Thursday, July 09, 2015

Nevada Beach


Nevada Beach is a long strand of coarse red sand, very different than the landscape at Sand Harbor. It's located at the southeast corner of the lake and appears to be the result of sand moved eastward, possibly from stream sources along the south shore shore of the lake. The backshore is wide and suggests a very long period of sand accumulation (or a lot of human intervention that I'm missing). From the shape of the beach, I assume the dominant wind and waves impacting this stretch are westerlies - it just seems like this shoreline would look very different if northerly wave action was a significant factor.

AERIAL VIEW

As usual, my observations are based on awfully limited experience and virtually no research, so I apologize if I've got the story wrong. All my searches for information on Lake Tahoe beaches went to tourist sites and vacation rentals, not shoreline geomorphology, although I can't imagine that some geologist hasn't found an excuse to spend a summer or two studying these beaches.


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