cause northerly transport on both sides of the inlet. A nodal zone, north of 
which transport is predominantly northerly and south of which it is southerly, 
has been postulated to exist north of Barnegat Inlet based on the relative 
orientations of the shoreline and the prevailing direction of wave approach 
(U.S. Army Engineer District, Philadelphia, 1974). Beach Haven Inlet, at the 
southern end of the island, is unstructured and remains extremely active with 
shifting tidal channels and bar formations occasionally blocking the inlet 
completely (U.S. Army Engineer District, Philadelphia, 1974). The shoreface 
morphology of the southern end of Long Beach Island was studied by Goldsmith, 
Farrell, and Goldsmith (1974) in an effort to document the dynamic nature of 
the shoreface system. Beach profiles collected over a 1-year period were used 
to calculate changes in sand volume per unit length of beach. The authors 
concluded that, despite large biweekly variations, there was a lack of total 
net volumetric change at many of the measured profiles. In many cases, the 
biweekly fluctuations exceeded the net annual changes over the study period. 
They also concluded that, unlike most west coast beaches, the Long Beach Island 
profiles exhibited no seasonal cycle of erosion and recovery. There were, in 
fact, cases in which net volumetric change occurred in opposite directions at 
adjacent profiles. Other studies summarizing beach changes, inlet processes 
over various time scales, as well as wave and climate conditions during the 
BEP study include Plusquellac (1966), Charlesworth (1968), Darling (1968), 
Halsey (1968), and Dames and Moore (1973, 1974). Bretschneider (1964) pro- 
vided a detailed description of processes occurring along the island during 
the March 1962 storm. The net sand transport along the beaches of 115,000 
cubic meters per year toward the south was estimated from dredging records 
of Barnegat Inlet (Beach Erosion Board, 1958; U.S. Army, Corps of Engineers, 
Coastal Engineering Research Center, 1977). Changes to the strand of beaches 
between the two inlets during the 1963 to 1973 study period have been the sub- 
ject of two additional investigations--one dealing with the short-term altera- 
tions caused by a specific storm (DeWall, Pritchett and Galvin, 1977), the other 
an evaluation of some long-term changes (Everts and Czerniak, 1977). A major 
storm event affecting the beaches after the termination of the BEP measure- 
ment program was reported in Birkemeier (1979). 
3. Offshore Bathymetry. 
Fields of shoaling features are present on the Inner Continental Shelf 
regions from Long Island to Florida (Duane, et al., 1972). These shoals are 
linear or arcuate, isolated, or associated with other features such as inlets. 
Three shoreface-connected linear shoals are easily identified along Long Beach 
Island from soundings taken in 1937, 1955, 1963, and 1965. Other, less well- 
developed features are also present (Fig. 4). The shape and position of the 
shoals appear stable. The features off of the island are typical of similar 
shoals near Fenwick Island, Maryland, and other barrier island localities farther 
south. The Long Beach Island shoals open toward the north, making an angle 
between 20° and 30° with the shoreline. Peahala Ridge, the best developed 
of the three, is attached to the shore at about Beach Haven and extends at an 
angle of 20° to the shoreline for a distance of 5.6 kilometers measured 
along the. axis to the 10emeter contour. The mean axis slope is 1:600 and is 
fairly constant while the side slopes are 1:100. The method of formation of 
these ridges is presently undetermined. The relatively constant angle to the 
shoreline in spite of the shoreline orientation indicates they are generated 
by nearshore hydrodynamic processes. Subbottom seismic studies and test 
borings in some of the ridges show the shoreface-connected shoals are 
15 
