Beach Profiling

Over this week me and my class have learned about beach profiling and how to do so. What we do in beach profiling is we take measurements across the beach to find there slope. this will help us give a part of a beach its own profile. We are using many tools such as a GPS (to pin point where our maker is), a compass (to show what direction our beach is heading), and rise and run sticks (glorified polls with measurements on them). these tool all together will help us give a part of a beach its own profiles.

now many beaches have different profiles. most beaches will slope down all the way to the foot of the beach (a little dip in the water that marks the end of a beach). some may have a big drop off at the beginning of the beach then be smooth all the to the foot. other parts of the beach will slope up at first then slope down. there are many factors to determine the profile of a beach. High tides can be a factor, the tides can move sand up and drag sand back down. some beaches the tides are so extreme that they leave little drop offs of sand because of the factor of the tides taking sand. wind is a contributing factor in beach profiling. wind can carry sand across a beach and place it somewhere else. sometimes we might not want the wind to take our sand somewhere else, so what we do is put up fences that let wind though but not the sand. These fences help create dunes. And natural elements such as big rocks or trees can determine the beginning and end of a beach by collecting sand that may get picked up by wind.

here are the procedures that we took to profile a beach:

1. We will first find a point on the top of a dune and mark it. (its important that this spot will last and not get covered up by sand)

2. Now we get one member to take a transect line from our marker to the foot of the beach

3. We now will have two people holding the rise and run sticks across the transect line. (the run stick should be at the bottom of the slope.)

4. Also when you move down the transect you will put the rise stick where the run stick was last.

5. Make sure you have another person collecting the measurements that you get from the rise and run stick.

6. before you start measuring make sure to get the longitude and latitude from a GPS.

7. Also get the direction the beach is pointing from a compass.

8. When you are done head back to the school.

beach lab.

big beach

Introduction:

since the beginging of time there has been beaches, little did we know beaches have two origens. the thwo origens that make up all the beaches in the world is Biogenic (sand coming from living organisms) and detrital, (sand coming from rocks). now one way to find what beach is biogenic and what is not is to add vinigar to a sample of sand. if the sand is biogenic there will be a chemical reaction, the sand will bubble up and crackle, if the sand is detrital there will be no reaction.

Question:

is the beach on suger beach, black sand beach and kam1 beach biogenic or detrital?

Hypothesis:

I believe that black sand beach is detrital and both surgar and kam 1 beach is biogenic.

Kam 1 beach

Prediction:

If black sand beach is detrital then it will not react with the vinigar. If sugar and kam 1 beach are biogenic then they will react with the vinigar.

Materials:

gaggles

pipets

beaker

viniger

your brain

Procedure: First we will take the vans to the beaches that we want to test. Next we will collect the sand samples and make observations on the beach. After we our done with our observations we will go back to the school. we will pour 20 drops of viniger into a sample the sand. we will watch for any chemicle reation and make our data analiysis.

Data:

we have conducted our lab and the results are in!

surgar beach: the sand had a major reaction with the viniger with lost of crackling and bubbling.

Kam 1: the sand reacted with bubbling and crakling but not as much as surger beach.

Black sand: there was hardly any reaction.

conclusion:

Our hypothesis sugjested that the black sand beach was detrital and both kam 1 and sugar beach was biogenic. our data proves that my hypothesis was 100% correct. possible sources of error is mixing the sands up.

black sand beach

beach observations

On 4/11/11 me and my class traveled to many beaches so we can get data for our lab. the class was split up in two (kind of...) my group was assigned to go to sugar beach, Kam 1 beach and keawakapu beach. here are my observation on these three beaches.

Sugar Beach:

sugar beach is a white sand beach but a bit darker tint than Kam 1 or keawakapu, this leads me to think that it may be part detrital. there is a seawall to the left of the beach but i dont think that would be the resion for the darker sand tint. i know that sugar beach is also used for kanuing, the every day use of the kanues may erode the beach.

Kam 1:

kam 1 is a white sand beach. i think it is completely biogenic because the fact there is no lava rock near the beach, also the beach is white as snow. i don't know of any coral reefs near by (although there may be some), the sand might come from large deposits of sand in the ocean carried from currents.

Keawakapu:

keawakapu is one of my favorite beaches on maui. its very calm and safe to the public. although not the most appealing to those who like to surf. it is a white sand beach, if you have ever been in the water there you know where that sand comes from. to the right you see a bunch of rocks, under the water is a large coral reef. alot of the reef near the beach is dead so its obvious where some of the sand comes from. if you go farther out you can see the coral is alive with many fish hanging around. some of the corral might also come from fish poop.