COASTAL LETTERS Newsletter of the Coastal & Marine Geography Specialty Group
of the Association of American Geographers
Volume 10, No. 1 January, 1998
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Specialty Group Officers
Editor's Comments
Coma-Sponsored Sessions in Boston
Call for Author Nominations
Call for Award Nominations
R.J. Russell: Coastal Enthusiast
Musings from the Chair
Media Update
Get to Know Your Officers
News from Members and Departments
Coma Membership Demographics
Upcoming Conferences
SPECIALTY GROUP OFFICERS
Paul Gares, Chair
Department of Geography
East Carolina University
Greenville, NC 27858
(919) 328-6054
gegares@ecuvm.cis.ecu.edu
Richard Daniels, Vice Chair
Shorelands/Dept of Ecology
P.O. Box 47690
Olympia, WA 98504
(360) 407-6427
rdan461@ecy.wa.gov
Dorothy Sack, Secretary-Treasurer
Department of Geography
122 Clippinger Labs
Ohio University
Athens, OH 45701
(740) 593-1149
sack@oak.cats.ohiou.edu
Wayne Engstrom, Member of the Board of Directors
Geography Department
California State University Fullerton
Fullerton, CA 92634-9480
(714) 773-3161
Harry Jol, Member of the Board of Directors
Department of Geography
University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
105 Garfield Avenue
Eau Claire, WI 54702-4004
(715) 836-3244
jolhm@uwec.edu
Donald Zeigler, Member of the Board of Directors
5584 Herbert Moore Rd.
Virginia Beach, VA 23462
(804) 683-3841
djz100f@hamlet.bal.odu.edu
EDITOR'S COMMENTS--by Dorothy Sack
Welcome to all of you who have recently joined the Coastal and
Marine Geography Specialty Group (Coma). Whether you are a new or
long-standing member, please consider attending our specialty group
business meeting this year in Boston (March 27, 6:45 p.m.) as well as
Coma-sponsored paper sessions. It's a great way to get involved.
Thanks to everyone who provided items for this newsletter. I
am especially grateful to Jess Walker for taking the time to write the
wonderful piece on R.J. Russell for us. It is important to be reminded
occasionally of why the specialty group's R.J. Russell Award for major
contributions to our field was so named.
Finally, since I will be stepping down as secretary-treasurer
when my term is up in March, I will take this opportunity to thank you
all for helping to make these last three years of service a pleasant and
rewarding experience.
COMA-SPONSORED SESSIONS IN BOSTON
1. Political Ecology of Marine Resources I, Thursday, March 26, 2:45 -
4:05 p.m.--(co-sponsored with Socialist Geography)
Becky Mansfield, Univ. of Oregon, The Social Construction of
Marine Space: The Pacific Groundfish Fishery
Barbara Walker, UC-Berkeley, Women with Mango, Women without
Fish: Engendering Development in Polynesia
Xanthippe Augerot, Oregon State Univ., Competing Conceptions of
Salmon Management in the North Pacific
Carolyn Trist, UC-Berkeley, Contesting the Reserve: The Politics of
Marine Science in St Lucia
2. Political Ecology of Marine Resources II, Thursday, March 26, 4:45
- 6:05 p.m.--(co-sponsored with Socialist Geography)
Karen Nichols, Rutgers Univ., International Coastal Management
Politics: Discourse, Practice, and Implications in Sri Lanka
Tira Foran, UC-Berkeley, Can No-Take Marine Reserves Help a
Troubled Pacific Fishery?
