Evidence of a long ago hurricane?

[MGC]

We have been planting trees the past several days to replace the ones lost to Katrina. While digging the holes my husband noticed a layer of sand about one and one-half feet down. The layer of sand was about two inches thick. We found this sand layer all around the property, about one acre in size. We were wondering if we had stumbled across the sand left from the surge of a long ago hurricane?..........MGC

[HURAKAN]

Interesting and your reaction is very logical. A very strong hurricane could have deposited that layer of sand during a storm surge. It will be interesting if a geologist could determine how long did it happen in the past.

[brunota2003]

Contact your local college that does Geology...they should be able to help. I love figuring out things like that, so I would go after it.

[Kennethb]

I would have to think the sand was from Camille.

[HURAKAN]

I would have to think the sand was from Camille.

Camille is too early in the past for a depth of 12 to 18 inches.

Lets say it was a feet down, that would mean that about 1/3 of an inch of dirt have to have been deposited every year to get 12 inches in 38 year.

The bigger question is and the one that could put Camille as the perpetrator. Has the land in your property been disturbed by adding more land as a result of trying to elevate the property or something else?

Because, if the land is not disturbed, and it's a flat land in which no river overflows in a periodical basis, then the layers of dirt deposited every year should be very thin and this is not considering erosion which should make the build up process even slower.

[Ptarmigan]

Sounds like it was a strong hurricane that did it. It probably came before Camille.

[Frank P]

When we were drilling our holes for my house pilings, we went 11.5 feet down and ~ 30 inches in diameter, we would drill through several areas of loose sand... we might hit a section of sand about 4 feet down, and it would be 12-18 inches thick... then we'd hit another section of loose sand around 8-10 feet deep... I was thinking something similar, perhaps evidance of a major storm from a long time past.... we also went through some sections of very dark brown sand... perhaps indications that this at one time was a dense marsh area... some of the layers were as hard as concrete too... a plethora of soils... it seems to change every two to three feet or so... I'm not a geologist so I'm just guessing... but the different layers of soil we when through while digging our piling posts were quite interesting...

[JonathanBelles]

we have to dig 10 feet down through sand to get to dirt.

[MGC]

Neither Camille or Katrina put water on our property despite being south of the tracks. If it was a hurricane it must have been a whopper.....MGC