North Carolina's Barrier Islands
North Carolina's Barrier Islands

Author: David Blevins

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2017-02-08

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 1469632500

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In this stunning book, nature photographer and ecologist David Blevins offers an inspiring visual journey to North Carolina's barrier islands as you have never seen them before. These islands are unique and ever-changing places with epic origins, surprising plants and animals, and an uncertain future. From snow geese midflight to breathtaking vistas along otherworldly dunes, Blevins has captured the incredible natural diversity of North Carolina's coast in singular detail. His photographs and words reveal the natural character of these islands, the forces that shape them, and the sense of wonder they inspire. Featuring over 150 full-color images from Currituck Banks, the Cape Hatteras and Cape Lookout National Seashores, and the islands of the southern coast, North Carolina's Barrier Islands is not only a collection of beautiful images of landscapes, plants, and animals but also an appeal for their conservation.

The North Carolina Shore and Its Barrier Islands
The North Carolina Shore and Its Barrier Islands

Author: Orrin H. Pilkey

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 9780822322245

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The North Carolina Shore and Its Barrier Islands is the latest volume in the series, Living with the Shore. Replacing an earlier volume, this thoroughly new book provides a diverse guide to one of America's most popular shorelines. As is true for all books in the series, it is based on the premise that understanding the changing nature of beaches and barrier islands is essential if we are to preserve them for future generations. Evidence that the North Carolina shore is changing is never hard to find, but recently the devastation wrought by Hurricane Fran and the perilous situation of the historic lighthouse at Cape Hatteras have reminded all concerned of the fragility of this coast. Arguing for a policy of intelligent development, one in which residential and commercial structures meet rather than confront the changing nature of the shore, the authors have included practical information on hazards of many kinds--storms, tides, floods, erosion, island migration, and earthquakes. Diagrams and photographs clearly illustrate coastal processes and aid in understanding the impact of hurricanes and northeasters, wave and current dynamics, as well as pollution and other environmental destruction due to overdevelopment. A chapter on estuaries provides related information on the shores of back barrier areas that are growing in popularity for recreational residences. Risk maps focus on the natural hazards of each island and together with construction guidelines provide a basis for informed island management. Lastly, the dynamics of coastal politics and management are reviewed through an analysis of the controversies over the decision to move the Cape Hatteras lighthouse and a proposed effort to stabilize Oregon Inlet. From the natural and historic perspective of the opening chapters to the regional discussions of individual barrier islands, this book is both a primer on coastal processes for the first time visitor as well as a guide to hazard identification for property owners.

Islands at the Edge of Time
Islands at the Edge of Time

Author: Gunnar Hansen

Publisher: Island Press

Published: 1993-08-01

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781559632515

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Islands at the Edge of Time is the story of one man's captivating journey along America's barrier islands from Boca Chica, Texas, to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Weaving in and out along the coastlines of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, and North Carolina, poet and naturalist Gunnar Hansen perceives barrier islands not as sand but as expressions in time of the processes that make them. Along the way he treats the reader to absorbing accounts of those who call these islands home -- their lives often lived in isolation and at the extreme edges of existence -- and examines how the culture and history of these people are shaped by the physical character of their surroundings.

The Battle for North Carolina's Coast
The Battle for North Carolina's Coast

Author: Stanley R. Riggs

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2011-09-05

Total Pages: 161

ISBN-13: 0807878073

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The North Carolina barrier islands, a 325-mile-long string of narrow sand islands that forms the coast of North Carolina, are one of the most beloved areas to live and visit in the United States. However, extensive barrier island segments and their associated wetlands are in jeopardy. In The Battle for North Carolina's Coast, four experts on coastal dynamics examine issues that threaten this national treasure. According to the authors, the North Carolina barrier islands are not permanent. Rather, they are highly mobile piles of sand that are impacted by sea-level rise and major storms and hurricanes. Our present development and management policies for these changing islands are in direct conflict with their natural dynamics. Revealing the urgency of the environmental and economic problems facing coastal North Carolina, this essential book offers a hopeful vision for the coast's future if we are willing to adapt to the barriers' ongoing and natural processes. This will require a radical change in our thinking about development and new approaches to the way we visit and use the coast. Ultimately, we cannot afford to lose these unique and valuable islands of opportunity. This book is an urgent call to protect our coastal resources and preserve our coastal economy.

