About the Massachusetts Geological Survey:
The Massachusetts Geological Survey works to provide essential geological information to government partners and residents of the Commonwealth. Our work centers around geologic mapping, climate adaptation, and resilience planning. The Survey is directed by the State Geologist, Dr. Brian Yellen. Base funding for the Survey comes from the University of Massachusetts, with grant funding from various state, regional, and federal agencies providing capacity for specific projects. Read on to learn about some of the exciting projects that we were working on in 2025.
From the State Geologist, Dr. Brian Yellen
This December marks my first full year as State Geologist for the Commonwealth. It has been an absolute pleasure to serve as director of the Massachusetts Geological Survey. Below are a few highlights from the past year.
Highlights from 2025:
- Collaborative science with various state agencies including MassDEP, MassCZM, MassDCR; regional and federal partners: USGS, Northeast Regional Ocean Council.
- $2M+ in federal funding for science in Massachusetts; $1M in state funding
- Four postdoctoral scholars, three graduate students, 10 undergraduate interns working on projects to support climate resilience and geologic mapping for the Commonwealth
- New airborne geophysical survey to help map bedrock and geohazards
- Development of a statewide salt marsh monitoring and restoration program
- Mapping state forest soils to plan for resilient forest management
- Collaboration with MassDOT to roll out a statewide quarry licensing program to keep corrosive pyrrhotite out of concrete
- Federal funding secured for additional geologic mapping in 2026 and 2027
- Two trips to DC to meet with legislators and agencies; coordination and advocacy
Mapping Massachusetts’ Bedrock Hazards and Resources
Two aligned projects will help to bring Massachusetts’ bedrock mapping to the 21st century, helping us understand where important mineral resources are located as well as geologic hazards. Both projects are funded through USGS’s Earth Mapping Resource Initiative (EarthMRI).
- In collaboration with neighboring states’ geological surveys and the USGS, we completed an airborne geophysical survey of most of the state. These data will help to map the bedrock geology of the state, correct errors at state boundaries, and identify areas that pose geologic hazards.
- This geophysics dataset will be a huge help in better constraining where the corrosive mineral pyrrhotite can be found, and help us avoid incorporating this mineral into concrete.
- Parts of north central Massachusetts are home to complex pegmatite rocks - large crystals that formed during cooling - that have critical minerals containing elements like lithium and tungsten in them. A newly funded project will be mapping these rocks and doing science to assess how these rocks formed and how these rare and important metals were emplaced in the rocks.
Mapping Coastal Sediment Supply and Salt Marsh Resilience
Salt marshes protect coastal communities from flooding, store carbon, and provide critical habitat, yet many marshes across the Northeastern United States are becoming increasingly unstable. We developed a new 30m resolution satellite dataset that maps suspended sediment in nearshore waters to investigate how sediment availability influences marsh stability. We found that marshes rely heavily on marine-sourced sediment—the material stirred up by waves and tides and carried landward—to maintain elevation and keep pace with sea-level rise. Over the past two decades, nearshore sediment concentrations have declined sharply south of Boston, while remaining relatively stable to the north. This loss of sediment limits the material available for marsh accretion and increases vulnerability to fragmentation and submergence.
By identifying where sediment supply is declining most rapidly, this research provides actionable insights for coastal managers. The results help target restoration and adaptation strategies - such as sediment augmentation, living shoreline design, and beneficial reuse of dredged material - to areas most at risk from accelerating sea-level rise and sediment starvation. These findings underscore that sustaining coastal marshes will require not only addressing rising seas but also maintaining the sediment processes that underpin their long-term resilience.
Satellite Monitoring of Massachusetts’ Salt Marshes and Restoration Projects
Massachusetts' salt marsh managers statewide continue racing to maintain marsh resilience amidst rising tides. In these efforts, managers face an array of hurdles: expediting permit applications, targeting the most problematic areas with optimal restoration techniques, and monitoring past, current, and future efforts. In response, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection established the MassMarsh initiative, funding scientists at the Massachusetts Geological Survey, University of Massachusetts Amherst, and partner institutions to create tools for assisting managers, such as interactive web interfaces, project tracking methodologies, location recommendations, and best practice guidelines.
Scientists at the Massachusetts Geological Survey working with MassMarsh have made significant headway in these efforts by employing publicly available satellite and aerial imagery. These research efforts have ranged from creating neural networks that automatically detect and assess tens of thousands of permanently inundated marsh areas (or pools) statewide, to building prototype web interfaces where managers can access interpretable geospatial statistics. Through these interfaces, managers can view the state of their marshes and projects, and diagnose automatically flagged areas of concern such as potential flooding zones from sea level rise or concerning signals at restoration sites. These tools help direct onsite assessment and inform future project planning, saving precious time and resources.
