Rachel Carson and the Sea

review | Coastal defined | coastal systems | dynamics | shape

Ms. Carson is also one of America’s great poets and science writers of the natural world.

In her earlier books, including The Sea Around Us --1953-- and The Edge of the Sea--1957--, she brought alive the beauty and mystery of the seas and its creatures to millions of readers.

Ms. Carson’s work and life continue to inspire us with a sense of wonder toward the natural world and a renewed commitment to speak up for its defense. She wrote a book for children called a Sense of Wonder, in 1965.

Over forty years ago, she testified before Congress calling for new policies to protect human health and the environment.

Rachel Carson called our attention to, fed our imaginative appetites for and assisted in the preservation of coastal land and water bodies that we now call the ecology of the coastal environs, such as oyster or coral reefs.

An interview with Rachel Carson on the Public Broadcasting Service (1963).

Gary Kline, The Coastal Environment.

"Americans are fascinated. . ."

Territory is both a place to harbor populations & a means of securing a living.

A disproportionate clustering of populations along sea's edge:

1. 50% of Americans live within 50 miles of the Great Lakes & both ocean coasts.
2. 66% of the world's people live near the sea.

A Sense of Wonder

Rachel Carson

“A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full or wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantment of later year…the alienation from the sources of our strength.”

“It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know the sense of wonder and humility. ”

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.”

A Sense of Wonder

review | Coastal defined | coastal systems | dynamics | shape

Review:

coasts as Edges

	Air
Land
Water

• Y - Air
• X - Land
• Z - Water

Seven important characteristic qualities of coastal zones:

1. natural filter
2. source of varied food
3. protective barrier & buffer
4. wildlife refuge: nursery, breeding and feeding grounds
5. source of aesthetic inspiration
6. varied recreational opportunities fro sport fishery to birding and hunting, swimming, boating.
7. respite for psychological health and spiritual renewal

Seven qualities | review | Carson | Coastal defined | coastal systems | dynamics | shape | start

Carrying Capacity and the limitations of the coastal zone

"The line of intersection,. . . to where the terrain shows signs of major change."

"indefinite width"

From the nearshore watersheds to the outer continental shelf is the "coastal zone."

America's Coastal Zone Management Act [CZMA-1994] covers "30 states with 451 coastal counties"

Gary Kline, The Coastal Environment, pp.1-2.

Coast, costa, -- That edge which is at, beside or influenced strongly by the sea, ocean, or marine conditions.

Carrying capacity refers to the physical, biological, and psychological limitations imposed on the functional integrity any terrain, water body or vegetative region by both direct and indirect impacts.

Compare carrying to assimilative capacity.

Seven qualities | review | Carson | Wonder | Coastal defined | coastal systems | dynamics | shape | start

Coastal Systems:

• I first order: physical dynamics
  • plate tectonics
  • weathering
  • climate change
  • sea level variation
• Three types of coasts
  • leading edge or rising coasts
  • trailing coasts or sinking shorelines
  • marginal seas or embayments
• II second order: Deltas, dunes, sea grass beds, reefs (coral, oyster, worm, bacterial)
• III third order: waves, wind, erosion and deposition.

Coastal divisions:

• Upland
• Back shore
• shore
• Nearshore
• Offshore
• inner Continental shelf (state waters)
• outer Continental shelf (federal waters)
• Pelagic (deep ocean)

Ecology of the coastal shore.

Seven qualities | review | Carson | Coastal defined | coastal systems | dynamics | shape | start

Coastal dynamics:

• terrestrial factors
  • geology & landforms
  • fluvial deposition
  • turbidity currents
• marine factors
  • tides
  • waves
  • long-shore current
• biological factors
• human factors
• Continental shelf

Seven qualities | review | Carson | Coastal defined | coastal systems | dynamics | shape | start

Coastal morphology and watersheds:

• fjords
• dunes and sand beaches
• rocky headlands and bluffs
• estuaries
• coral atolls, patch and barrier reefs
• wetlands
  • salt marshes
  • mangroves
  • sea-grass beds
• submerged lands - tidelands
  • oil & gas
  • waste dumps
  • freshwater springs
  • salt slurry (desalination plants)

Gary Kline, The Coastal Environment, pp. 3-31.

Next

Joseph V. Siry, Marshes of the Ocean Shore

Seven qualities | review | Carson | Coastal defined | coastal systems | dynamics | shape | start