The 1974 Water Resources Act provided funding over a 5-year period to 

 plan and conduct new studies to stabilize tke Presque Isle shore. The plan 

 being studied by the U.S. Army Engineer District, Buffalo, may include the 

 construction of five segmented offshore breakwaters and the placement of 1.3 

 million cubic meters of suitable coarse sandfill, along with annual nourish- 

 ment requirements of about 137 000 cubic meters (U.S. Army Engineer District, 

 Buffalo, 1979). Over a 50-year project life the requirement for sandfill would 

 be about 8.1 million cubic meters. 



This report discusses a survey that was conducted in 1977 and 1978, cover- 

 ing about 900 square kilometers of the Pennsylvania region of Lake Erie, by 

 means of high resolution seismic reflection profiles and vibratory cores with 

 the objective of providing detailed information on the character and quantities 

 of submerged sand and gravel deposits. This data base will provide a significant 

 contribution to the Beach Erosion Control Study of Presque Isle Peninsula cur- 

 rently being conducted by the Buffalo District. 



1. Scope of Survey . 



The study area covered about 900 square kilometers of Lake Erie, from 

 the Ohio-Pennsylvania border east 45 kilometers to the city of Erie, Penn- 

 sylvania, with particular emphasis on the offshore areas of the Presque Isle 

 Peninsula (Fig. 1). The area of data collection extended from the shore 

 lakeward generally about 8 kilometers, excluding the area northwest of Presque 

 Isle that contains an elongate submerged ridge extending to Long Point on the 

 Canadian side. Data coverage over the ridge area extends a maximum of 32 kilo- 

 meters from the shore to the Canadian border. Water depths in the areas sur- 

 veyed ranged from about -5 to -23 meters. A total of 416 kilometers of high 

 resolution continuous seismic reflection profiles and 49 cores were collected 

 (Fig. 2). Core lengths ranged from 1.3 to 6.1 meters and averaged 4.1 meters. 

 Throughout both the seismic and coring surveys a Motorola Mini-Ranger III 

 electronic positioning system was used to accurately record the positions 

 of the survey vessels. The stated accuracy of this system is ± 3 meters. These 

 basic data were supplemented by pertinent scientific and technical literature 

 and available National Ocean Survey (NOS) charts. 



The seismic and coring data were collected during summer surveys in 1977 

 and 1978, as part of the Coastal Field Data Collection Program conducted by 

 the Coastal Engineering Research Center (CERC) . Additional funding and admin- 

 istrative support needed for a detail study of the offshore ridge was pro- 

 vided by the U.S. Army Engineer District, Buffalo. The present study is 

 part of a larger investigation by CERC covering the south shore of Lake Erie 

 from Erie to Toledo, Ohio. The Ohio part of the study was done in cooperation 

 with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Geological Survey 

 and results from those surveys are presented in two other reports, Williams, 

 et al. (1980) and Carter, et al . (in preparation, 1982). 



2. Geographic Setting and Lake Floor Topography . 



The study area is situated near the southern boundary of the eastern lake 

 section that is part of the Central Lowland Physiographic Province. This en- 

 tire region has been subjected to multiple episodes of continental glaciation 

 during the past several million years and much of the land topography and drain- 

 age has been determined by the glacial events of erosion and deposition. The 



