meters of fill material was distributed there and 83,400 cubic meters of 

 sand was placed to form a new 520-meter transition section from the 

 original northern limits of the project beach. A temporary wooden groin 

 was constructed at the transition junction between the two fill sites. 



Despite the 1967 emergency action, serious erosion continued, 

 requiring the supplemental emergency construction in 1970 of a 335-meter 

 rubble-mound seawall extending southward from the northern boundary of 

 the project. In conjunction with the seawall construction, 264,500 

 cubic meters of fill material from the sediment trap located inside 

 Carolina Beach Inlet was placed along the northern 1.2 kilometers of 

 shoreline. By late spring 1971, the southern 3.47 kilometers of the 

 project beach had been partially restored with approximately 581,000 

 cubic meters of material from a borrow area located in the Cape Fear 

 River. The rubble-mound seawall was extended an additional 290 meters 

 southward in 1973. The severe erosion trend of the northern project 

 limits continued despite the numerous remedial measures taken. 



Kure Beach has a shoreline about 4.25 kilometers in length, and is 

 situated between Carolina Beach to the north and Fort Fisher to the 

 south (Fig. 4). The city of Kure Beach and the unincorporated towns of 

 Wilmington Beach and Hanby Beach are located in this segment. Dune 

 heights average 2.5 meters above MSL along this segment; beaches have a 

 median sand grain size of 0.30 millimeter and an average beach profile 

 slope of 1 on 30. The beaches along this shoreline remained relatively 

 stable during the study period. 



Fort Fisher, the southernmost segment of shoreline studied, is 

 approximately 6.25 kilometers long and extends southward from Kure Beach 

 to just north of New Inlet (Figs. 4 and 5). The mean grain size of the 

 beach sand is 0.27 millimeter and the average slope is approximately 1 

 on 36. The northern 1.6 kilometers of shoreline is a sandy beach, mostly 

 undeveloped, which varies in width from 27 to 55 meters. This section 

 remained relatively stable during the study period. The central stretch 

 of beach contains the historic remains of a Confederate Army 

 fortification known as Fort Fisher, which was built adjacent to New 

 Inlet. Since the closure of this inlet in 1883, rapid erosion exposed 

 an outcrop of coquina rock located adjacent to the remains of the fort 

 (Fig. 1). The sandy beach fronting Fort Fisher varied in width from 

 to 45 meters during mean tide levels, and the sand bluff along the 

 backshore continued to erode at a critical rate, thus requiring con- 

 struction of an emergency rubble revetment. In July 1965, additional 

 rubble was placed along both the northern and southern flanks; 11,500 

 cubic meters of sand was also placed along 213 meters of shore north of 

 the revetment. In May 1967, an extratropical cyclone caused severe 

 erosion to the 1965 emergency fill which required placement of another 

 11,500 cubic meters of sand along the same beach section. In 1970, 

 further emergency measures were implemented by placement of a limestone 

 revetment along a part of the upland bluff which had previously been 

 protected by the beach fills. The southernmost 4.58 kilometers of shore 

 is an accreting sandspit characterized by low topography and a sandy 

 beach with widths between 60 and 275 meters. 



The study area and the beach-fill projects are further described in 

 Vallianos (1970), U.S. Army Engineer District, Wilmington (1970, 1974, 

 and 1977), and Jarrett (1977). 



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