Heidi Glaesel, Mt Holyoke College, The Expansion of Rogue
Technologies in East Africa's Marine Environment
Lara A. Davis, Univ. of Washington, Shifting Resources, Shifting
Bodies: Fishing for Constructions of Space in the Pacific
Northwest
3. Coastal Geomorphology I, Saturday, March 28, 7:30 - 9:10 a.m.--
(co-sponsored with Geomorphology)
Matthew Foote and Diane Horn, Birkbeck College-University of
London, High-Resolution Water Surface Measurements in the
Swash Zone
Jun Ren and Norbert Psuty, Rutgers Univ., Changes in Sediment
Budget at the Critical Zone, Sandy Hook, NJ
Eugene Farrell and Douglas Sherman, Univ. of Southern California,
Mass Flux Profiles in Aeolian Saltation Systems
Paul Gares, East Carolina Univ., and Norbert Psuty, Rutgers Univ.,
Spatial Variation in Dune Response to a Coastal Storm
Nancy Jackson, NJ Inst. Technology, Karl Nordstrom, Rutgers Univ.,
and Valerie Spalding, NJ Inst. Technology, Classification of a
Developed Coastal Barrier
4. Coastal Geomorphology II, Saturday, March 28, 9:30 - 10:45 a.m.--
(co-sponsored with Geomorphology)
Steven Namikas, Univ. of Southern California, A Field Investigation
of Aeolian Saltation
Brian Andrews, East Carolina Univ., GIS Analysis of Topographic
Change in Outer Banks Dunes
Jinkang Wang and Douglas Sherman, Univ. of Southern California,
Field Experiment on Beach Cusp Development at Malin Head,
Ireland
Brian Bender and Thomas Terich, Western Washington Univ., The
Holocene Geomorphic and Stratigraphic Evolution of Cape
Shoalwater, Washington
Jennifer Rahn, Univ. of Florida, Fifty Years of Coastal Barrier Island
Change in the Florida Panhandle
5. Coastal Geomorphology III, Saturday, March 28, 1:15 - 2:45 p.m.--
(co-sponsored with Geomorphology)
Phillip Chaney and Gregory Stone, Louisiana State Univ., Wind and
Nearshore Dynamics Associated with Soundside Erosion: West
Ship Island, MS
Tammie Middleton, East Carolina Univ., Impact of Nearshore
Processes on Microtidal Lagoonal Beach, Roanoke Island
Valerie Spalding, NJ Inst. of Technology, Shoreline Armoring
Effects on Coastal Geomorphology and Meiofauna in Raritan
Bay, NJ
Michael Craghan, Rutgers Univ., Geomorphically Immaterial
Estuarine Flooding in Built Areas
John Dobosiewicz, Rutgers Univ., The Vulnerability of an Urban
Estuary to Coastal Flooding
Alon Yaari, Univ. of Southern California, Modeling Potential
Wind-Wave Erosion in the Sacramento Delta
YOTO!!
The United Nations General Assembly has designated 1998 as
the International year of the Ocean (YOTO).
CALL FOR AUTHOR NOMINATIONS--Coastal & Marine Geography, the 21st Century
Those in attendance at our last business meeting established the
author selection process for the specialty group's coastal and marine
geography chapter in Geography in America--the 21st Century. It was
decided that the author or co-authors of the chapter be nominated from
the membership at large. Due to the diverse nature of our specialty
group, which includes a broad spectrum of human and physical, coastal,
marine, and lacustrine geographers, it was suggested that two to four
co-authors would be most practical.
Nominated co-authors must be formally selected by the end of
our 1998 specialty group business meeting so that those individuals can
meet with the volume's editors in Boston to discuss content, format, and
logistics. At the 1999 annual meeting (Honolulu), the authors will
present a draft of their chapter as a paper in a special session, with the
final volume scheduled to appear in 2000. Selected authors, therefore,
must be regular attendees of the AAG annual meetings. Nominations
can be mailed or emailed in advance of the Boston meeting to Coma
secretary Dorothy Sack.
CALL FOR AWARD NOMINATIONS--The 1998 R.J. Russell Award
Rich Daniels, Coma vice chair, has announced that nominations
for this year's R.J. Russell Award will be accepted until February 21.
This specialty group award is presented in recognition of an individual's
major contributions to the field of coastal or marine geography. These
contributions may be in research, teaching, public service, and/or to the
specialty group. Previous awardees include Jess Walker (1991), Filmore
Earney (1992), Norb Psuty (1993), Karl Nordstrom (1996), and Doug
Sherman (1997). Letters of nomination are accepted from Coma
members, but nominees do not have to be members of either the
specialty group or the AAG. Contact Rich Daniels (address on p. 1) to
nominate an individual, or for further information. Read on for an
interesting and informative account of who Russell was and what his
connections were to coastal and marine geography.
R.J. RUSSELL: COASTAL ENTHUSIAST--by H. Jesse Walker, LSU
When one considers R.J. Russell's upbringing, education, and
early interests, it is somewhat surprising that today he is remembered
mainly for his floodplain and coastal research. Richard Joel Russell was
born in California in 1895 and, although he spent part of his youth
(between the ages of four and eight) in Hawaii, his grade school and
high school training took place at the foot of the Coastal Range in
Hayward, California. He had plenty of opportunity to look west at the
Hayward mudflats (some of which were in Russellville, a town on San
Francisco Bay named after his grandfather), but instead headed for the
hills and mountains every chance he had. His high school training
included a course in physical geography which used a textbook by Wm.
