Beach Renourishment East Lindsey

[Bob Williams]

It’s that time of year again, when our beaches from a few miles north of Skeggy up to just past Mablethorpe, are invaded by the Netherlanders ripping up the seabed and pumping it to where there was once a seawall. Past work over the last few years has created dunes in sandhills that are, I believe, at least 4 metres higher than the old beach was. This has helped to make a Flood Prevention zone, as well as extending the beach and creating more growth. I can remember the area from some 10+ years ago, and the sea came right up the beach to the seawall. That seawall and associated steps, is now buried and the top of that wall is now the Lincolnshire Coastal Path. Some may remember my original pic’s of the previous renourishment work. These below are first views of the gear that was due to begin work today: the beach will be closed off at Sutton on Sea for about 10 days, but the coastal path is open and I will try to get some pics of the work, if the rain ever stops this week!

Dunes created by previous work, looking south to the Wash windfarm. The fence is a marker. Faint smudge on horizon, is the Dutch ship, part dredger, part cargo vessel, returning for more gear and the workers. We locals are grateful to these guys for saving our coast and giving flood protection. They are the world’s experts of course. One told me that they are hoping the Maldives asks for help. “No offence English, but their weather is better, although they don’t have Grimsby Cod and Haddock!”

Looking north. It was a dull but warm day yesterday until a howling wind came up the coast from the south. The square-ish shape you see is the generator and there are Security guys watching it. Faint brown smudges further along, are the pipes used to pump seabed sand up, from where it is pushed up by diggers and smoothed out by a huge tractor, towing the genny on a sled! The principle is that seawater drains back through sand during the highest tides, but concrete walls retain it.

Those are the pipes. First they are used to pump seabed up, then they re retrieved from the seabed and towed behind the genny at 90º to smooth out the sand into a good beach.

More to come if I get the weather! I want to get down there ASAP when the beach reopens, to get the pick of fossils and flint. Knappings, axes, spearheads, fish harpoons, arrowheads.

 

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Richard]

I saw that process in use in the Middle East. They retrieved a large amount of sea bed material and extended some parts by half a mile or more. It was fascinating to see the mixture pumped out of the flow diverting arrangement at the end of the pipes and erupt into a spray that tended to see the water depart very rapidly, either running back across the new land or sinking even more rapidly into the newly created ‘dry space’.

Is it just sand they bring up? The operations I saw tended to grind up the soft rocks and corals before pumping them along with any other material. The result compacted very well with little or no specific action to stabilise the area.

Sand dunes appear to be an effective way to stabilise sandy areas with the tough grasses being very effective at filtering, grabbing and holding fine wind blown materials so the dunes can build themselves. Some people do not like them or the grasses they otherwise nurture, however the areas that tried removing the dunes and their vegetation soon regretted their error. they make surprisingly good storm barriers. I wonder how big those dunes will grow, I have seen some gain several feet in a few years.

[Bob Williams]

Richard the area of seabed that is dredged, pumped up and used to buttress the beach, was once “Doggerland”: –

http://tinyurl.com/y2humbnw

I have been taking a small amount of rock samples from various Lincolnshire beaches for around 20 years now and have them in a crystal bowl in the window of this room. There is an amazing variety of different geological samples in many colours, but it is all rounded by the sea and I have found nothing larger than a very small number of pieces perhaps 35cm. on its largest side. Most pieces are roughly between 2.5 and 7 cm. That is because of the nature of this part of the North seabed, which was land that was recently (in geological terms) land on which people and animals lived, and vegetation grew. Doggerland’s bedrock is some distance below the seabed ooze and sand, having only been inundated 8,200 years ago. The material that interests me which is washed up, is the flint, much of it ‘worked flint’ having been fashioned by our ancestors into weapons or tools. There are lots of ‘knappings’ which have been flaked from a piece of flint by a Mesolithic worker. I have picked up pieces and finished objects which have retained sharp edges. It always thrills me to find these and know that the last human to hold this piece, was just as human and just as potentially intelligent as any modern human today. Perhaps that piece I picked up, was last worked on many thousands of years ago, yet it is still just as capable of performing the task it was intended for today. That never fails to boggle my mind!

Last year I spoke with one of the management of the Dutch company carrying out the work. He told me that his dredgers had picked up such items as extinct rhino horn, mammoth tusks, huge antlers from an extinct deer species and Aurochs horns, from the massive ancestors of European cattle. I have read quite a lot about Doggerland and apparently it was a place where humans from both sides of the present North Sea met, hunted and exchanged materials. It is also speculated that they may have exchanged people: youngsters from one side or another, crossing to the others to find a mate. It was not an environment that could have been lived in for some time before the North Sea was formed, as it had become progressively wetter for a few thousand years: there were swamps and lakes, with attendant insect life.

