4/17/19 Report - Seeing Beaches, Cuts, Bars and Dips Form. Reflections on Cathedral of Notre Dame.

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

I have an free Easter present for you today.  It is a little early. and it wasn't what I planned on doing, but it is just too good.

I'm going to show you an excellent wave tank video.  It begins with small slow waves and increases the frequency of the waves and then the size of the waves. You will get a really good look at how waves of different frequencies and sizes affect a beach differently.

There are some things I want you to watch carefully, so I'll give you advance warning.

Here is a clip that comes from the beginning of the video when the waves are small and the time between them is relatively large.

Small Infrequent Waves Building a Beach.

Notice how the sand is agitated in the high energy area where the wave is breaking.  I've mentioned this before, but this is the best illustration that I've seen.  You can really see the sand being suspended.  The suspended sand is then dropped on the beach as the water slows on the slope.

Suspended Sand Under Front of Wave.

You can really see how the sand is suspended in this clip  That sand moves back and forth as the wave passes, almost seeming to vibrate.  If you watch it in the video, you can see how similar it looks to the liquefaction video that I posted yesterday.  You can really see the similarity when the waves are more frequent.

While there is a lot of sand movement both ways in that area, there is a net movement either landward or seaward, depending upon the size and frequency of the waves.

When the frequency is increased,, you'll see the sand start to erode.  A small cut is created when the waves are frequent but not large.

Then when the waves get bigger, the whole thing accelerates, and a lot of sand migrates down the slope.

Bigger Waves Has Moved Sand Down The Slope And Has Created a Sandbar.

Notice also the dip.  That is an area that can expose a lot of objects on a beach, especially when the dip is down close to a hard rock or clay bottom.  That can be a real bonanza.

In the last clip, the sand has been completely removed from in front of the end of the tank.  That is how it would work if there was a sea wall or something behind a beach.  A sea wall will accelerate sand loss, as will a cut.

Now watch the video and you will see how all of those things develop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCirBRjYKSo

If you watched the entire video carefully several times, you probably got a lot out of it.

I watched it quite a few times and will probably watch it several more times.

Again, a wave tank is not exactly like a beach, but you will find some things the same.

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I wanted to comment on the Cathedral of Notre Dame.  We all saw the images.

Alain de Botton, author of the The Art of Travel said, “A dominant impulse on encountering beauty is to wish to hold on to it, to possess it and give it weight in one’s life. There is an urge to say, ‘I was here, I saw this and it mattered to me."

I lost the original reference, but I read the following in a current article. Maybe it was the New York Post, but I'm not sure.

… In a world that increasingly feels impermanent, transactional, brittle and under threat, the stillness and solidity of an 850-year-old steeple stretching into the sky gave us hope that some things remain. That how we once were is how we will always be.

Indulgently, these monuments are also a backdrop to our younger, more adventurous selves. They remind us of who we were when we fell in love or explored with friends or opened ourselves to long unscheduled weeks in unfamiliar lands.

You cannot gaze at a shimmering stained-glass window or find yourself dwarfed by a sepia-toned fresco and not feel sharper, rawer, as if in glimpsing beauty it is indelibly etched on your soul.

I think that is all pretty true, but watching it burn and crumble, reminds us that all things in this world, the most wondrous and long-lasting, will eventually crumble and fall.  In that we recognize our own mortality. And in the thought of rebuilding, we share the joy of resurrection Sunday.

Happy Easter!
TreasureGuide@comcast.net