Carolina Environmental Diversity Explorations
Small sand volume barrier islands · By Dirk Frankenberg
Overwash behind New River Inlet
Figure 9. Overwash from Hurricane Fran. (Photograph by the author. More about the photograph)
Figure 9 shows sand from another overwash event created by Hurricane Fran. This one occurred behind New River Inlet, the inlet at the north end of North Topsail Island. If you look closely you will note that the overwashed area is now higher and drier than the salt marsh that lies under and around it. At the time of this photograph, no salt marsh grass had managed to grow through the newly added sand (as we saw on Masonboro in Figure 5).
