Bliss Corner, MA Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 8.9 miles southwest of Bliss Corner, MA?
Good news, and an honest one: USGS's data can't distinguish this stretch, 8.9 miles southwest of Bliss Corner, MA, from a flat trend. Whatever small movement it measured here is statistical noise, not a reliable direction, so none is claimed.
What "Bliss Corner" means on this page
USGS surveys the coast in transects spaced a few hundred feet apart; this page groups the nearest ones into a single ~3.5-mile reading for the stretch closest to Bliss Corner, MA, rather than showing one arbitrary line. Segment center: 41.50, -71.05. USGS's New England / Mid-Atlantic assessment last surveyed this stretch through 2007-2009, computing the rate with its LRR method. Other US regions were surveyed in different years, sometimes decades apart, so this page states its own rather than implying one national vintage.
What backs this reading up
Averaging 94 separate transects produced this segment's rate, with 84% individually reading as erosion, rather than relying on any single survey line. Uncertainty on this specific number: 0.15 ft/yr either side. The unadjusted figure here, -0.04 ft/yr, would place it 725 of 1211 if ranked directly - but an unreliable rank isn't a useful one, which is exactly why "no significant trend" is the headline instead. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. Gardiner, OR sits at national rank 1082 for growth (0.82 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 2658 miles from here. Bliss Corner, MA, 2.2 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, reading slight erosion at 0.18 ft/yr.
Not this whole stretch, just Bliss Corner itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.