King Tide Wrap-Up Party

Geologist Nick Cohn sampling the wind at South Beach.

We’re celebrating the conclusion of the 2017-2018 King Tide Project with a party at the Rogue Brewery’s South Beach location (2320 S.E. Marine Science Dr. in Newport).  We’ll furnish the finger food—drinks and meals available no host from the Rogue.

We’ll be mingling, viewing the photos taken as part of this year’s project, and educating ourselves about sea level rise and erosion with a short, entertaining talk.  Everyone is welcome to attend, whether or not they participated in the project—this is a chance to learn about king tides and sea level rise, and perhaps plan on getting involved next fall.

Our speaker will be Nick Cohn, a PhD candidate in geology at Oregon State University, speaking on “Storm-Induced Erosion at South Beach.”  Cohn’s research focuses on understanding the physical “drivers” of coastal landscape changes which occur on time scales of hours to years, such as sandbar migration, shoreline retreat, and dune recovery processes. This research involves extensive field measurements in the surf zone and on the beach.

Cohn will discuss measurements from South Beach State Park collected during the 2015-2016 El Niño, and what they tell us about rates of coastal foredune erosion during extreme high water events. He will also talk about what this work tells us about the broader Pacific Northwest.  In general, Cohn and his research group have found that erosion is more closely related to sea levels than to wave heights.

This event is free and open to the public with a suggested donation of $5.  There will also be a raffle.

For more information about the event, contact Fawn Custer, CoastWatch volunteer coordinator, at (541) 270-0027, fawn@oregonshores.org.