When Sand Moves

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution oceanographers found that when sand moves, whether carried by tides, winds, or waves, it carries bacterial DNA with it.

D-Day’s Legacy Sands, Omaha Beach; By Earle F. McBride & M. Dane Picard

Before dawn on June 6, 1944, more than 160,000 Allied troops began storming the shores of Normandy, France, in what would be the turning point of World War II. Troops poured out of planes and off ships along an 80-kilometer stretch of coastline. Omaha Beach sand retains evidence of the Invasion…

St. Maarten: Paradise in Peril

Sint Maarten is at the crucial point of destroying the last of what draws crowds of dollar-touting tourists to this once-pristine Caribbean island.

Sediment in the Río de La Plata

A glimpse at the complicated mixing processes that occur at the interface of the muddy fresh water from the Paranà River flowing into the Río de La Plata estuary on the eastern coast of South America, and the ocean water of the South Atlantic, in an area known as a turbidity front.

World’s Largest Sand Mass Discovered Under Seafloor

A giant mass of sand large enough to bury all of Manhattan under dunes more than 50 stories tall apparently erupted from the floor of the North Sea hundreds of thousands of years ago, the largest such body of sand ever found in the world, researchers say.

Radical Sand Dune project

Will a pioneering project to reshape sand dunes that are home to a stronghold of fen orchids and other rare plants and invertebrates, protect or destroy the habitat?