The Nature of North Carolina's Southern Coast
The Nature of North Carolina's Southern Coast

Author: Dirk Frankenberg

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 9780807846551

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

With The Nature of North Carolina's Southern Coast, Dirk Frankenberg's effort to provide a comprehensive field guide to the state's dynamic shoreline is complete. Picking up where his 1995 book The Nature of the Outer Banks left off, this bo

Seashore Chronicles
Seashore Chronicles

Author: Brooks M. Barnes

Publisher: University of Virginia Press

Published: 1997-10

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 9780813918792

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

ASSATEAGUE, Chincoteague, Parramore, Smith's, Hog, Wallop's: The names of Virginia's isolated barrier islands evoke their beauty and wildness, their dynamic ecology. Drawing chapters from the writings of novelists, naturalists, journalists, and outdoorsmen, Seashore Chronicles presents the history of these slender, constantly shifting landforms from the 1650s to the present. Robert E. Lee surveys the agricultural potential of Smith's Island, and a young Howard Pyle describes the Chincoteague pony penning. William Warner provides an impressionistic foreword and noted writer Tom Horton adds a contemporary chapter on the islands' survival. Eastern Shore residents Brooks Miles Barnes and Barry R. Truitt have compiled a cyclical story of economic settlement, of destruction and conservation, for those who have visited the islands many times as well as for those who have not yet experienced their alluring vitality.

Life Traces of the Georgia Coast
Life Traces of the Georgia Coast

Author: Anthony J. Martin

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 715

ISBN-13: 0253006023

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Have you ever wondered what left behind those prints and tracks on the seashore, or what made those marks or dug those holes in the dunes? Life Traces of the Georgia Coast is an up-close look at these traces of life and the animals and plants that made them. It tells about how the tracemakers lived and how they interacted with their environments. This is a book about ichnology (the study of such traces) and a wonderful way to learn about the behavior of organisms, living and long extinct. Life Traces presents an overview of the traces left by modern animals and plants in this biologically rich region; shows how life traces relate to the environments, natural history, and behaviors of their tracemakers; and applies that knowledge toward a better understanding of the fossilized traces that ancient life left in the geologic record. Augmented by illustrations of traces made by both ancient and modern organisms, the book shows how ancient trace fossils directly relate to modern traces and tracemakers, among them, insects, grasses, crabs, shorebirds, alligators, and sea turtles. The result is an aesthetically appealing and scientifically grounded book that will serve as source both for scientists and for anyone interested in the natural history of the Georgia coast.

Wild North Carolina
Wild North Carolina

Author: David Blevins

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2011-04-04

Total Pages: 185

ISBN-13: 0807877794

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Celebrating the beauty, diversity, and significance of the state's natural landscapes, Wild North Carolina provides an engaging, beautifully illustrated introduction to North Carolina's interconnected webs of plant and animal life. From dunes and marshes to high mountain crags, through forests, swamps, savannas, ponds, pocosins, and flatrocks, David Blevins and Michael Schafale reveal in words and photographs natural patterns of the landscape that will help readers see familiar places in a new way and new places with a sense of familiarity. Wild North Carolina introduces the full range of the state's diverse natural communities, each brought to life with compelling accounts of their significance and meaning, arresting photographs featuring broad vistas and close-ups, and details on where to go to experience them first hand. Blevins and Schafale provide nature enthusiasts of all levels with the insights they need to value the state's natural diversity, highlighting the reasons plants and animals are found where they are, as well as the challenges of conserving these special places.