About the Sea Bright-Monmouth Beach Seawall:
The Sea Bright-Monmouth Beach Beach Seawall is located along the Jersey Shore in Monmouth County, New Jersey. It roughly runs in a north-south direction along 4.7 miles (7.6 km) of the barrier spit of land along the lower Sandy Hook peninsula between the Atlantic Ocean and the Shrewsbury River estuary. Thus, this earthcache and its logging tasks can be completed at any part of the seawall.
History of the Seawall:
The development of the area began in the 1860s when the coast became a resort. Since then the use of seawalls, jetties, bulkheads, revetment, and beach nourishment has made the stretch of coast one of the most heavily engineered sections of ocean shorefront in the world. In recent years, Hurricane Sandy in 2012 devastated this coastal area. From 2017 to 2018, this seawall was reconstructed and repaired.
Beach Nourishment:
Since the Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962 beaches along the shores of the East Coast has been regularly replenished with sand pumped in from off-shore. A multi-year project in for replacing sand began in 1994 by the USACE and was originally completed in 2001 and been renourished 4 times since then. After Hurricane Sandy, approximately 5 million cubic yards of sand from the beaches in the area were washed away. The USACE in 2014 replaced more than 8 million cubic yards of sand thus restoring the project area to its original design profile.
What is a Seawall?
Seawalls are onshore structures with the principal function of preventing or alleviating overtopping and flooding of the land and the structures behind due to storm surges and waves. Seawalls are built parallel to the shoreline as a reinforcement of a part of the coastal profile. Quite often, seawalls are used to protect promenades, roads, and houses placed seaward of the crest edge of the natural beach profile. In these cases, a seawall structure protruding vertically or close to vertically from the beach profile must be built. Seawalls range from vertical face structures such as massive gravity concrete walls, tied walls using steel or concrete piling, and stone-filled cribwork to sloping structures with typical surfaces being reinforced concrete slabs, concrete armor units, or stone rubble.
Logging Requirements:
-
Observe the seawall at the GZ. Estimate its height. What material is this seawall made of?
-
Do you think that this seawall is an adequate solution to mitigating storm damage from hurricanes/tropical storms?
-
Name some consequences that this seawall will cause to this beach in future years.
-
As of June 2019, earthcaches are now allowed to have a required photo logging task. Please provide a photo of yourself, your GPSr, or a personal item that proves that you have visited this site. Please post this in your log.
Congrats to halbotz for the FTF!
Sources:
https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth107/node/1062
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Bright%E2%80%93Monmouth_Beach_Seawall
http://www.seafriends.org.nz/oceano/beacheng.htm
Enjoyed finding this EarthCache? Consider awarding it a favorite point!
| We have earned GSA's highest level: |
 |
