1/14/24 Report - Beach Erosion and Effects of Some Erosion Abatemennt Methods. Cache of Gold Coins Discovered. Slightly Increasing Surf.

 

Written by the TreaureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.

Burned Malibu Beach Front Homes.

Before I begin today, I wanted to report that I had a problem with my email and didn't get emails for several days.  The emails showed up today, so I'll be catching up on them.  

Sorry if I didn't respond to your recent emails, but they weren't received until this morning.

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If you ever saw the opening to the Three and a Half Men TV show, you saw houses like this along Malibu Beach.  While it is uncertain if Charlie's TV home was actually on the strip of Malibu beach shown in the TV show opening, the above photo shows the general area that is shown in the opening.  I don't think this is the exact area shown at the beginning of the program.  The TV opening shows something that I think would be more to the north of that shown above.  But notice the beach here.  There isn't much of it.  There appears to be seawalls and some older groins.  

A recent study reported on the Down to Earth site, declares, "33% of world’s sandy beaches have hardened, scientists warn of severe coastline loss."  It goes on the warn, "Coastline of nearly 52,080 km is estimated to be lost by end of century.

The warnings of disappearing beaches worldwide is not new, but this study attempts to quantify the loss.

Continuing, they say...

About 33 per cent of the world’s sandy beaches have hardened. The Bay of Bengal occupies first position with 84 per cent coastal hardening, a new study has revealed.

Coastal hardening refers to ‘rigid’, semi-impermeable structures created by humans that alter the natural landscape, potentially obstructing the shoreline retreat, and landward translation of sandy beaches, the study stated.

These structures include impervious surfaces or infrastructure such as seawalls, harbours, roads, highways, buildings, railway revetments or other urban structures...

It is a constant job to maintain buildings too close the water.  And erosion control structures just don't work for ever. Even when it appears to work somewhat, the long term and larger effect is negative.

You can see it many places along the Treasure Coast.  Look around Bathtub Beach for a good example.  Around places like Miami, you can see remnants of groins.  You can see the erosion below the Fort Pierce Inlet, where they replenish virtually every year, and sometimes twice-a-year.

Seawalls lead to sand loss in front of the wall.  In the past I showed in a post how sand accumulates on one side of a fallen log in the Indian River and the erodes and accumulates on the other side.  The sand switches from one side to the other with the change in wind and surf.  

Down south you would often find good hunting spots in shallow water between the groins, or what remained of them.  One side would be good for a while, and then when the wind changed the other side would erode and expose treasures on that side.

They put concrete blocks along the bank to protect Indian River Drive after the hurricanes of 2004.  They didn't change much for ten years or so but now the wall of blacks is falling in almost everywhere.  You can see the relentless effect of the water along the Indian River even though the water force is not nearly as great as that along the sea beaches.  It seemed that the blocks slowed the erosion, but eventually they started to fail.  And there are a few spots where they didn't get permission from the landowners to put the blocks, and those areas have eroded almost back to the road.  A hardened area reflects more force onto the nearby areas.  While seawalls protect the land behind the walls for a span of years, the same seawalls will cause loss of sand in front of the seawall.

Along the west bank of the Indian River where they put the blocks, there was a decent beach along most of the area.  Now there is very little beach along the same area.

Here is a link for more of the study mentioned above.

33% of world’s sandy beaches have hardened, scientists warn of severe coastline loss

Besides all the junk, I'm sure there will be some good items left on the beach from all the destruction, and it is possible that some of it will be found by a detectorist in the future after time has separated some of it out.

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Some of the 1,700-year-old gold coins, which feature portraits of eight Roman emperors and the illegitimate emperor Eugenius. (Image credit: C. Nosbusch/INRA)

"Secret" excavations in Luxembourg reveal 141 Roman gold coins from eight Roman emperors and one usurper...

The team unearthed 141 gold coins, which were minted between A.D. 364 and 408, in Holzthum, a village in northern Luxembourg. The coins feature portraits of eight emperors, but three coins portrayed an unexpected ruler: Eugenius, an illegitimate emperor of the Western Roman Emperor, who reigned for only two years (392 to 394)...

The gold coins are solidi, a term that comes from the Latin "solidus," meaning "solid" — a reference to their consistently reliable gold content. The coins, each of which weighs approximately 0.16 ounce (4.5 grams), were introduced at the beginning of the fourth century during the era of the "Later Roman Empire." The solidus remained relatively stable for centuries and spread throughout the entire Mediterranean region...

Here is the link for more about that.

1,700-year-old Roman hoard includes gold coins depicting illegitimate emperor | Live Science

There will always be old treasures like this out there to be found when someone is at the right place at the right time.

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Source: SurfGuru.com.

The wind switched again. The surf will be increasing.  The surf isn't very high, and the tides are not huge now,

Good hunting,

Treasureguide@comcast.net