Efficacy of Novel Salt Marsh Restoration Methods
Salt marsh restoration enhances coastal protection, blue carbon storage, robust fisheries, tourism, and habitat conservation for fish, shellfish, and birds – including the endangered saltmarsh sparrow. Ditch remediation is a novel restoration technique designed to restore water tables in salt marshes that have been ditched as a means to drain the marsh platform for agricultural purposes and mosquito population control. Excessive drainage of salt marshes lowers the water table, causing organic material in the soil to decompose and release carbon dioxide, leading to soil compaction and elevation loss. Marsh loss in the face of accelerating sea level rise threatens the existence of these vital ecosystems. Remediating ditches by progressively filling them in with thatch can effectively “turn off” excess drainage channels created by humans, thereby restoring water tables to enhance marsh resilience (Figure 1a,b). However, permitting agencies lack an efficient process to implement ditch remediation projects because the efficacy and impacts of this emerging restoration strategy have not been studied.
Colleagues from UMass Amherst, Boston University, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, the Massachusetts Geological Survey, and the broader statewide MassMarsh Long-term Salt Marsh Resilient Research & Monitoring Program are coming together to study the efficacy of ditch remediation. Our team is monitoring the restoration of water tables across ditch remediation sites by deploying groundwater wells and measuring carbon dioxide flux (Figure a,c). We aim to assess if ditch remediation projects are achieving their intended outcomes of restoring marsh hydrology and reducing decomposition, so that practitioners and permitting agencies across Massachusetts can have the information they need to administer these projects efficiently and with confidence.
Massachusetts Statewide Forest Soil Assay
There is mounting evidence that forest soils regulate water storage, nutrient supply and availability, and carbon cycling—processes that underpin forest productivity and resilience. Key soil attributes include soil organic matter, nutrient status, and pH, and the abundance and spatial distribution of these attributes are shaped by geomorphic factors, inherent soil properties, and vegetation traits. Robust datasets already exist for these drivers, including the NRCS SSURGO database, the USGS Surficial Materials and Geologic Map databases (Fig. 1A), and the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), which has conducted decadal forest inventories since the 1960s (Fig. 1B). The goal of this project is to deliver the first coordinated assessment of forest soil condition across Massachusetts and to quantify how soil properties relate to forest resilience by integrating vegetation and geomorphic data and identifying the soil conditions associated with stands that remain resilient under stress and disturbance.
Soil organic matter (SOM) directly influences soil fertility, plant productivity, and climate mitigation. Preliminary results from linear mixed-effects models indicate that SOM concentration declines with slope angle, suggesting that steeper terrain has reduced capacity for SOM accumulation (Fig. 1C). SOM also declines with increasing distance to the nearest live plant and to decaying wood, consistent with localized inputs from nearby organic matter sources. Greater depth to bedrock may provide more storage volume for SOM, and finer-textured soils provide more mineral surface area for organic matter sorption. Although these results are preliminary, they underscore the need for forest management to incorporate geomorphic context and vegetation structure to sustain productivity and resilience.
How thick are salt marshes in the Northeast US? And why it matters
Salt marshes along the Northeast US coastline provide tremendous value for local and global communities, by protecting shorelines, filtering pollutants, and providing habitat for wildlife. While we often think about what’s happening on the surface of the marsh, we sometimes overlook what’s going on below the surface. Specifically, we currently don’t have a good sense for how deep marshes are in the Northeast US. Importantly, the thickness of a marsh plays a crucial role in shaping basic marsh characteristics, including soil structure and how water moves through the marsh package. In turn, thickness influences how a marsh may respond to restoration efforts.
With the goal to support restoration decision-making, our project set out to answer two main questions: 1) How thick are salt marshes in the Northeast US and 2) Can we reliably predict marsh thickness using remote methods, such as satellite imagery? Using nearly 2,500 thickness measurements from 53 sites across the Northeast region, combining new and previously published data, we built models to predict marsh thickness. We found that most Northeast marshes are less than 5 m deep and fall into two broad groups based on their geomorphologies: “thinner” marshes (~0.9 m or ~3 ft thick) and “thicker” marshes (~2.2 m or ~7 ft thick). These findings can help guide restoration projects, especially for thin-layer placement projects that aim to build marsh elevation, efforts to restore tidal water flow, and management of nutrient and carbon dynamics in the marsh itself and nearby waters.
Do seawalls and armoring threaten coastal ecosystems?
The coastal zone needs sediment to maintain beautiful and productive coastal environments that Bay Staters love - beaches, salt marshes, and shellfish beds. In most coasts, that sediment comes predominantly from rivers. But many parts of the Massachusetts coastline that have extensive beaches and salt marshes lack major rivers - for example, Cape Cod. In these regions, we know that bluffs eroding and slumping into the wave zone supplies some of that sediment, but that process hasn't been quantified or well-studied across the whole state.
Human attempts to mitigate the effects of sea level rise are, understandably, focused on slowing coastal erosion as much as possible. Coastal armoring structures such as seawalls, bulkheads, and revetments may be reducing the supply of fine-grain sediment to the coastal zone salt marshes which constitute one of our only natural barriers to coastal erosion. Massachusetts Geological Survey is researching the extent to which coastal erosion supplies fine-grain sediment to marshes and mudflats and how coastal armoring may changed the delivery of that sediment.
