Webinar on Waves and Beaches

Waves at sunset washing Cape Perpetua.\Photo by Tara Dubois.

The Cape Perpetua Marine Reserve Collaborative, unable to gather audiences physically, is offering an online exploration of the shore with a webinar entitled “Waves, Sand, and Beaches:  The Constantly Changing Shoreline.”  Free and open to the public, the event takes place on Tuesday, Aug. 25, 6-7 p.m.  Registration is necessary.

The presenter is geologist David Muerdter, who summers in the Yachats area.  Each summer when he comes to the Oregon Coast, he notices that the beach has changed from the previous summer. Sometimes it is a little wider, sometimes narrower. The dunes down the beach may be taller, the waves are breaking further out or closer in, the dune grass may be spreading seaward. These summer beaches are much different than during a winter visit several years ago when he found the beach much narrower, an example of the seasonal changes that can occur on beaches. In this talk David will discuss how and why beaches change and why waves are the main agent of those changes. Waves interact with beach sand and modify beaches daily, monthly, and over much longer periods of time. Additionally, he will discuss where the sand in this dynamic beach setting comes from and where it goes.

David Muerdter has a BS in Geology from Oregon State University and a PhD in Geological Oceanography from University of Rhode Island. His career was as a geophysicist specializing in how sound moves through rocks, and he taught classes in this specialty around the world. Since retiring, he volunteers at the Cape Perpetua Visitors Center while visiting the central Oregon coast in the summer.

To register: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_vvGAdPZQSSCehty2bPKEPw