From the Carolina Outer Banks to New York's Fire Island, from
Iceland to the Netherlands and Colombia to Vietnam, barrier islands
protect much of the world's coastlines from the ravages of the sea.
Although these islands are vastly different in many ways, they also
share many common features. Most dramatic among these is their
dynamism -- barrier islands are in almost constant motion, their
advances and retreats powerful testimony to the force and beauty of
nature -- and their vulnerability in the face of a different kind
of force, commercial and residential development.
This first-of-its-kind survey of barrier islands around the
globe had its genesis in 1993, when geologist Orrin Pilkey met
artist Mary Edna Fraser at Cape Lookout National Seashore in North
Carolina. They soon realized they shared a passion for the
barriers, one heightened by the many threats the islands face from
development and global warming. These fragile and irreplaceable
jewels, Pilkey and Fraser determined, needed to be better
understood, and, as important, to be seen in a new way, if they
were to be saved.
Every bit as dynamic as the islands they depict, Mary Edna
Fraser's spectacular original batik artwork (silk cloth colored by
hand using a modern variation of an ancient dyeing technique) has
been exhibited in both science and art museums. Combined with Orrin
Pilkey's engaging and informative text, they create a treasure of a
book that is at once beautiful and rigorously scientific. Pilkey
identifies three major types of barriers -- coastal plains, Arctic,
and delta -- each with its own geological characteristics and
particular morphologies, which are themselves shaped by several
factors, including the absence or presence of underlying rock
formations, tidal patterns, and vegetation. Employing the latest
advances in geological mapping, Pilkey also identifies traces of
ancient barriers marking long-lost shorelines -- a further reminder
that in the geological dance of land and sea, change is the only
constant.
Praise for Mary Edna Fraser and her art:
"Pilot with a palette... as much of an artist in the midst of
the creative process as Picasso laboring over his easel." --
Michael Kilian, Chicago Tribune
"Fraser's works depict an organization and sensuousness in the
land that is visible only from the air." -- Susan Lawson-Bell,
National Air & Space Museum
"Exhibited and collected around the world, her batiks have a
common theme: promoting the awareness of environmental beauty and
change on the planet as seen from the air. " -- Carolyn Russo,
Women and Flight
eISBN: 978-0-231-53405-5
Subjects: General Science, Environmental Science, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
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