Stratigraphic Cross Section of Ballast Pile of 18th Century Wreck.
From the PDF article link below.
I don't know how this is going to work. Google seems to be trying to funnel everybody into their products (which is nothing new), and now they've come out with new blogger software, and I don't know how to use it. I hate when they force you to learn all new stuff in their time just because they want to move you to their new products. That's one problem with these huge Internet companies. It is like a monopoly even though it isn't really a monopoly. It's that you have all this time invested in old products which work perfectly well and then they force you to start from near zero on their new products.
Anyhow, I'll be crawling along for a while as I try to learn this new junk.
I'm going to keep it simple today, I'm already tired of trying to figure out how to do this new stuff.
Here is a great report on a an 18th Century wreck near Louisiana. There are photos and illustrations and lots of good information.
Here is the link.
I originally discovered this report because I wanted to look at some photos of ballast rock. You don't see much ballast rock on the beach, although a lot of rocks have been washing up lately.
I was watching one rock as it washed up yesterday. It was pretty large - about a foot and a half across and probably five or six inches thick. It would have been real heavy to pick up, yet a few inches of water was moving it right up the slope. I was amazed how a few inches of water was moving that thing so easily and quickly.
I would have made a video of the rock as it got washed up the beach, but that was the day I had a dead battery and my video cam wouldn't work.
Water exerts more force on objects than you (or should I say I) would think. The weight is not the main factor. This rock was heavy but being relatively flat, it also presented a lot of surface area for the water to move against.
Weight is the main factor when you or I try to pick up a rock. The surface area doesn't matter much as long as we can get our hands on it. But the force of the water would be measured in pounds per square inch.
I really wish I had videoed that rock as it moved. It almost appeared to float. Of course, it wasn't floating, but when the water got under it, it almost looked like it.
So why am I talking about rocks? The answer is because I am always trying to figure out how things are moved on a beach. I try to figure out how cobs and other things end up where they are.
I have part of that figured out, but there is still some of it that I don't understand. Yet, I am learning.
If a cob moved anything like the larger rock, I can understand how they sometimes end up near the sea weed line. That has puzzled me. Of course, the rock I was watching was a lot bigger than any cob, yet I still learned something as I watched that rock.
Next time I see a rock moving like that I'll try to get a video of it so I can explain better.
Enough of that until I get some good videos.
Its not enough that google changes everything, but then I run across a mind-scrambling article.
I found an article that says, Among archaeologists who report rampant thefts of antiquities from their dig sites worldwide, U.S. archaeologists are unique in reporting run-ins with methamphetamine addicts bent on looting dig sites.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/11/survey-meth-addicts-looting-us-archeological-sites/1
After reading that article I felt compelled to respond in about a million different ways, but I'll just leave it alone.
Treaure Coast Beach Forecast and Conditions.
Here is the good news today. The wind is now from the north and the seas will be building Friday and reach upwards of about seven feet through the weekend. That could possibly mean improved conditions. We'll have to see if it actually happens and if the other factors are right.
Happy hunting,
