Cape Henlopen Field Trip
Saturday, September 28, 2002
This trip is intended to show you what a natural, undeveloped
sandy coastline environment looks like -- the natural processes of
erosion and sedimentation and its resultant geometry and configuration --
and what some of the consequences are when humans interfere with
these natural processes.
We'll spend the morning at Cape Henlopen State Park walking
out onto the spit and making numerous measurements, observations, and
interpretations. After lunch we'll head down the Delaware Coast and
visit a developed barrier island beachface, at South Bethany, and then
we'll finish up at Indian River Inlet to examine inlet dynamics.
Please consider the following points:
- We'll leave at 6:00AM! It's a 3 hour drive to Cape
Henlopen and I want us to get back in time for dinner. You can always
sleep in the van while we're driving.
- We'll drive the College van which is parked in the last bay
of the Morris Rd parking lot. Park your car near the van. We take the
van primarily because it ensures that students are covered by the College's
liability policy.
- Bring food and/or money for snacks and lunch. We'll stop once
on the way down for a bathroom/snack break, we'll hit a fast food
place near Rehoboth for lunch (bathrooms and beverages, if not food),
and we'll stop once on the way back as well. If you don't want to
purchase food, bring enough of your own to last all day.
- Dress warmly and dryly; we'll go rain or shine. Depending
on the weather, we may freeze or we may bake on the open beach in October.
Some years, we've been in shirt sleeves and returned with sunburn; on
other years, it's been cool and damp. Remember, a windbreaker will
make you feel 10 degrees warmer, and there's no shelter out on the
open beach. If it's nice, we may wade into the surf
to obtain sediment samples and to measure wave velocities. Also, the
rogue wave may surprise us. Therefore, grubby clothes and rotten
"beach sneakers"
would be appropriate. Bring a change of sneaks and a plastic bag to put
the sandy footwear in when we're done getting wet.
- We'll return to Montco around 5:00PM. If it's cold and
messy, we'll get home sooner; if it's a gorgeous day, we'll probably
return later.