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- [REQUIRED] Please post a photo in your log of yourself or a personal item at MacCormack’s Beach to prove you visited the site.
- Looking at the spit from MacCormack’s Beach, which side of the spit do you think has more sediment build up, and why do you think that is happening? Do you see evidence of an estuary building?
- MacCormack’s Beach extends almost out to the start of Lawlor’s Island spit. Do you think this is a coincidence?
Lawlor's Island is located near the mouth of Halifax Harbour in Eastern Passage. It was the site of a major quarantine facility for immigration from 1866 to 1938 and is today owned by the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources as part of the McNabs Island provincial park reserve.
Measuring approximately 55 hectares (136 acres), it is located opposite MacCormacks Beach in Eastern Passage, just east of McNabs Island in the Halifax Regional Municipality. The island is covered with heavy grown woodland and serves as the protected home of deer and osprey.
The island's location near MacCormack’s Beach has developed a spit reaching toward the mainland.
A spit is a narrow coastal land formation that is tied to the coast at one end. In this case, it is tied to Lawlor’s Island. Spits frequently form where the coast abruptly changes direction and often occur across the mouths of estuaries; they may develop from each headland at harbour mouths. Spits, which may be composed of sand or shingle, are formed by the longshore movement of sediment. They often are complexly curved, with a characteristic recurved head (hook); this probably results from the refraction of waves around the spit’s end.
A spit or sandspit is a deposition bar or beach landform off coasts or lake shores. It develops in places where re-entrance occurs, such as at a cove's headlands, by the process of longshore drift by longshore currents. The drift occurs due to waves meeting the beach at an oblique angle, moving sediment down the beach in a zigzag pattern. This is complemented by longshore currents, which further transport sediment through the water alongside the beach. These currents are caused by the same waves that cause the drift.
Where the direction of the shore inland re-enters, or changes direction, for example at a headland, the longshore current spreads out or dissipates. No longer able to carry the full load, much of the sediment is dropped. This is called deposition. This submerged bar of sediment allows longshore drift or littoral drift to continue to transport sediment in the direction the waves are breaking, forming an above-water spit. Without the complementary process of littoral drift, the bar would not build above the surface of the waves becoming a spit and would instead be leveled off underwater.
Spits occur when longshore drift reaches a section of headland where the turn is greater than 30 degrees. The spit will continue out into the sea until water pressure (e.g. from a river) becomes too great to allow the sand to deposit. Vegetation may then start to grow on the spit, and the spit may become stable and often fertile. A spit may be considered a special form of a shoal. As spits grow, the water behind them is sheltered from wind and waves, and a salt marsh is likely to develop.
A tombolo is formed when a spit connects the mainland coast to an island. A spit is a feature that is formed through deposition of material at coastlines. The process of longshore drift occurs and this moves material along the coastline.
True tombolos are formed by wave refraction and diffraction. As waves near an island, they are slowed by the shallow water surrounding it. These waves then bend around the island to the opposite side as they approach. The wave pattern created by this water movement causes a convergence of longshore drift on the opposite side of the island. The beach sediments that are moving by lateral transport on the lee side of the island will accumulate there, conforming to the shape of the wave pattern. In other words, the waves sweep sediment together from both sides. Eventually, when enough sediment has built up, the beach shoreline, known as a spit, will connect with an island and form a tombolo.