Morris Davis, thus he was indoctrinated early with the Davisian
approach to landscape development. He was precocious--learning to
type at nine, photographing the San Francisco earthquake (1906) at 11,
publishing an article on the printing of color photographs at 17, and
winning an automobile race (60 m.p.h.) at 19.
He loved hiking, horses, and mountains and, when it came time
to decide on a career, chose forestry, which could combine all three of
those outdoor activities. With this interest in mind he enrolled at the
University of California-Berkeley in the College of geology and
obtained his first degree in vertebrate paleontology. While working on
his doctorate, Russell spent four summers studying the structure and
stratigraphy of the Warner Range in northeastern California. He was
destined to become a structural geologist and indeed several of his
earliest papers fit into that category. However, during that same period
of time, Russell taught in Carl O. Sauer's geography department, went
into the field with Wm. M. Davis, and began research in climatology.
In 1926, the year he received his doctorate, Russell joined Texas
Tech as an Associate Professor. Because of Russell's training, Texas
Tech was probably a more logical place for him than Louisiana State
University, but when his old colleague and friend, Henry Howe, asked
him to join him in developing a strong, broad-based School at LSU,
Russell readily accepted. With a very catholic view toward science,
Russell enjoyed teaching a variety of courses. Further, he especially
relished field work, an endeavor that became a hallmark of the School
and an activity which Russell engaged in until the last year of his life
(1971).
Russell remarked that coming to Louisiana was a physiographic
shock. The Mississippi floodplain was a form he had not thought about
except as an example of Davis' "old age," which, as he noted later, "is a
misnomer because the Mississippi floodplain is among the youngest of
all landforms." The shock soon wore off and Russell immersed himself
in low-lying, wet-land environmental research. During his first 28 out
of 43 years at LSU, he concentrated on alluvial morphology, the
Quaternary Period, sea-level change, and deltaic physiography. These
studies established Russell as a leader among students of rivers,
floodplains, and deltas throughout the middle five decades of the 20th
century.
Russell wrote that when he discovered that alluvial morphology
is an exciting field of research he discovered "a new way of life!"
Russell's (1933) first Louisiana paper, "Larto Lake, an Old Mississippi
River Channel," led to his classic volume, "Physiography of the Lower
Mississippi River Delta" (1936). In it, he discussed load-induced
subsidence and, with H. Howe, the Gulf Coast geosyncline. In that
volume Russell also discussed the rapid rate of coastal retreat in
Louisiana, a retreat that, based on many of the articles published today,
is considered a "recent discovery." In those early days Russell expanded
his base and included research on other rivers, such as the Rhone in
France and the Meander in Turkey.
Much of Russell's early research was concerned with deltas.
However, in Russell's mind at the time, they were not so much a coastal
feature as an extension of a river floodplain. It was not until Russell
turned 60 that he seriously turned to coastal research. He thought it was
time for a change and so "embarked on ... the investigation of possible
relationships between mineral composition and beach morphology." He
selected the Lesser Antilles as the location to begin his studies because
they possess volcanic, organic, and quartz-sand beaches. On his way to
the International Geographical Congress in Brazil in 1956 he stopped at
six of the area's islands. On St. Lucia, he was introduced to beach rock
by two colleagues. Not being one to pass up an interesting challenge,
Russell delved into the study of beach rock, which was to occupy much
of his research time for the next seven years.
During that seven years Russell, often with Wm. G. McIntire,
visited many of the West Indians islands, Hawaii, Fiji, Cocos Keeling,
Mauritius, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and those
Mediterranean coasts where beach rock is present. He wrote at least
eight papers on the subject and in most them the importance of the
water table on beach-rock formation was emphasized. Indeed, he was
still researching the importance of the water table on coastal
development at the time of his death--his last paper, "Water-Table
Effects on Sea Coasts" (1971) was published posthumously.
