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Blowing in the Wind

December 17, 2017

WHOI scientist Andrea Hawkes used plastic tubing, duct tape, and stockings to fashion devices to trap airborne sand blown in by Hurricane Irene in the summer of 2011. She installed them on telephone poles in Woods Hole, Mass., in the height of Cape Cod tourist season, earning more than a few odd looks. Hawkes was a postdoctoral investigator at the time, collaborating with coastal geologist Jeff Donnelly to measure the amount of sand and sediment carried by wind and waves when Hurricane Irene struck the U.S. East Coast. The researchers also used soda bottles to trap sediments stirred up in shoreline ponds. (Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)