New Jersey Coast Trip
The rain today reminded me that I needed to post photos from the coastal geology field trip that Sarah and I went on with Don Barber (BMC) and his sedimentology and marine geology class a few weekends ago. Unlike today, the weather was beautiful and sunny. With Don at the helm, we drove around the coastline, noted streets that no longer exist (they slipped into the ocean some time ago), watched dolphins, thought about erosion, where you should (or should not) build a house, and sea-level rise. We rambled through salt marshes, ate a picnic on the beach, took some sediment cores and of course brought some mud back with us. It was clear that the land has changed and continues to do so. Coastal environments are dynamic and enable us to learn about earth systems today, as well as in the past. Once informed about these processes we can make predictions and more informed decisions for the future (for example, where to build that house!). Not only do these environments provide us with a practical sense of the environment, but they are also a ton of fun to explore. Walking along the high tide line we found many treasures. Check out the photos for more.
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- early morning foggy ocean
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- why did they build these houses here?
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- explanations in the sand
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- ripples
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- beach profiling
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- all the way into the ocean
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- birds
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- surveying
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- mud rocks (taken back to lab for analysis)
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- washed up coal
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- sulfidic mud
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- alterniflora and patens
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- probably some nice metal oxidizing microbes in here (sample collected)
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- rambling through the salt marsh
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- PUSH!
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- nice core
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- dead trees from sea-level rise
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- more cores
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- we’ll take this one home
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- sufficiently muddy. field trip over.