Although most of Russell's coastal work was with sandy beaches
he did study to some extent fine-grained beaches and cliffy coasts. One
of his premises was that "any morphological feature associated directly
with an existing sea level must have originated in an amazingly short
time," an idea he used in connection with his paper "Recent Recession
of Tropical Cliffy Coasts," which was published in Science. Because of
his cliffy-coast research, Russell argued for a relatively stable still-stand
sea level for the past 10,000 years. He was also interested in
Quaternary sea levels and in that connection studied elevated notches,
especially in Oahu and Jamaica.
A logical extension of Russell's interest in beach rock was the
study of algal and coral flats. In his tropical travels he noted many
locations where algae coated coastal rocks of different types. An
advocate of precise, terminology, Russell thought the term coral reef
should be limited to those reefs where corals are in the same relative
positions they had when alive and that a reef flat is composed of
fragmental reef debris and is normally found landward of the active
reef.
Although most people will remember R.J. Russell for his
research, especially riverine and coastal, there are some other
characteristics that should be noted. He was an administrator (Dean of
the Graduate School at LSU for 12 years), he was an organizer (creating
Coastal Studies Institute in 1954), he was a leader (becoming president
of both the Association of American Geographers [1948] and the
Geological Society of America [1957]), and he was frequently honored
(becoming a member of the National Academy of Sciences [1959] and a
recipient of numerous other honors).
Russell, first and foremost, was a scientist. He wrote that a
"scientist is motivated by curiosity." He enjoyed discovering facts,
speculating about their meanings, drawing conclusions, and publishing
the results. He believed that scientists have an obligation to share their
ideas and subject them to scrutiny and evaluation. To his students and
colleagues he said "go into the field with enthusiasm" and study some of
the many interesting features that are so abundant in all environments.
For many of us the coast is the logical place to continue our efforts
"with enthusiasm."
MUSINGS FROM THE CHAIR--by Paul Gares
I'm excited! This is my first contribution to the chair's column.
Dorothy is probably grinding her teeth because I dragged out writing
this until after winter break, delaying the newsletter. Sorry Dorothy....
Thank you for your patience. I contemplated the topic of this column
for several days before I sat down to produce this. I admit I was
searching for inspiration.
This has the potential to be an exciting year for coastal and
marine geography. As a specialty group, we need to identify an author
or authors to write our chapter for Geography in America--the 21st
Century, the AAG's current effort to provide an overview of the entire
field of geography. All of our members will be asked to evaluate what
the author(s) produce. We also now have a web page, which should
allow better communication among our members. Go there periodically
to see what's going on. Finally (to put in a shameless plug), Doug
Sherman and I have the honor of organizing this year's Binghamton
Geomorphology Symposium, which will deal with coastal
geomorphology. We feel that the conference should be a catalyst for
bringing together coastal scientists from several disciplines to foster the
exchange of information.
None of the above items are foremost on my mind tonight.
Today was the first day of classes this term at ECU. I'm teaching
Coastal Geography as I have for most of the last five or six spring
semesters. When I walked into class I saw 20-25 students, significantly
more than in previous semesters. I wondered why. Several were
geography majors, perhaps there to help fulfill the requirement to have
three physical geography courses. Many, though, were students who
had not yet committed themselves to a major. Maybe this will be an
opportunity to convince students that geography is the place for them.
As I launched into my introduction to the field I asked, "What does the
study of geography involve?" The response was silence ... a long
silence. I wondered what to do next; how do I encourage them to talk?
I thought of a recent newspaper article that had reported on attitudes of
first-year college students. When asked what they hoped to get from a
college education, the overwhelming response had been "a job." I
wondered what response I'd get from these students, so I asked the
same question. One of the students who I already knew answered ... "to
get a job." I was disappointed. I asked "what else?" Finally, someone
said, "to get an education." I launched off on the difference between
getting an education and getting a job. This, of course, reflects my own
education and upbringing. My parents and professors encouraged me to
be a student first. Very little was said about a job. I wasn't intending
to be a lawyer, a bank teller, or a sales clerk. I was in college to get
educated. But, you know, I don't recall how that happened. I do know
I hung out with friends and talked about interesting stuff ... philosophy,
ideas, the world we lived in.... What do college kids talk about today?
What happened to education? At ECU, we have a College of Arts and
Sciences and a number of professional schools, which have high
enrollments. Are those students here to get a job or to get an
education? What is the role of a college or university? Is it to help
students find jobs or to get educations? And if we agree it's the latter,
how do we encourage that in an atmosphere that emphasizes the former?
