Plan for Campana Building Draws Big Crowd Questions
MARINELAND — Talks about turtles and whales reliably draw crowds at the Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience, but it wasn't a charismatic animal that filled the auditorium to overflowing earlier this calendar month. It was a talk most the changing coastlines around Matanzas Inlet.
More than 300 people crowded into the building, squeezing into every available space to hear Maitane Olabarrieta, an assistant professor at the University of Florida, talk almost why the inlet and next coastlines are "so dynamic."
The packed firm might take been the biggest ever for a lecture at Whitney, said Todd Osborne, an assistant professor of estuarine biogeochemistry at the laboratory.
From the comments and questions, it was obvious the impacts from Hurricane Matthew in Oct were driving the involvement in Olabarrieta'south lecture.
Olabarrietta, a marine scientist and assistant professor in UF'south Civil and Coastal Engineering department, is in the midst of a five-year study to investigate tidal movement and currents through the inlet, the Matanzas River and Pellicer Creek.
"Tidal inlets are the most dynamic coastal systems, considering of the combined consequence of waves and stiff tidal currents," she said. That procedure is favored even more heavily during storms.
"We are analyzing what happens with this current system because it's pretty peculiar," she said. "Nosotros think it changes in time and it might change depending on whether they're neap tides or leap tides."
Olabarrieta is studying what happens to the sediments and tides flowing through the inlet.
"Nosotros can analyze how the tide propagates in the estuary and between the inlet and the expanse forth Pellicer Creek," she said. Considering the rate at which sand moves in Matanzas Inlet is and then dandy, changes tin can accept place quickly.
Every bit much equally 400,000 cubic yards of sediment may exist moved in Matanzas Inlet each year, she said. Waves keep re-suspending the sand and sediment and then tidal currents move that sediment.
One written report past Taylor Engineering ended the inlet was transporting as much as 71,000 cubic yards of sediment into the inner parts of the estuary each year, she said.
"The sand here is moving constantly," she said. On the estuary side of the inlet the tides are the dominant factor moving the sediments, while on the ocean side, it'due south the wind-driven waves.
The waves drive a "longshore" current that helps move the sediment, she said.
I other factor that comes into play, and had a big role in a new alienation in the barrier island during Matthew, is the undertow created past large waves.
"These are especially important in storms," she said. When large waves propagate toward the beach, the return electric current erodes the upper part of the beach contour and transports the sand and sediment downwardly and toward the ocean.
On narrow bulwark islands, when waves and surge during storms elevation the dunes, it tin erode the dunes and creates the alienation between the ocean and the estuary. In one case a alienation occurs, it can evolve in such a way that it closes once more naturally or it remains open and becomes a permanent connectedness
The air current waves tend to try to close the inlet by moving in sand while the tides effort to go on the inlet open.
Information technology's a "very complex interaction between those coastal currents and the tidal currents," she said.
She discussed the natural processes that closed the Summerhaven River but due south of the inlet after 2007-2008 and said she plans to model the changes that took place during Hurricane Matthew, including the new breach that opened in the barrier island. The alienation was later airtight with the use of heavy equipment.
During Matthew, she said, waves offshore were as high every bit 39 feet with a storm tide and surge forth the coast of up to eleven feet. She showed before and afterward images that showed how much of the sand in the inlet was removed during Matthew.
The sediment ship through the new alienation was "incredible," she said.
She'southward looking forward to what they'll learn over the next few years of studying the inlet, she said.
"We will run into how the arrangement is changing and what is happening with that sand."
Source: https://www.news-journalonline.com/story/news/local/flagler/2017/01/18/researchers-working-to-model-coastal-changes-caused-by-storm/22637345007/
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