(CES) Barrier Islands Lesson

Barrier Islands

Barrier islands protect the mainland by taking the bulk of the wrath from hurricanes and other coastal storms. Although barrier islands lie parallel to the coast surrounding the country, they are always changing due to the movement of the sand by waves, wind, tides, currents and storms. The general movement of the sand parallel to the coast is called longshore drift. Long shore drift is generated by the action of waves and currents, usually from north to south. As a wave breaks and washes up along the beach, it meets the beach at an angle. The return of the water back to the ocean carries sand particles out to sea.

Barrier islands form when ocean waves, tides and wind act together to pile up sediment on shorelines. This creates large dunes which are then stabilized by vegetation. When sea level rises, these dunes are partly submerged and cut off from the shore, creating an island.

Barrier islands are dynamic - they are constantly being eroded and reshaped by water movement and sediment deposition. On the east coast, the coastlines are exposed to currents moving north to south, parallel to the coast. These currents erode the northern ends of the island while building up the southern end. This gives the island a drumstick shape.

The current barrier islands off the Atlantic coast are largely the result of melting global ice sheets and increasing sea level over the past 18,000 years. Off the coast of Georgia, amplified tides have led to the development of larger wider barriers.

Barrier Islands on the Georgia Coast

Although barrier islands are found all over the world they are most prominent along the eastern seaboard of North America. Barrier islands are very dynamic and fragile, but they are extremely important to the ecosystem. Most importantly, they are designed to protect the mainland from hurricanes. Secondly, they often provide refuge for many unique wildlife. The Georgia Coast is very unique in that it has several barrier islands which have been preserved to protect Georgia's rich history and the balance of our ecosystem.

Georgia's Amazing Coast

St. Simons Island

St. Simons (in Glynn County, Georgia) captivates visitors with remarkable beauty, fascinating history, lovely beaches, golf, tennis, and countless shops and restaurants. Historic remnants of bygone eras and the sites of antebellum plantations dot the island. Geography and climate of Coastal Georgia, made St. Simons and the Sea Islands especially suited for the growing of cotton. Hence, the rise of the plantation system and the reputation Coastal Georgia maintained for Sea Island cotton, tourism, industry, maritime fisheries, agricultural pursuits, have contributed to the areas' development.

Jekyll Island

The Guale Indians called the island, Ospo. Later, Oglethorpe changed the name to Jekyll Island (in Glynn County, Georgia; one of the Golden Isles of Georgia) in honor of Sir Joseph Jekyll, in 1734. Jekyll contributed liberally towards the founding of Georgian colonies. Jekyll was acquired in 1791 by Christophe Poulain du Bignon whose African American slaves cultivated extensive fields of Sea Island Cotton. The 1858 voyage of "The Wanderer", marked as the last ship to import slaves in America, landed its' cargo on Jekyll Island near du Bignon's plantation. The state of Georgia purchased the island in 1947.

Sea Island

Though much of Sea Island (part of the group that makes up the Golden Isles of Georgia together with Jekyll, Little St. Simons, and St. St. Simons Islands) is residential, island life centers very much around The Cloister an internationally acclaimed, Five-Star, Five-Diamond resort, The Cloister was established in the 1920's by industrialist Howard E. Coffin, and is honored as one of the world's great hotels.

Since the '20's, the origins of Sea Island Company have grown to include the Sea Island Golf Club on St. Simons Island, the Beach Club, a world-class ocean front spa, The Cloister Racquet Club, large conference center, and the St. Simons Island Club. Horseback riding, fine dining, and numerous cultural and culinary events are among the other activities available to Island Residents and guests at this distinguished resort.

Tybee Island

Tybee is a word from the Euchee Indian language that means "salt." In 1605, the French were drawn to Tybee for the Sassafras roots which at the time were considered by Europeans to be a miracle cure. The Spanish would fight the French in a naval battle just offshore of Tybee Island (just offshore in Chatham County, Georgia, near Savannah) to regain control over the area. Guale Indian uprisings forced the removal of the French and pushed the Spanish back southward towards St. Augustine until the later arrival of British colonialism.

For many decades, Pirates visited the Islands in search of a safe haven and hiding place for their treasure. Tybee and Little Tybee were also a source for fresh water and game to replenish supplies.

Wassaw Island

Wassaw and Little Wassaw Island (one of the Sea Islands, part of Chatham County, Georgia) are the most unspoiled of Georgia's barrier islands. This National Wildlife Refuge, accessible by private boat or charters from local marinas, offers biking, hiking, surf fishing, birding, sea kayaking, diverse wildlife and, of course, the beach.

In 1969, the tiny island of Wassaw was sold to The Nature Conservancy, provided that no bridge ever be built connecting it to the mainland. Today, the island is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service which maintains a dock and small headquarters on Wassaw Creek.

Wassaw's virgin stands of oak, pine, and cedar support an incredible diversity of animal species. This rare bit of wilderness attracts a large variety of migratory birds, along with alligators, nesting sea turtles and manatees.

St. Catherine's Island

St. Catherine's Island (privately held island is one of the Sea Islands to the south of Savannah; in Liberty County), one of Coastal Georgia's golden isles, lies about fifty miles south of Savannah. It is one of the few remaining islands untouched by condominiums and fast-food chains. St. Catharine's is owned and regulated by the Georgia based non-profit organization, St. Catherine's Island Foundation. Driftwood lines the wild, white beaches. The area abounds with wildlife and is seeped with European history

Blackbeard Island

The island is named for Edward Teach, the high seas pirate better known as Blackbeard. The name Blackbeard appears on the 1760 survey map of Sapelo Island by William DeBrahm and Henry Yonge. Many legends were associated with the infamous Teach. One accounting reputes the wearing of slow-burning, smoldering pieces of rope in his thick, unkempt beard, lending authenticity to his ferocious reputation. Blackbeard met his end in combat against Lieutenant Robert Maynard during a battle off the coast of North Carolina.

