North Topsail Beach

Figure 7. These condominiums sit close to the shoreline. (Photograph by the author. More about the photograph)

Figure 7 begins our tour of North Topsail Beach, a developed, low sand volume area of Topsail Island. The photograph shows the same flat topography that we saw on Masonboro, but this time there is a condominium complex right on the berm. The flat dunefield on the left shows evidence of overwash that we will examine later but the beach on the right shows evidence of a small ridge and runnel feature such as that shown on Masonboro in Figure 3. These small accretions of sand will rebuild the upper beach, but as a result of offshore ridges, the amount of sand added will not create the high dunes one might wish to have between one’s condominium and the ocean during storms.

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