DEPOSITS DUCK HARBOR

Image: Still taken from GoPro footage of jump from oceanographic research vessel the American Promise/Rozalia Project voyage from Kittery Point to Provincetown August, 2026. Video from Sandy Bay, near Rockport, MA, 42.6649 , -70.6159.

A Part of the Field Notes Project Series

DEPOSITS translates geological data into sound to reveal the environmental histories embedded below us.

DEPOSITS : DUCK HARBOR CORE III

OVERVIEW

Deposits: Duck Harbor Core 3 is a sound work that translates 1,200 years of sediment core data from Duck Harbor saltmarsh, Wellfleet, Massachusetts into music. It is the first completed piece in the Deposits commission, itself the first work in the ongoing series Field Notes: A Requiem. The piece was completed in September 2026 using custom Python code to generate a six-track MIDI file from scientific datasets, subsequently realized in Reaper with instrument samples from the G-Town Church Sampling Project.

SITE CONTEXT

Duck Harbor is a saltmarsh located within the Herring River watershed in Wellfleet, Massachusetts. The site is central to one of the largest tidal marsh restoration projects in New England, a multi-agency effort to restore tidal flow that was cut off by the construction of the Chequessett Neck Dike in 1909. The dike blocked tidal exchange for over a century, fundamentally altering the marsh ecology. The restoration project is ongoing.

SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATION

Primary Scientist: Dr. K. Castagno, Geologist, Center for Coastal Studies, Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Dr. Castagno collected five vibracores from Duck Harbor (DH_VC_3.1 through DH_VC_3.5) and provided all sediment analysis data including loss-on-ignition organic percentage measurements, grain size analysis, Munsell color classification, and Bacon age models. Core 3 (DH_VC_3.3) was selected as the first piece in the series because it is the deepest of the five cores with reliable dating, extending to 140cm and recording approximately 1,200 years of marsh history.

A public talk presenting the completed Deposits series is scheduled for June 2027 at the Center for Coastal Studies, Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Funding: The Arts Foundation of Cape Cod.

KEY SCIENTIFIC FINDINGS FROM CORE 3

No Peat or Clay
Core 3 contains no peat or clay layers. The entire 140cm record consists of sand and silt only, indicating this location within Duck Harbor was subject to consistently energetic hydrological conditions throughout the recorded period.

The 1635 Hurricane
Confirmed present in Core 3 at 43cm depth, median calendar year 1633 CE, 95% confidence interval 1572 CE to 1704 CE. Appears in the sediment record as a coarse sand deposit. Dr. Castagno confirmed the hurricane is visible in cores 3 and 4 only.

Surface Organic Bloom
The surface layers record a dramatic increase in organic content to 75.1%. This represents the most recent deposition captured before sampling and does not represent restoration effects, as the restoration was not yet complete at the time of sampling. In the piece this registers as the organic melody blooming to its highest pitch and loudest volume in the final seconds.

HOW THE DATA WAS TRANSFORMED INTO MUSIC

Time Axis
The Bacon age model converted each sediment depth to a calendar year. The oldest data point in the sediment CSV (140cm, 817 CE) was mapped to the beginning of the composition. The most recent data point (1cm, 2016 CE) was mapped to the end. The piece travels from ancient to recent – oldest layer first, most recent last. The MIDI spans approximately 188 seconds to the last note, with natural instrument decay continuing to approximately 3:10.

Sediment Classification by Description
Each of the 140 depth measurements was classified into one of four tracks using text description matching only:

Track 1: Very Fine Sand and Very Coarse Silt (14 data points total)
Track 2: Fine Sand (38 data points)
Track 3: Medium Sand (45 data points)
Track 4: Coarse Sand (43 data points)

Note Clustering by Energy
The physical energy required to transport sediment particles increases with grain size. This was encoded musically through note clustering: Very fine sand and silt generate 1 note per data point. Fine sand generates 1 note per data point. Medium sand generates 2 simultaneous notes per data point. Coarse sand generates 3 simultaneous notes per data point.

Velocity Scaling
Note velocity (loudness) was scaled proportionally to grain size (d50) across the confirmed range of 39.0 to 647.3 micrometers. Larger grain size equals louder note.