I suggested to the students in my class that they try to be
inquisitive; that they come to class looking for ways to be interested in
the topics that we're covering. I suggested they look for books that
spark their interests; that they read for intellectual curiosity. I didn't
assign, but I suggested they read, The Perfect Storm, a story so
extraordinary that I thought it would hook them. It's something that I
recommend to all coastal and marine geographers and process
geomorphologists. A couple of students actually wrote the title down....
Maybe I reached them.
I wonder how those of us who are professors reach our students?
I think they are why we are in this profession. Sure, we enjoy research,
field work, and writing, but is that journal article as valuable a
contribution as reaching a student and awakening their intellectual
curiosity? I don't know the answers to these issues. I just wonder
about them, as most of us probably do. I suggest that through
discussion of these issues we can develop a better understanding of the
nature of a college education. We need to exchange ideas, be open with
each other, and discuss what it takes to encourage students to strive for
an education. For last year's AAG meeting, Joann Mossa organized a
session about teaching coastal geography. I suggest we do more of that.
Let's find ways to exchange information about teaching coastal and
marine geography so that our students will become excited and will
want an education first, and a job eventually.
--Paul
COASTAL AND MARINE GEOGRAPHY MEDIA UPDATE
Slide Compilation Project--
Joann Mossa and Wayne Engstrom are getting the specialty
group's slide compilation project off the ground. They would like to
receive copies of your favorite coastal and marine geography slides,
which they will compile into thematic collections. The goal is to offer
the sets for sale, for an estimated $1 per slide, with profits going back
to the specialty group. By providing slides for the project, a specialty
group member will receive discounted or even free slide sets, depending
on the number of slides contributed. For each of your slides used in a
set, you will receive a 20% discount on that set, thus if five of your
slides are used you may obtain that set for free. The slides may be
conceptual, illustrative, verbal, field-oriented, ground or aerial, and an
individual may contribute up to twenty different slides. With each,
please include a brief caption that explains what, where, and when as
well as any sources. For more information contact Joann Mossa, P.O.
Box 117315, Department of Geography, 3141 Turlington Hall,
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 32611-7315, or Wayne
Engstrom, whose address is listed on the first page of this newsletter.
Video Critiques
Do you use any videos when teaching coastal or marine
geography? Don Zeigler suggests that the specialty group assemble an
annotated list of coastal and marine videos, to be posted on our web
site. Next time you show or view a coastal or marine video, take a
moment to jot down its title and its strengths and weaknesses. Send this
information to Don or to Paul Gares (addresses on p. 1) for posting on
the web site.
GET TO KNOW YOUR OFFICERS
Don Zeigler was elected to a two-year term on the specialty
group's board of directors at the 1997 business meeting. He is a
professor of geography at Old Dominion University, which occupies a
campus overlooking Hampton Roads harbor and is located only 18 miles
from the open ocean.
Don decided to pursue a master's degree at the University of
Rhode Island primarily because it was near the coast. While there, he
acquired his interest in marine geography, with a strong law-of-the-sea
flair. His doctoral work at Michigan State, however, gave him a
three-year respite from the sea. Now a resident of Virginia Beach, he is
back "home."
Don has been teaching a course in marine geography since he
arrived at Old Dominion in 1980. That course spawned his Coastal
Geography class in 1995, and an offering on Port Geography may come
on line in the future.
Most of Don's research has been in technological hazards and
urban geography. Even this research, however, has had a coastal
dimension. Four of the nuclear power sites he has worked on
(Shoreham on Long Island, Oyster Point in New Jersey, Maine Yankee
in Maine, and Sizewell in the United Kingdom) have been located on
the coast. Don has also co-authored an article in Coastal Management
on evacuation from the hurricane threat in the Chesapeake Bay.
Don would like to see the diffusion of coastal and marine
courses to all college geography programs located in the coastal zone.
As President of the National Council for Geographic Education in 1997,
he would also like to see coastal and marine themes, both human and
physical, permeate geographic education at both the collegiate and
pre-collegiate levels.
Paul Gares, current Coma chair, just passed the quarter-century
mark on his B.A., which he received from Middlebury College in 1972.
From Middlebury he went on to graduate school at Syracuse University,
where he focused on water resources, and earned his M.A. in 1975.
