NC Sparks
Mountains to sea in four hundred miles.
ncsparks.net
MOUNTAINS
THE GORGES
THE COAST
RIVERS
WHAT LIVES HERE
HISTORIES
Every guide
SECTION 3 OF 6
A coastline that will not stay where it was drawn
Barrier islands, and the lighthouse they had to move.
In 1999 the lighthouse was moved 2,900 feet on rails because the sea had come to it.
Photo: Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, NC Before 1999 Move ktl · Wikimedia Commons
3 guides in this section
They picked up Cape Hatteras and walked it inland
THE COAST
In 1999 the lighthouse was moved 2,900 feet on rails because the sea had come to it. The barrier island had shifted underneath a fixed object.
The tallest dune on the Atlantic coast is shrinking
THE COAST
Jockey's Ridge moves and loses height, measured repeatedly since the 1970s, and the park exists because somebody stopped a bulldozer.
A barrier island is a process, not a place
THE COAST
Inlets open in storms and close again; the Outer Banks migrate landward. Maps of the same coast fifty years apart do not agree.
MOUNTAINS
THE GORGES
RIVERS
WHAT LIVES HERE
HISTORIES
