Hollywood Beach Migration EarthCache
Hollywood Beach Migration
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(other)
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A beach is defined as a strech of sand or gravel along a shoreline. This fact makes beaches moveable and geological formations. When most beaches move they form dunes and swamps. Strangly, neither of these can be seen here. The composition of a beach determines its movability. In Florida, for example, the beaches are made of coral and are hard for natural to move. New England, on the other hand has very fine grained sand beaches from the glaciers that covered that area of the country. Often the area behind the beach is lower than the beach itself because the sediments that are washed up stay congregated along the shoreline and rarely move farther inland. This is part of what makes this interesting because the sediments do have a tendency to move inland here. The movement that is visible is not seasonal, like the cache farther up the beach. These movements are somewhat permanent and may take many years to reverse direction. At this time the beachs appear to be retreating farther inland as a result of erosion from both the waves and the wind. The proof of this is visible on many of the beaches in the area. The second waypoint is an interesting location to view this. Man, however, has been trying to stop the beach from moving farther inland. This can be seen from both of the waypoints listed. It is actually somewhat hard to tell what the signs are that the beach is retreating in with these stops. The process by which a beach moves is quite simple. First there has to be enough sediments to form a beach. Next, the movements of the waves start to erode the beach down but at the same time drives more sand onto the beach. The amount of sand eroded and the amount driven onto the beach determines how much the beach has eroded. The usual effect is that the beach is added on to, but as said before, this beach appears to be shrinking. That is what is so different about this beach. Occassionally more sand is dumped on the beaches to help keep them at a constant level. This snad is put here from dredgingof the harbors of the sand that gets deposited into them.
To get credit for this earthcache email me the answers to the following questions:
1. The GC code and name of this cache.
2. The number of people in your group.
3. At the posted coordinates are there any piles of sand in the empty lot across the street?
4. What does the answer to question 1 tell us about how well the efforts to protect the beaches in the harbor work?
5. Does the jetty at the second coordinates seem to be having any effect on the erosion of the beach?
6. In your opinion, what are the signs that these beaches are retreating inland naturally?
Additional Hints
(No hints available.)