Paul completed his Ph.D. at Rutgers in 1987. For his dissertation he
investigated differences in topographic changes in coastal sand dunes at
developed and undeveloped sites. Paul taught at Ohio University from
1983 to 1985, at Colgate University from 1985 to 1992, and has been
on the faculty at East Carolina University since 1992. His research
interests include aeolian sediment transport, dune development, coastal
hazards, and coastal management, and, among other studies, he is
currently working on a four-year USDA project on erosion from
agricultural fields. Paul has served the specialty group extensively as a
member of the board of directors, as secretary/treasurer from 1989 to
1995, and as vice chair from 1995 to 1997.
NEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM MEMBERS AND DEPARTMENTS
From the University of Arizona...
Serge Dedina of the Department of Geography and Regional
Development and Bob McCready of the School for Field Studies (SFS)
have been involved in the planning and development of the Center for
Wetland Studies in Magdalena Bay, Baja California Sur, Mexico. The
Center opened in 1997 and provides study and research opportunities for
approximately 100 undergraduates annually. Research at the Center will
focus on mangrove wetland and tropical estuarine issues in general, and
specifically on the bay's fisheries resources, aquaculture projects, marine
mammals, sea turtle populations, habitat destruction, and the sustainable
ecological, social, and economic development of the region. The
overriding goal of the Center is to engage students in an educational and
research program oriented toward the effective management of the
marine and coastal resources of Magdalena Bay.
The Center would like to encourage proposals for collaborative
research from researchers from U.S. institutions interested in coastal and
marine geography. SFS is the largest private university educational
institution in the U.S. designed to give students the opportunity to
contribute to critical environmental management issues in various
threatened ecosystems. For more information contact Bob McCready,
Director, School for Field Studies, Center for Wetland Studies, A.P.
270, La Paz, B.C.S., 23000, Mexico. From the U.S. phone or fax Bob
at 011-52-112-53516; in Mexico dial 112-53516.
From Oregon State University...
Oregon State Geosciences, in cooperation with their Marine
Resource Management Program, is pleased to announce the graduation
of Larissa Lubomudrov, who recently completed her master's thesis
under the supervision of Dawn Wright. Larissa's thesis, "Application of
Scientific Information in Marine Resource Management: Three Case
Studies," deals with various issues of GIS database design and analysis,
metadata creation, and resource management as applied to three diverse
scenarios: larval dispersion of hydrothermal vent fauna along a
seafloor-spreading center, treatment of ship ballast water for harmful
micro-organisms in a freshwater lake, and marine protected areas along
the Pacific coast. Larissa defended her thesis in June and will now be
pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Michigan, School of Natural
Resources and the Environment.
Oregon State Geosciences teamed with that University's College
of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences on a successful proposal to NASA
for a new GIS and scientific visualization laboratory. In the spring of
1998, two new labs will be created, each with 10-15 Sun workstations
and peripherals. One lab will be housed in Geosciences for teaching
(primarily in GIS and coastal/marine studies) and the second will be
housed in Oceanography for graduate student research projects (also in
GIS and coastal/marine studies). Congratulations to co-PIs Sherman
Bloomer of Geosciences and Nick Pisias of Oceanography!
Taylor and Francis has given a preliminary go-ahead for a new
book, entitled "Marine and Coastal Geographical Information Systems,"
to be edited by Dawn Wright of Oregon State and Darius Bartlett of
University College, Cork, Ireland. They are aiming for a release date
coincident with the International Year of the Ocean. Please see the full
prospectus on the web at dusk.geo.orst.edu/book.html and contact Dawn
if you are interested in contributing or in being informed of the
volume's progress.
Dawn Wright would very much like to see "marine" sessions at
upcoming AAG meetings. Please contact her at the Department of
Geosciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, 97331-5506
(dawn@dusk.geo.orst.edu) if you have any interest or potential interest
in participating in future marine sessions.
From Rich Daniels...
Rich is working on the Southwest Washington Coastal Erosion
Study with the Washington State Department of Ecology. Check out
their web page at www.wa.gov/ecology/sea/swce/index.html.
From You, Your Agency, or Department...
This is your newsletter. Please share your coastal and marine
geography news and announcements with other members of our
specialty group. You may send relevant items for upcoming issues to
the secretary-treasurer at any time.
