A Celebration of the World's Barrier Islands by Orrin H. Pilkey, Orrin H. Pilkey, Mary Edna Fraser

From the Publisher

From the Carolina Outer Banks to New York's Fire Island, from Iceland to the Netherlands and Colombia to Vietnam, barrier islands protect much of the world's coastlines from the ravages of the sea. Although these islands are vastly different in many ways, they also share many common features. Most dramatic among these is their dynamism — barrier islands are in almost constant motion, their advances and retreats powerful testimony to the force and beauty of nature — and their vulnerability in the face of a different kind of force, commercial and residential development.

This first-of-its-kind survey of barrier islands around the globe had its genesis in 1993, when geologist Orrin Pilkey met artist Mary Edna Fraser at Cape Lookout National Seashore in North Carolina. They soon realized they shared a passion for the barriers, one heightened by the many threats the islands face from development and global warming. These fragile and irreplaceable jewels, Pilkey and Fraser determined, needed to be better understood, and, as important, to be seen in a new way, if they were to be saved.

Every bit as dynamic as the islands they depict, Mary Edna Fraser's spectacular original batik artwork (silk cloth colored by hand using a modern variation of an ancient dyeing technique) has been exhibited in both science and art museums. Combined with Orrin Pilkey's engaging and informative text, they create a treasure of a book that is at once beautiful and rigorously scientific. Pilkey identifies three major types of barriers — coastal plains, Arctic, and delta — each with its own geological characteristics and particular morphologies, which are themselves shaped byseveral factors, including the absence or presence of underlying rock formations, tidal patterns, and vegetation. Employing the latest advances in geological mapping, Pilkey also identifies traces of ancient barriers marking long-lost shorelines — a further reminder that in the geological dance of land and sea, change is the only constant.

Praise for Mary Edna Fraser and her art:

"Pilot with a palette... as much of an artist in the midst of the creative process as Picasso laboring over his easel." — Michael Kilian, Chicago Tribune

"Fraser's works depict an organization and sensuousness in the land that is visible only from the air." — Susan Lawson-Bell, National Air & Space Museum

"Exhibited and collected around the world, her batiks have a common theme: promoting the awareness of environmental beauty and change on the planet as seen from the air. " — Carolyn Russo, Women and Flight

The New Yorker

After the Great Mississippi Flood, in 1927, which cost more than a thousand lives and a billion dollars in damages, a massive network of levees was constructed to tame the river's turbulent flow. The river had been constantly shifting to find the shortest distance to the ocean, thereby depositing a fan of rich sediment into the Gulf of Mexico. As Mike Tidwell reports in Bayou Farewell, these levees, along with other man-made intrusions, have accelerated erosion in the Delta. "The whole ragged sole of the Louisiana boot, an area the size of Connecticut -- three million acres -- is literally washing out to sea," Tidwell writes. As the marshland recedes, a distinct regional culture is going with it. On the Cajun bayou, Tidwell fishes near sunken cemeteries and hitches a ride with a shrimp-boat captain who steers the wheel with his toes. By airplane, Tidwell observes the death by drowning of some of the region's barrier islands, which serve equally as avian habitats and buffers for hurricanes.

Library Journal

Pilkey (geology, Duke Univ.) has written a highly engaging and intelligent book on the fragile beauty of barrier islands. Accompanied by artist Fraser's original batik artwork, his text identifies and then discusses the various types of barrier islands found across the world, giving the reader a clear idea of why these fragile ecosystems deserve both our attention and our protection. Chapters are broken down by island type, with each discussing the history, lore, and potential ecological future of each type, supplemented by relevant photographs, batiks, and references. The appendix provides useful and relevant information, such as island distribution, barrier island types, and endangered and threatened species that use barrier island habitats, and a glossary assists those unfamiliar with any of the terms. A highly recommended and affordable work for most, if not all, academic libraries, particularly those that support coastal, environmental, or marine programs.-Susan E. Brazer, Salisbury Univ. Lib., MD Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Product Details

• Table of Contents

Table of Contents