PEOPLE love beaches. From the Blackpool strand to the curving sands of
Queensland鈥檚 Gold Coast and the black volcanic shores of the Hawaiian
islands, waves lapping on a beach are synonymous with fun and holidays.
Beaches figure large in this week鈥檚 issue. You鈥檒l find out how to spot
gemstones on the Scottish coast and hear of the frustrations of searching for
fossils beside the sea in Sierra Leone
(see p 54).
Following that there鈥檚 an
experiment revealing the peculiar properties of sand. Those same strange
abilities have made dunes masters of self defence, with fascinating tactics for
seeing off even violent cyclones
(see p 38).
If there鈥檚 one thing that beaches are vulnerable to it鈥檚 us humans. In
Jamaica, at least one beach is disappearing at more than a metre a year as the
crusty alga that used to supply it with calcium carbonate is being killed off
(see p 5).
A plague of seaweed is the immediate cause, but the ultimate blame
lies with pollution鈥攆rom agriculture and from sewage left by tourists. The
fear is that similar beaches throughout the tropics are suffering the same
fate.
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Over geological time, beaches are transient, lost to the changing patterns of
tide and rarely preserved. That Jamaican beach is sending out a warning. Unless
we curb pollution, beaches may be transient in human time too.