Environmental News

I couldn't immediately think of anything more creative.

Looking at some stilts online, I'm seeing some that are clearly timber piles driven into deep soil. Good and solid while still mostly embedded in soil, but far less after considerable soil erosion. But another set is just long timbers embedded in a hole in the sand, manually pushed farther down as a water jet shoved beneath turns the sand below to a slurry. Then tamped down another foot and backfilled with more sand. Not my idea of something that is going to tolerate much beach erosion, or possibly even much flooding during other stresses.

Is any bedrock within reach in very many of these locations?

 

Camp granadah ....

Since euro-Africa & north/south America were once a super content ..... is it surprising a few 100 feet of costal outlines are still amorphic?
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There are only several ground level buildings (don't know an exact number) on the island currently. Stilts have been in the building code on the Island for at least a decade or 2. Stilts help, but are not storm proof if beach erosion from whatever source exposes the house to high surf. Once the surf start working on the stilts, there's usually property damage, and after a while the stilts can't support the house anymore.
Erosion can and does change the beach front water line daily, some days and weeks no changes when weather is calm. It doesn't take much wave action to change the beach around. Both houses that went down on Tues or Wed were built in 1980 and are just another set of houses in the area to get knocked over by a storm or hurricane. And they get a lot of those every year.
Anyone can read the book or see the movie Nights in Rodanthe. The house in the book and movie was moved just after filming the movie from about 1/4 mile north of those two houses to about 1/4 mile south of those two houses and a little ways farther from the high tide line (100 or 200 feet ball park) but in an area much less prone to beach erosion. Those two houses were right on that high tide line during normal weather. There used to be 4 houses next to each other a few years ago. From the pics it looks like all 4 are now gone. And the new owners of those two houses as of 2020 are probably not pleased. could be one realtor buying from a different realtor in the area or non locals.
I image there's a lot of floatsam being moved around that area following which ever direction the currents are flowing on any one or more days. Those currents can switch direction at anytime and move the stuff the other way. In the video it looked to me like the inside sandbar keep the one house from drifting further out into the ocean. There's usually a deeper outside sandbar all along those beaches. blah blah blah maybe someone is interested in that suff.

 

From a map showing the continental shelf, the pictured collapses at Rodanthe appear to be more than 30 miles 'inland' from the Pangaea breakup 'coastline'. So I'm thinking all those water-built sand piles are geologically 'modern', with no connection to the local crust's old Eastern Hemisphere family kinship.

 

I'll have to bone up on the continental drift. It's interesting the you estimate 30 mile inland from the pangaea breakup coastline. I'm not sure this is relevant to that, but the gulf stream in closer to that island than it is anywhere else on the east coast about 50 miles offshore. It may be closer in some parts of southern Florida, but the local fishing charters all say it's the closest offshore to them on the Outer Banks.

@hill I'm not sure if my post above answered your question. I'm still not sure of what you mean by 100 feet inland, unless it's 100 feet from the current tide lines that beach front houses should be away from the ocean.
Since those two and the other two that used to be there were right on the high tide line most days.

 

Remember that the Pangaea / Gondwana piece edges are not at our current coastline, which varies considerably depending on current sea level. And sea level varies by Ice Age stage, from about 400 feet below the current level, to as much as 200 feet above during the warmest inter-glacial periods.

The Pangaea piece edges should be more in line with the submerged continental shelf, which can be close to today's coastline in some places, and very far out in others. Though remember that this shelf edge does get modified by erosion and other factors, so a perfect jigsaw puzzle reassembly just won't happen.

 

Tonga volcano was the most ferocious eruption in 140 years

"The volcanic eruption sent rarely observed pressure waves around the globe for six days and unleashed an unexpected type of tsunami wave, according to two new studies published on Thursday in the journal Science. The huge plume of gases, water vapor and dust also created hurricane-strength winds in space, NASA said in a separate study published this week.

... The low-frequency atmospheric pressure waves, called Lamb waves, detected after the eruption circled the planet in one direction four times and in the opposite direction three times, ...

Moving across the surface of multiple oceans and seas, Lamb pressure waves from the explosion created a fast-moving spate of scattered tsunamis.

... Crucially, these so-called meteotsunamis travel much faster than traditional tsunamis, arriving two hours earlier than expected, and last longer, which could have implications for early warning systems.

And because an atmospheric pressure wave generated them, the tidal waves appeared to "jump continents," with tsunamis recorded from the Pacific to the Atlantic, ..."


The expanding plume also disturbed the upper atmosphere, causing the strongest "space winds" yet recorded by a satellite tracking the ionosphere, in turn temporarily reversing the flow of an upper level electric current called the "equatorial electrojet".

Tonga volcanic eruption the most powerful in more than a century - CNN

 

Not within range of the budget, if there is any at all.

 

we have tons of stilt houses up and down the local coast since the hurricane of '91.

the modern structures are quite a feat of engineering. might cost more than some of the houses themselves

 

It's not like those 2 houses collapsing was any surprise to the local community. Everyone that's lived on that island for the last 20 years knows the risks every time a storm blows through or around the area. The whole Barrier Island is not much more that glorified sandbar above mean high tide for the most part.

There is a retired gov structure a couple hours drive south of the Outer Banks, that is now privately owned, is 32 miles offshore and is a bed and breakfast that was built in the 1960's to replace the Light Ship that was stationed there 24/7/365 since the early 1800s.
It might reach bedrock. Not a typical beach house though.
https://fptower.org/history/

If you like the picture of the Flying Pan Light Ship you might also like the one that used to sit offshore of the entrance of New York Harbor. I used to hear stories about that ship many a time as I was growing up.
https://southstreetseaportmuseum.org/lightship-ambrose/