Welcome to Module 8
Coasts & Sea-level Changes (Cape Cod & Acadia)
The cod has been an extremely valuable resource for several centuries in Massachusetts. Its extensive use as a food dates back to the earliest period of European settlement in coastal New England. In colonial times, it was deemed so important that in 1693 the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony ordered that farmers could no longer use cod as fertilizer. This action was one of the first recorded attempts at natural resource conservation and management on this continent.
Although one of the earliest fisheries resources to be broadly utilized after European settlement in New England, cod populations along the US coast proved to be very resilient. Cod apparently withstood more than 3 centuries of harvest without displaying major, long-term regulations in abundance. However, mid-twentieth century advances in fishing technology and the introduction into the northwest Atlantic of distant-water foreign fishing fleets during the late 1950's led to a period of reduced abundance and major annual fluctuations in population size. During the mid-1980s commercial vessels captured mostly 3 to 5 year old fish, indicating that few larger, older individuals remain along the North American coast.
—From the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries
Will cod fishing continue to be valuable in the future, feeding people and supporting jobs? We don’t know… human decisions on climate change and energy, and on rules governing fishing, are more important for the future of cod than anything else.
Will Cape Cod be there in the future? Looking out a few millennia, the answer is probably "no." Beaches, like rivers, are controlled by the interactions of water and sediment. Sand is supplied, and sand is lost. If these processes are interrupted, the coast or the river must change. And in the distant future, Cape Cod is likely to be the new Georges Bank, a shallow underwater place that could be home to great masses of fish, if we leave enough fish to populate it and we leave the cool waters that these fish need.
Learning Objectives
- Explain how coasts are highly complex environments that can change rapidly.
- Understand that some coastal changes were started by the ice age or other long-ago events, while other coastal changes are being caused by humans now.
- Explain how human actions to modify coasts can achieve their goals but also can fail greatly.
What to do for Module 8?
You will have one week to complete Module 8. See the course calendar for specific due dates.
- Take the RockOn #8 Quiz
- Take the StudentsSpeak #8 Survey
- Submit Exercise #4
- Begin Exercise #5
Questions?
If you have any questions, send an email via Canvas, to ALL the Teachers and TAs. To do this, add each teacher individually in the “To” line of your email. By adding all the teachers, the TAs will be included. Failure to email ALL the teachers may result in a delayed or missed response. For detailed directions on how to do this, see How to send an email in GEOSC 10 in the Important Information module.
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