How to Read a North Carolina Beach: Bubble Holes, Barking Sands, and Rippled Runnels

Orrin Pilkey, Tracy Monegan Rice, and William Neal explore large-scale processes, such as the composition and interaction of wind, waves, and sand, as well as smaller features, such as bubble holes, drift lines, and black sands. In addition, coastal life forms large and small--from crabs and turtles to microscopic animals--are all discussed here. The concluding chapter contemplates the future of North Carolina beaches, considering the threats to their survival and assessing strategies for conservation. This indispensable beach book offers vacationers and naturalists a single source for learning to appreciate and preserve the natural features of a genuine state treasure.

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All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Take it t othe beach!, 2008-11-07
Co-authors: Tracy Monegan Rice and William J. Neal.

Quick popular science look at North Carolina beach wind and wave formation, geology, sand and shell content and formation, and other phenomenon. Good book to take to the beach.


9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

The Beach as a Book, 2005-08-05
This slim volume should be packed by any reader heading off to the
beach in North Carolina. The underlying theme is vintage Pilkey, the prophetic gadfly of beach development. He and his co-authors want us to understand that we are loving the beaches to death, like children who capture wild things. Beaches are dynamic, explains Pilkey, and all our efforts to stabiize them in some permanent state for our perpetual enjoyment are ultimately doomed. Thanks to the clear diagrams and excellent pictures, beach walkers and vicarious lovers of golden sands will better understand how this fragile system works. We need to read what Pilkey says, even if we don't want him to be right.


2 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

A bit of propaganda, 2005-07-19
The author has included information on the topics shown in the title which were interesting and informative however, it is clear that the author is anti-development at the beach and this message comes though time and time again. With this much propaganda against building on the coastline I think the book should have been free.


20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

An Ideal Beach Read, 2004-09-12
This is beach geology 101 rendered in a pleasant and most fluent voice like the best of classic nature writing. The considerable information is meted out in a way that is easily absorbed. Before you reach the end, you are walking on the beach identifying runnels, plunging breakers, nail holes, swash and wrack lines and other exotica without running back to the book for help. You are no longer alarmed at black sand (it's sand of a different mineral base), you have new respect for the heaps of broken shells in your path. You understand how beaches are formed and where sand came from. You now know why a beach never looks the same from one day to the next. You can identify evidence of the mess caused by human intervention. This book will enhance your stay at the beach in ways that whiffle-light detective fiction never will.

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