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Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia) http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2003/0 901natlpark.html Sept. 18, 1999 Landsat image of Cape Cod. The Outer Beach (magenta arrow) along the right- hand side of the Cape is eroding back at a few feet per year. Some of the sand is building out to the south and north (yellow arrows), but some of the sand is being lost to deeper water, so the Cape is shrinking. All pictures in this slide show, except

Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia) Sept. 18, 1999 Landsat

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Page 1: Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)  Sept. 18, 1999 Landsat

Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2003/0901natlpark.html

Sept. 18, 1999 Landsat image of Cape Cod. The Outer Beach (magenta arrow) along the right-hand side of the Cape is eroding back at a few feet per year. Some of the sand is building out to the south and north (yellow arrows), but some of the sand is being lost to deeper water, so the Cape is shrinking.

All pictures in this slide show, except this one, by R. Alley, C. Alley, J. Alley or K. Alley.

Page 2: Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)  Sept. 18, 1999 Landsat

Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)

One good tern…

deserves another.

Page 3: Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)  Sept. 18, 1999 Landsat

Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)

The great Nauset Marsh, viewed from the back porch of the Salt Pond Visitor Center, Cape Cod National Seashore.

Page 4: Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)  Sept. 18, 1999 Landsat

Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)

Bumblebee visiting pickerelweed, which grows in the shallows at the edge of Great Pond, Eastham, Cape Cod. By building a lake-studded outwash plain into the ocean, the glaciers left a rich mix of aquatic habitats.

Page 5: Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)  Sept. 18, 1999 Landsat

Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)

Gulls, such as these herring gulls, are widespread and successful generalists, equally at home along fresh and salt waters, as well as cleaning up messes left by humans.

Page 6: Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)  Sept. 18, 1999 Landsat

Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)

Yellowlegs are well-named, and common in Nauset Marsh.

Page 7: Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)  Sept. 18, 1999 Landsat

Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)

A fish that doesn’t watch out may realize too late that he blue it.

Great blue herons, Nauset Marsh.

Page 8: Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)  Sept. 18, 1999 Landsat

Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)

Salt marshes are highly productive, and support a diversity of life…

including sandpipers (top) and yellowlegs (right). Nauset Marsh, Cape Cod.

Page 9: Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)  Sept. 18, 1999 Landsat

Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)

Cormorants were not present on the Cape a few decades ago, but now are commonly seen fishing or drying their wings.

Page 10: Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)  Sept. 18, 1999 Landsat

Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)

Coasts loom large in our natural psyche, and tens of millions of people each year visit our coasts for recreation and sunburns.

These pictures show a cold, gray day at Coast Guard Beach, Cape Cod, and there are still lots of people out.

Page 11: Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)  Sept. 18, 1999 Landsat

Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)

Waves and tidal currents move immense amounts of sand, leaving beautiful ripples, as shown in these closeups from First Encounter Beach.

Page 12: Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)  Sept. 18, 1999 Landsat

Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)

Cape Cod’s beaches may be backed by rapidly eroding bluffs, by sand dunes covered with a thin layer of hardy vegetation that can be damaged easily by human activities (as shown here), or by salt marshes.

Page 13: Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)  Sept. 18, 1999 Landsat

Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)

Nauset Light. The light was moved in 1996, just before the rapid erosion of the bluffs along this part of the coastline dropped this historical building into the waves. Everyone with a long memory of the Cape has stories of things that have been lost to the encroaching sea.

Page 14: Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)  Sept. 18, 1999 Landsat

Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)

Great Rock, the Cape’s largest glacial erratic (big rock carried by the glacier) attests to the ability of ice to move pieces of many different sizes. The rock extends below the picture, and then about as far into the ground as above.

Page 15: Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)  Sept. 18, 1999 Landsat

Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)

Herring gulls at sunset, First Encounter Beach, Cape Cod.

Page 16: Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)  Sept. 18, 1999 Landsat

Unit 8 – Coasts and Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)

Sunset, Rock Harbor, Cape Cod. It isn’t very geological, but it’s pretty.