program
  http://marine.usgs.gov/
• US Geological Survey's Cabrillo Project
  http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/cabrillo/
• Mendenhall Postdoctoral Research Fellow
  http://geology.usgs.gov/postdoc/