Blackbeard Island (northeast of Sapelo Island in McIntosh County, this island has been the setting for pirate lore and tales of buried treasure), then as now, is endowed with a dense live oak forest. Many of the trunks and boughs of the old gnarled oaks had become, over the millennia, bent by the ceaseless action of the ocean winds blowing off the Atlantic which constantly swept over the exposed little island. The oaks were thus bent into shapes that particularly suited them for use in the knees and bends necessary for the construction of the hulls of wooden ships of war. This explains the acquisition of Blackbeard Island by the federal government for utilization as a naval timber reserve.

Sapelo Island

Sapelo Island (Georgia's 4th largest barrier island, about 60 miles southeast of Savannah is home to the 443 acre African-American community of Hog Hammock) is the fourth largest Georgia barrier island; located 7 1/2 northeast of Darien, the reserve is made up of salt marsh, maritime forest, and beach and dune areas. This island is rich not only in natural history, but in human history dating back 4,000 years.

The University of Georgia Marine Institute has conducted research on Sapelo Island for over 40 years. Work is conducted by full-time scientists and visiting scientists. Studies of the microbial processes, biochemistry, and populating dynamics are conducted throughout the year. The following information is gratefully acknowledged and accredited to The Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve and administered by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources' Wildlife Resources Division, Parks, Recreation, and Historic Sites Division on Sapelo Island.

Little Cumberland Island

Little Cumberland Island and the historic communities known as the Settlement and High Point located just across the creek on Big Cumberland form the north end. This area has a separate history from the south end because the two were located 18 miles away from each other.

Though part of the Cumberland Island National Seashore, Little Cumberland Island is privately owned and not open to visitors without an invitation. With 1,600 acres of uplands, this Holocene island is larger than Sea Island, but has fewer beaches with approximately 2.5 miles of sand. There are one hundred, 2-acre lots where development is allowed, but few homes have been built. Little Cumberland has monitored sea turtle nesting since 1964, longer than any other island on the Georgia coast. Unfortunately, the island has seen drastically reduced numbers of turtle nests, declining from an average of 151 in the 1970s to an average of 44 in the last 10 years, for reasons that are not entirely clear to scientists.

Cumberland Island

Cumberland Island is Georgia's largest and southernmost barrier island and today a national seashore. For thousands of years people have lived on Cumberland, but never in such numbers as to permanently alter the character of the landscape. An occasional pot shard indicates that Spanish soldier and missionaries were here in the mid- 1500s. No signs remain of Fort William and Fort St. Andrews, built to protect British interests. Revolutionary War hero Gen. Nathanael Greene purchased land on Cumberland Island in 1783. His widow, Catherine Greene, constructed a four-story tabby home that she named Dungeness. In the 1890s, the Settlement was established for the black workers. The First African Baptist Church, established in 1893 and rebuilt in the 1930s in one of the few remaining structures of the community.

Wolf Island

Wolf Island (located in McIntosh County, the island has no public use facilities and serves as a wildlife refuge) National Wildlife Refuge, which includes Egg Island and Little Egg Island, was established on April 3, 1930 as a migratory bird sanctuary. The refuge consists of a long narrow strip of oceanfront beach backed by a broad band of salt marsh. Over 75% of the refuge's 5,126 acres are composed of saltwater marshes.

Wolf Island was designated a National Wilderness Area in 1975, therefore no public use facilities exist or are planned on the refuge. Though the refuge's saltwaters are open to a variety of recreational activities, all beach, marsh, and upland areas are closed to the public.

Colonel's Island

Colonel's Island (Colonel's Island Terminal is one of the largest deepwater agri-bulk operations in the southern Atlantic), Brunswick's deepwater port, a division of the Georgia Ports Authority, is located 12 miles landward from the open Atlantic Ocean.The rivers and sounds separating the mainland from Georgia's barrier islands are part of the Intercoastal Waterway serving the Eastern Seaboard. This strategic waterway provides a flexible, low cost mode of transporting basic raw materials and other bulk loading commodities.

Ossabaw Island

Ossabaw (one of the largest of Georgia's barrier islands, this island is 20 miles, by water, south of the historic downtown of the city of Savannah) has remained one of the best preserved of Georgia's magnificent barrier islands. With a total area of 25,000 acres, its many natural zones progressing from the ocean include beaches, dunes (the dunes receive moisture from rain and surf and are relatively hostile environments with high salt content, sandy soil, and little fresh water; plants such as sea oats provide stability to the dunes.) meadows, ponds, maritime forests, and freshwater and saltwater marshes.

Inhabited by the Native Americans from as early as 2200 B.C. to the 18th-century, the island offers numerous archeological sites, as well as slave cabins, a late 19th-century prefab house and a grand 1920s mansion in the midst of its undisturbed wildlife.

A partnership between the Ossabaw Foundation and the State of Georgia offers educational programs that share the riches of the island's ecosystems with school groups, scientists, and scholars.

Shaped like a wishbone with marsh filling the middle, the island consists of 25,000 acres, of which 11,800 are upland and almost 10 miles are beach, making it roughly twice the size of Bermuda and counting total acreage the second largest barrier island on the Georgia coast.

By state law, all of Georgia's barrier island beaches are open to the public, and Ossabaw is no exception. During daylight hours, the public is allowed to use the beach for hiking, picnicking, or shelling. However, the interior of the island is off limits to the public without permission.

[CC BY 4.0] UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED | IMAGES: LICENSED AND USED ACCORDING TO TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION