Massachusetts Bay Oceanographic Time Series 1989-2006

Long-term oceanographic observations from two sites in western Massachusetts Bay, collected from 1989 to 2006. The dataset includes over 160 separate mooring deployments across about 90 research cruises, measuring parameters like current, temperature, and salinity. The U.S. Geological Survey conducted this study in cooperation with the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority and the U.S. Coast Guard.

Use Cases

• Modeling sediment transport by analyzing time-series of current velocity and sediment-trapping rate.
• Studying seasonal and interannual water quality variability using temperature, salinity, and oxygen measurements.
• Correlating biological activity with environmental conditions using fluorescence data as a proxy for chlorophyll.
• Analyzing long-term changes in water clarity from light transmission time-series records.

Strengths

• 16-year continuous observation period from 1989 to 2006.
• Data collected from two distinct long-term monitoring sites (LT-A and LT-B).
• Includes over 2,500 pages of statistical summaries and plots.

Limitations

• Data collection ended in February 2006, making it temporally stale for contemporary analysis.
• Limited to two specific geographic sites in western Massachusetts Bay.
• Sample size and row count for the underlying digital data are not specified.

Provenance

Source

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Woods Hole Science Center.

Collection Method

Observations collected via instrumented moorings and tripods deployed on research cruises.

Time Range

December 1989 through February 2006 for site LT-A; October 1997 through February 2004 for site LT-B.

Freshness

Data collection ended in 2006; no updates are expected.

Geography

Western Massachusetts Bay, USA, at sites LT-A (42° 22.6' N, 70° 47.0' W) and LT-B (42° 9.8' N, 70° 38.4' W).