The dunes are well settled now and are a part of our landscape that we locals love.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Richard]

I can see how that would offer potentially interesting finds. I am pretty certain that the rock crunchers I saw in use would not leave too much to be admired after they had ground it up and pumped it out. It is tempting to think that the world we see today is the way it has always been. Though anyone who has live longer than the time to grow up will know that the only thing that never changes is that change is constant. True 8,000 to 10,000 years is a little longer than most life spans, but even that is warp speed compared to the normal rate of change in geological terms. To be able to touch items previously handled by generations now passed does have a clear resonance with you, and from what I have seen you are not alone.

I do not know if you saw the series on YouTube where an old and more or less derelict DC 3 that had been left lonely and unloved for nearly 30 years, was rebuilt for D Day. One of the pilots was the son of one of the invasion force pilots who had flown that very plan on D Day. He was visibly moved to know that he was sitting beside the ‘ghost’ of his father after the first flight of the recovered aircraft. It was not perhaps as old as your son’s engines, but it was a pretty amazing project to see it go from abandoned to flying in more ways than one.

[Bob Williams]

I saw that YT series Richard, really interesting and I was also moved by the reaction of the pilot’s son. Did you see “Guy Martin’s D-Day Landing”?

http://tinyurl.com/y4ygp3rt

The ‘brutal training’ part amused me, not his words of course but PR hype by some Channel 4 PR hack. I only had 6 weeks Para training, as opposed to the (I think nowadays) 16 weeks that regular Paras get, but that certainly was brutal. Every day we managed to just shower, eat and collapse onto a bed. I woke up one Saturday afternoon still covered in mud from the Friday training slog. But Guy is True Blue British, besides being a proper Lincolnshire character, and what he does is a reflection of how he really feels. I have met the guy more than once and he is exactly as you see him on TV.

Two pics of the specimens collected over 20+ years from Lincolnshire beaches: one of which is a secret known to locals, the entrance is totally hidden. You will see the variety of different geological origin.

Viewing each piece from top and left to right, numbering 1 & 2 at top and continuing down then L to R:

1 is a puzzle that gives my tame amateur geologist a headache! 2 is a very old flint that may have been a tool, judging by the point. 3 & 5 are heavily fossilised, while 4 has faint lighter colours which may be fossils. 6 is very old glass, 7 is Fossils with embedded quartz. 8 & 9 are flint knappings, edges as sharp as if they were worked yesterday. 10 is clearly fossilised, as are 16 & 17. I have people on the beach ask what I was doing: most are interested, some obviously think I am a Nerd. Children are, without exception, at first interested, then excited when I explain how old the pieces are and that the flints were handled by humans who could be their ancestors thousands of years ago. I sincerely hope that I have fired an interest in the prehistory of their land, by some young minds. I once had a captive but willing audience of 4 small siblings and their parents, the children asked question after question. I love that: until quite recently, by invitation, I used to read to some Primary schoolchildren. I love children, all those plastic minds and such imagination. I never talk down to them and I never use “baby language”. They are all potential adults and deserve a future.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

My last post got me thinking about geology, specifically East Lindsey and Lincolnshire geology. Why so many different and varied rocks turning up on our beaches? So I started researching and this is what I found:

http://tinyurl.com/y5emcu5h

It is evident that our county has been submerged several times over many millions of years. Add to that the fact that the UK is a hodge-podge of bits of land from various pieces of the original super-continent Pangea, from 250 million years ago, and it becomes clearer. Especially when I also discovered that Lincolnshire is made up of lots of various bits of those bits! Pangea: –

http://tinyurl.com/y5mexycb

I have dug out my old Geology books and am now looking at my bowl of rocks, to determine which pieces are from when. Well, it keeps me out of the rain, ? which just keeps on precipitating.

If anyone is interested, check out the Upper Cretaceous in the first link and the information regarding the chalk formations. Apparently prehistoric man found lots of flint there, and that still comes to the surface on the Wold farms. That further explains why there is so much of it pumped up in the renourishment of the beaches.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Ed P]

I posted a comment on your #1 flint yesterday but it went missing. As flint originates from clumps of siliceous  algae (like blanket weed), it often includes foreign bodies in the clumps – fossils are quite common, so that bit of brown could be nearly anything including dino poo!

[Bob Williams]

Ed siliceous algae has been responsible for several dogs becoming ill whilst their owners have them on the beach (and in other areas). One visitor from inland actually tried to sue our Council a couple of years ago for his dog’s illness. He claimed a silly figure for vet’s fees. His problem was broken down by the Council thus;

*He had attempted litigation almost 3 months after taking his dog on a certain beach, after finding a report about the algae.

*He had given no invoice details from the Vet’s surgery.

*The beach he was supposed to have visited, had clear notices banning dogs from the beach during the date he was there.

Shot down in flames, no further contact.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

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