Waves and Beaches (ePub)

Not so long ago, surfers and seafarers gathered around squelchy transistor radios at dawn listening to reports of Aleutian storms. A wet finger to the breeze, long seaward gazes - they knew the waves were formed by wind. For most folks, everything else was a mystery. What happened below the surface? Why did the beach fill up with sand in the summertime then retreat to sucking stones in the winter? Why did waves jack up at some breaks but roll in slowly at others? Why do we have to dredge harbors and jetties? How can wave channel laboratory research apply to the real world?

In 1945, the United States Army had the same questions. The World War II Waves Project of the University of California at Berkeley had one objective: to scientifically study the surf zone to find safer methods for amphibious landings on enemy-held beaches. When young mine engineer-turned-oceanographer, Willard Bascom, joined the project, he'd never seen the ocean. His introduction was less than pacific:

"I well remember on the bleak day we approached Eureka that John stopped his Dukw (amphibious truck) and motioned for me to join him. He pointed out across Humboldt Bay and the sandspit separating bay from ocean to a sort of white froth on the horizon a couple of miles away where an occasional geyser shot up. 'Some of those breakers must be thirty feet high - plunging. Look at them explode!' Then, in a matter-of-fact way, 'That's where we're going to work.'"

After the war, Willard did not retreat inland - he'd found his muse. "Is there anyone who can watch without fascination," he writes in his 1964 book Waves and Beaches, "the struggle for supremacy between sea and land?" He devoted his life to understanding the ever-shifting milieu we simply call the "beach" and left behind a book that can be appreciated by seasoned oceanographers and layman beachcombers alike. He peppered plenty of nerd bait (equations, graphs) into highly approachable discussions ranging from tides

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