Rising Sea Level and Sea Turtle Nesting on St. Catherines Island, GA; What the Present and Past tell about the Future!"

Summary

Geologists involved in sea turtle conservation have documented deterioration of sea turtle nesting habitat during sea level rise in The Modern Transgression on a "Sentinel Island," Deterioration of habitat has resulted in rapid erosion of backbeach nesting habitat at ~ 3.0 m per year (declining from 25% to 12% adequate habitat in a decade), including fragmentation of three beaches in 1990 into eight beaches in 2013, formation of washover fans and wash-in fans onto backbeach marsh meadows and into maritime forest, formation of nearly continuous tree "boneyards," scarps, and relict marsh mud exposures along most of the beach. All these phenomena contribute to difficult nesting conditions for loggerhead sea turtles; forcing relocation of "at risk" nests into nurturies. Erosional effects are expected to continue and accelerate as the rise of sea level accelerates leading to an increasing trend of barrier island erosion and deterioration of loggerhead sea turtle nesting habitat on St. Catherines Island, on the southeastern coast of the USA, and around the World.

Collaborative, interdisciplinary research amongst geologists, archaeologists, and other scientists in "Conservation, Research, and Education" has dramatically enhanced our understanding of processes being driven by rising sea level on the Georgia Coast.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• 2015 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of David Hurst Thomas

Keywords

Spatial Coverage