The 1635 Hurricane Marker
The hurricane layer at 43cm depth maps to a beat position of 2:07 in the rendered piece. This is calculated from: the age model placing 43cm at 1633 CE, the sediment data confirming coarse sand at 43cm, and the MIDI timing scaling 1633 CE to 127.9 seconds in the actual file. The hurricane is audible as part of the coarse sand track (bongo loop) which enters at 1:18. A single struck gong will be added at 2:07 in the final mixed version to mark the event explicitly.

Organic Percent Melody
A continuous melodic thread runs through the entire piece on Track 5. Each of the 140 data points generates one note. Pitch is determined by organic percentage across the confirmed range of 0.2% to 75.1%. Low organic maps to low Gong pitch, high organic maps to high pitch. The melody is very quiet and low for most of the piece, then blooms loudly in the final seconds as the surface layer’s 75.1% organic content registers.

Visual Core Scan
A sixth track was generated by scanning the actual photograph of Core 3 pixel by pixel from the bottom (oldest) to the top (most recent). At each of 120 evenly spaced sample points, the average brightness of a horizontal strip across the core column was measured. Dark pixels mapped to lower Gong pitches, light pixels to higher pitches. This track sits in the C2 register and acts as a quiet continuous foundation.

The Gong Pentatonic Scale
All six tracks use the Gong pentatonic scale: C, D, E, G, A – semitone offsets 0, 2, 4, 7, 9 from root. The scale contains no semitones and no tritone, producing no dissonance regardless of which combination of notes sound simultaneously. Track registers: Track 1 C3, Track 2 C4, Track 3 C5, Track 4 C6, Track 5 C4, Track 6 C2.

INSTRUMENT ASSIGNMENTS
All instruments from the G-Town Church Sampling Project by Tobias Marberger. Creative Commons license.

Track 1 – Very Fine Sand / Very Coarse Silt: Toy Glockenspiel C#4
Track 2 – Fine Sand: Egg
Track 3 – Medium Sand: Mandolin C#4
Track 4 – Coarse Sand: Bongo Loop
Track 5 – Organic Percent Melody: Wood Sticks
Track 6 – Visual Core Scan: Water Bowl B

CONFIRMED HISTORICAL TIMELINE
Event timestamps calculated from age model and sediment data, verified against actual MIDI file timing. Hurricane timestamp confirmed from direct mapping of 43cm depth through age model to MIDI beat position.

0:00 | 817 CE | Piece begins in the Viking Era
0:39 | 1066 CE | Norman Conquest of England
1:23 | 1347 CE | Black Death reaches Europe
1:45 | 1492 CE | Colonization of the Americas begins
2:05 | 1620 CE | Pilgrims arrive Plymouth
2:07 | 1635 CE | Hurricane (confirmed at 43cm depth, median 1633 CE)
2:14 | 1675 CE | King Philip’s War
2:30 | 1776 CE | American Revolution
2:51 | 1909 CE | Chequessett Neck Dike construction
2:56 | 1945 CE | World War II ends
2:59 | 1962 CE | Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring
3:08 | 2016 CE | Sampling / last MIDI note

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
MIDI format: Format 1, 6 tracks, 480 ticks per beat
Tempo: 60 BPM
Total notes: 515 (confirmed by direct file analysis)
Note duration: 0.5 beats per note. Sustain handled by instrument release in Reaper.
Source MIDI file: deposits_core3_fixed__6_.mid
DAW: Reaper
Code: Custom Python script generating binary MIDI directly from scientific data files.

CITATIONS AND REFERENCES

Primary data: Castagno, K. (2025). Duck Harbor Vibracore Dataset DH_VC_3.3. Center for Coastal Studies, Provincetown, Massachusetts. Unpublished raw data.
Age modeling: Blaauw, M. and Christen, J.A. (2011). Flexible paleoclimate age-depth models using an autoregressive gamma process. Bayesian Analysis 6(3): 457-474.
Color classification: Munsell Color Chart, 10YR series. Munsell Color, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Instrument samples: Marberger, Tobias. G-Town Church Sampling Project. Creative Commons license. Grebbestad, Sweden.
Site context: Herring River Restoration Project. herringriver.org.
Historical event: Hurricane of 1635. Confirmed in sediment record by Dr. K. Castagno, 2025. Present in cores 3 and 4 only.

Link to full PDF

This project is partially funded by the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod.