Georgia. North Carolina, with a small tidal range and dominance of wave 

 energy, has long, narrow barrier islands with few inlets, backed by large, 

 open lagoons. Georgia has short, stubby barrier islands, numerous and large 

 inlets, large ebb deltas and no flood deltas, and marsh- filled lagoons, 

 resulting from a dominance of tidal effects over wave influence. Nummedal 

 et al. (1977) note that North Carolina lagoons have 30-percent or more open 

 water, but southern South Carolina lagoons have a maximum of 20 -percent open 

 water. The coast within the study area ranges from high microtidal/low meso- 

 tidal in the north to mesotidal in the south. Nummedal et al . (1977) illus- 

 trate a variety of factors, including tidal range, which vary along the South 

 Atlantic coast (Figure 15) . Variation in these factors influences the nature 

 of the shoreline transition from north to south. 

 Arcuate strand 



32. Brown (1977) recognized three distinct geomorphic zones along South 

 Carolina's coast. Northernmost is the arcuate strand, extending from Winyah 

 Bay north to the state border. This is the most stable area of the coast, 

 being immediately backed by the Myrtle Beach (DuBar 1971) Pleistocene beach 

 ridge terrace. Dunes are well developed along this coast. Hubbard et al . 

 (1977) measured erosion rates along the arcuate strand of 1 m/year or less. 

 Erosion rates for the North Carolina extension of the arcuate strand were also 

 less than 1 m/year in an investigation by Wahls (1973). Nearshore cores col- 

 lected by Meisburger (1979) and cores recently collected for the US Army Engi- 

 neer District, Charleston,* show Pleistocene, Tertiary, and/or Cretaceous 

 sediments within a few metres of the surface in this area. Partially consoli- 

 dated pre-Holocene sediments are probably more stable against erosion. 



33. Hubbard et al . (1977) noted that an exception to stability of the 

 arcuate strand coastline was in the vicinity of inlets. They measured changes 

 up to 15 m/year at Murrells Inlet. Miller (1983), in investigating beach pro- 

 file changes at Holden Beach, North Carolina, noted that largest variations 

 occurred near inlets. The arcuate strand has relatively few inlets, and they 

 are small in comparison to those farther south. FitzGerald, Hubbard, and 

 Nummedal (1978) note that only 2 percent of northern South Carolina coast is 

 occupied by inlets, compared with 20 to 25 percent in southern South Carolina. 



* Personal Communication, 1987, T. W. Kana, Coastal Science & Engineering 

 Inc., Columbia, SC. 



31 



