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Old Layers, New Insights

July 11, 2013

Last Spring, a Nor’easter blew through Cape Cod and exposed the paleolithic under-layers of Eastham’s Coast Guard Beach. The Coastal Systems Group and National Ocean Sciences Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Facility quickly obtained a permit to collect samples and went out to investigate. The prehistoric sediments, which had not been exposed for several years, included a peat layer containing decayed vegetation, as well as several weathered tree stumps. Here research assistant Stephanie Madsen records the different sediment types in each layer.(Photo by Zachary Stromer, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)