Top Left: The Duck pier is a stable base 

 for research instruments. 

 Bottom Left: Rebecca Beavers exam- 

 ines sedimentaiy cores. 

 Above: Video cameras give researchers 

 a bird's-eye view of waves and sandbar 

 movement. 



than those used to land airliners, and 

 each of the tires is filled with nearly a 

 ton of water to keep it on the bottom. 

 The vehicle once tipped over on a too- 

 steep slope in calm water. Every 

 precaution is taken now to make sure 

 that doesn't happen again. 



Any discussion of valuable assets at 

 the FRF wouldn't be complete without a 

 mention of the Duck pier, which is 

 central to gathering information about 

 waves and currents. The concrete and 

 steel pier, which reaches about a third of 

 a mile from the dunes to the ocean, was 

 built in the late '70s. It is mounted on 

 pilings that are set 40 feet apart and 



extend 50 to 

 100 feet 

 beneath the 

 sediment 

 surface. The 

 platform is 

 unshakable, 

 providing a 

 stable base 

 for oceano- 

 graphic 

 instrumenta- 

 tion. 



It's the 

 perfect 

 platform for 

 the Sensor 

 Insertion 

 System (SIS), 

 a custom- 

 designed 

 crane that 

 precisely 

 places 



instruments in 

 the ocean. 

 "Most 

 sediment 

 transport 



occurs when waves are really big," 

 Birkemeier says. "Of course, measure- 

 ments in waves when conditions are at 

 their worst is difficult. So, with this 

 system, we can measure waves when- 

 ever we want to, even in our biggest 

 waves." 



You might think that watching 

 sensors float in the waves would be as 

 popular as an underwater basket- 

 weaving convention. But some of the 

 gizmos at SandyDuck had tourists and 

 locals doing double takes. This summer, 

 Beavers took more than 3,500 curious 

 people on hour-long tours of the 

 research site. 



"People saw the CRAB and the 

 LARC, or Lighter Amphibious Resup- 

 ply Cargo vessel, and wanted to know 

 what we were doing," she says. "Since 

 my tour was a thinly disguised introduc- 

 tory lecture on sediment transport, many 

 visitors were led to ask questions about 

 our work in the surf zone and how the 

 beach system works. But when we came 



to the end of the tour, it seemed that for 

 many people it came down to pretty 

 much the same thing — how will this 

 research save property during a hurri- 

 cane? Providing a definitive answer to 

 that important question is one of the goals 

 of the whole project." 



Though the experiments are finished, 

 Birkemeier says the benefits from the 

 research necessarily have a time lag. 

 "With the SandyDuck research, scientists 

 have to take their data back to their 

 institutions and start analyzing them this 

 winter. Then they begin the process of 

 exposing their work to peer review, 

 publishing results in journals and 

 reporting their results at meetings. It is 

 from this point forward that the results 

 begin to make their way into the hands of 

 engineers and others who can apply the 

 science in ways that are of direct benefit 

 to consumers." 



Drake adds that the studies have a 

 strong connection to North Carolina 

 coastal science and will help answer the 

 public's questions and concerns about 

 coastal erosion and the role of geology 

 and storms in shoreline change, the role 

 of hurricanes in creating inlets, shoreline 

 impacts of inlet migration (or stopping 

 inlet migration with jetties), groundwater 

 problems related to development on 

 barrier islands, beach erosion at the Cape 

 Hatteras lighthouse — the whole gamut 

 of coastal issues. 



"It's clear that we have a very thin, 

 valuable veneer of sand on which 

 thousands of homes now rest," Drake 

 says. "No longer can homes just be 

 pulled back from the shore when the 

 beach disappeared, as they used to do in 

 the days of Orville and Wilbur (Wright). 

 As the shoreline moves inexorably west, 

 we need to put together a strategy for our 

 beaches." 



More information about SandyDuck 

 '97 is available on the World Wide Web. 

 Go to http://www.frf.usace.army.mil and 

 click on "SandyDuck." There's even a 

 slide show with a week-by-week view of 

 experiments, equipment and participating 

 scientists. □ 



Free-lance writer Elizabeth Burke is 

 married to SandyDuck' s Tom Drake. 



COASTWATCH 25 



