A Scientist’s Personal 70-Year Discourse with Past, Present and Future Coastal Change

This story tracks the growth and history of a coastal marine scientist and his efforts to teach coastal dynamics to generations of students and public for over 50 years. It also encapsulates an incredible journey through hundreds of million years, summarizing the story of oceans and their coastal systems that helped to build our North American continent. The journey begins in the Pleistocene glacial world in northern Wisconsin, travels back to the Ordovician beach deposits of the central Mid-West and to the rocky coasts of the northern Appalachian Mountains of New England, and then travels forward to the great Cretaceous Sea in the eastern Rocky Mountain region. However, the core of this story concerns the 200 million year history of the Atlantic Ocean and formation of the southeastern US coastal margin, characterized by continental shelf, barrier island, estuarine, and riverine systems. Human occupation of this region, which began over 10 millennia ago, has recently evolved into a force capable of manipulating and changing the character and processes of modern coastal systems. The story culminates with a discussion of the “perfect conflict” between expanding human populations and the natural dynamic nature of our coasts.