INSTRUMENTATION AT CERC ' S FIELD RESEARCH FACILITY, 

 DUCK, NORTH CAROLINA 



by 

 H. Carl Miller 



I. INTRODUCTION 



The Coastal Engineering Research Center's (CERC) Field Research Facility 

 (FRF) is located on the Outer Banks, North Carolina, near the village of Duck 

 (Fig. 1). The FRF provides a means for obtaining high-quality field data, par- 

 ticularly during storms, in support of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers coastal 

 research missions. The FRF consists of an 1,840 foot-long concrete research 

 pier supported on 3-f oot-diameter steel piles. The pier deck is 20 feet wide, 

 25 feet above mean sea level (MSL) , and extends from behind the dunes to approx- 

 imately the 25-foot depth contour. In addition, the main building contains 

 offices, a technical library, an instrument repair shop, and a data acquisition 

 room. 



A Basic Environmental Measurements (BEM) program has been established to 

 collect, analyze, and disseminate data on selected oceanographic and meteoro- 

 logical conditions at the FRF. Weekly bottom profiles along both sides of the 

 pier and periodic bathymetric surveys (from behind the dune to 1 or 2 miles from 

 shore) along ranges as far as 2.5 miles north and south of the pier are also 

 performed as part of the BEM. 



This report describes the instrumentation maintained at the FRF for the BEM 

 study and the types of data that are obtained as part of that program. It is 

 intended as a reference report to provide users with information necessary for 

 an understanding of how and where the data are collected. Subsequent reports 

 will summarize the data collected by the instruments described herein. 



Section II describes the instruments and their locations. Section III de- 

 scribes the data sampling procedure and the format of each type of data summary; 

 Section IV discusses how to request data from CERC. An Appendix contains in- 

 stallation summaries for each instrument described in this report. 



II. INSTRUMENTATION AT THE FRF 



CERC maintains most of the oceanographic and meteorologic instrumentation 

 in the vicinity of the FRF. However, tide gages have been installed by the 

 National Ocean Survey (NOS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 

 (NOAA) to monitor water levels in the ocean along the pier and in the sound ad- 

 jacent to the FRF. The NOS Tides Branch at Rockville, Maryland, prepares month- 

 ly water level summaries from selected gages. In addition, the National Weather 

 Service (NWS), NOAA, maintains wind measuring anemometers at the facility. 



1. Oceanographic Instruments . 



The location of each oceanographic instrument at the FRF (described below) 

 is shown in Figure 2; station numbers in the figure correspond to the distance 

 (in feet) from a reference base line to the installation. The shore end of the 

 pier is at station number 1+20. 



