Lockeport’s Tombolo EarthCache

Lockeport's Tombolo

Lockeport is a town and port in Shelburne County, Nova Scotia, Canada. It is a traditional Nova Scotian fishing town, situated on a peninsula in Allendale Bay. It is connected to the mainland at Ginger Hill by the Crescent Beach causeway. The area that surrounds the bay is known as the "Ragged Islands." The town is on  2.33 km2 (0.90 sq mi) of land with an elevation of 3m (10ft).

The Crescent beach causeway is a tombolo. A tombolo is a sandbar that connects an island to the mainland. Tombolos are formed when the wave refraction off two landmasses (the island and the mainland) is such that sand and other sediments (solid fragments of organic or inorganic materials that come from weathered rock and transported by wind, water, or ice) are deposited between them and build up faster than they can be removed. Over time, these sediments form a ridge that eventually becomes higher in elevation than sea level and connects the island to the mainland at all tides. Once attached, the island becomes known as a tied island.

The tides along the south coast of Nova Scotia range from 3-6 meters every twelve hours. Tombolo (tidal island)  is an Island you can access either at low tide or all day depending on the size of the sand bar.  The tombolo connects the town of Lockeport to the mainland of the Lockeport peninsula. The beach causeway is passabe at all times with a beach on the south side, road way in the middle and large marsh on the north side.

Sandbars begin forming underwater. As waves break, this pulls material from the shoreline, migrating further into the ocean. During heavy storms, large waves can build sandbars far from shore, until they rise above the water’s surface. The sand bar structure depends on the material it is made of, some are loose and some are hard packed. Some can be just below the surface at high tides and others have developed so much they raise above the sea level and may become roadways.

To log this Earthcache visit the viewing location.  Please answer the following questions and send in a timely manner to my geocaching profile or email. Answers not received will result in deleted logs.

Questions:

1 - How long is the tombolo?

2 - How wide it the tombolo?

3 - How is it different on the South side from the North side?

4 - On the south side, how is the sand different from the top to the bottom?

5 - Post a picture of the site.

[REQUIRED] In accordance with the updated guidelines from Geocaching Headquarters published in June 2019, photos are now an acceptable logging requirement and WILL BE REQUIRED TO LOG THIS CACHE. Please provide a photo of yourself or a personal item in the picture to prove you visited the site.