COMA MEMBERSHIP DEMOGRAPHICS
Over last few years, membership in the specialty group has
hovered close to 200. Roughly 80% of our members remain with the
special group year after year. The AAG has email addresses for only
about 30% of our members. Mailing addresses as of December 1997
include 35 U.S. states, Puerto Rico, Washington, D.C., and six foreign
countries. The present distribution of Coma members is as follows:
Australia 2, Belgium 1, Canada 5, England 1, Greece 1, Poland 1;
Alabama 1, Arizona 4, California 27, Colorado 2, Connecticut 3,
Delaware 1, Florida 19, Hawaii 4, Illinois 4, Indiana 1, Kansas 1,
Louisiana 11, Maine 1, Maryland 15, Massachusetts 14, Michigan 4,
Mississippi 1, Missouri 1, Nebraska 1, New Hampshire 1, New Jersey
13, New Mexico 1, New York 5, North Carolina 10, Ohio 4, Oregon 6,
Pennsylvania 6, Puerto Rico 1, South Carolina 5, South Dakota 1,
Tennessee 5, Texas 8, Utah 1, Virginia 7, Washington 3, Washington,
D.C. 1, Wisconsin 5.
SOME UPCOMING CONFERENCES
1998 Ocean Sciences Meeting--February 9-13, 1998, San Diego, CA;
sponsored by the American Geophysical Union and the American
Society of Limnology and Oceanography; contact AGU, 1998 Ocean
Sciences Meeting, 2000 Florida Avenue NW, Washington, DC, 20009,
(800) 966-2481.
The Land-Water Interface: Science for a Sustainable Biosphere--June
7-12, 1998, St. Louis, Missouri; co-sponsored by American Society of
Limnology and Oceanography and Ecological Society of America;
emphasizes the land-water interface of both fresh and saltwater systems,
with the goal of strengthening connections between research and
management; email Susan Weiler (weiler@whitman.edu) or visit the
conference homepage at aslo.or/aslo1998.html.
Eighth Pacific Congress on Marine Science and Technology: Toward
the 21st Century--A Pacific Era--June 16-20, 1998, Seoul, South Korea;
contact N. Saxena, PACO International, P.O. Box 11568, Honolulu, HI,
96828-0568, (808) 956-6163, or email paco@wiliki.eng.hawaii.edu.
ICCE '98: The 26th International Conference on Coastal
Engineering--June 22-26, 1998, Copenhagen, Denmark; practical
solutions and review papers on theory, measurement, modelling, and
studies of coastal oceanography, meteorology, sedimentology, structures,
environment, shore protection, navigation channels, harbors, and ports;
co-sponsored by the Society of Danish Engineers and the Coastal
Engineering Research Council of the American Society of Civil
Engineers; for more information visit www.dhi.dk/icce98/index.htm.
International Deltas Symposium--August 23-29, 1998, New Orleans,
Louisiana; a multi-disciplinary forum for interaction among scientists,
engineers, and decision-makers involved in compiling and assessing data
and information on the status and trends of the world's deltas; oral
papers, posters, exhibits, and displays; see http://opal.ga.lsu.edu/deltas98.
Coastal Zone Canada '98: Community-Based Integrated Coastal
Management: Sharing Our Experience--Building Our
Knowledge--August 30-September 3, 1998, Victoria, B.C.; the goal of
this fourth Coastal Zone Canada conference is to help prepare coastal
communities for developing, implementing, and monitoring coastal
management plans into the 21st century; contributions will be from
science, industry, government, and communities; write CZC98, Institute
of Ocean Sciences, P.O. Box 6000, Sidney, B.C., Canada, V8L 4B2;
email czc98@ios.bc.ca; view www.ios.bc.ca/ios/czc98.
Rapid Coastal Changes in the Late Quaternary: Processes, Causes,
Modelling, Impacts on Coastal Zones--September 10-19, 1998, Corinth
and Samos, Greece; papers will focus on such rapid events as
earthquakes, tsunamis, storms, rapid climatic, eustatic, isostatic, or
tectonic episodes, on their geomorphological effects, and on their
relations to present and possible events in the near future; contact
Stathis C. Stiros, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Patras,
26500 Patras, Greece, stiros@prometheus.hol.gr.
Symposium on Marine Pollution--October 5-9, 1998, Monaco; email N.
Andersen at andersen@hpel.umd.edu.
29th Annual Binghamton Geomorphology Symposium: Coastal
Systems--November 6-8, 1998 (tentative date), Woods Hole Institute,
MA; papers will concern the state of research regarding coastal
geomorphic systems; contact Paul Gares at the address listed on the first
page of this newsletter.