Life's a Beach! EarthCache
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Beaches are natural geological formations that develop where a body of water meets the land. Beaches can be made of a variety of materials - sand and/or rock: silica or quartz and other hard materials: (gypsum, obsidian, coral, shells, and oolites).
Sand is sediment made up of different types of rocks and shells that were ground up by the waves over hundreds of thousands of years: mechanical weathering. Rocky beaches are often caused by more recent natural erosion of the land and will become a sandy beach as time goes on. After reaching a certain size the broken down rock and shell particles move easily and are tossed around by the wind and water. As the particles rub against each other they break down even further in size. Eventually these sand particles are carried by the wind and form dunes. A single grain of sand is home to bacteria, diatoms, and microscopic organisms.
This beach is not very steep at the shoreline; this tells us that the water offshore is shallow. The waves that hit the shoreline carry sand and small rocks, which build up the beach and shape the coastline. Beaches on tidal waters will become sandy faster than those with no tides. The time between high and low tide is six hours apart and the tide cycle happens 50 minutes later each day.
The littoral zone is the intertidal zone where land and sea meet, covered with water at high tide and exposed to the air during low tide. Complex marine ecosystems live on the edge. The dry sand above the high water mark is called the backshore and is where tides and waves form a beach berm like a wave of sand capped with a crest. Just above the high tide line is the wrack line also called the strand. This is where you may see a line of seaweed, debris and other matter that was washed ashore by the incoming tide. Over time, this decomposing organic matter will trap sand and sediment to build sand dunes. Sand dunes are an important part of the coast as they are land’s first defense against the forces of the ocean. Dunes protect beaches which are also threatened by human activity, both intentional and unintentional. Humans have impacted sand dunes in opposing ways: development has harmed them whereas conservation has enriched them.
Email or message me the answers to the following questions please. (DO NOT POST THEM IN YOUR LOG, thank you.) Logging Requirements:
1. At the time of your visit, what is the tidal flow? Provide date and time of visit.
2. Is there a backshore present? How high is the backshore in regard to the littoral zone?
3. Give one example of both a positive and a negative impact that humans have had on the dune here.
4. Optional: take a picture of yourself at this location with the ocean in the background.
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Treasures
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