. Coast watch. Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology. Don't be surprised if someday you see a giant crab stalking the beach near Duck. Thirty-five ft. high, 25 ft. wide and weighing 15,000 pounds, this crab is no typical crustacean. It's the coastal research amphibious buggy (crab) designed and built by the Wilmington District of the Army Corps of Engineers to collect data on the ocean bottom. Its home is the Corps' Field Research Facility a mile north of Duck. Powered by a Volkswagen engine, the tripod-shaped vehicle rolls out into the water with scient
. Coast watch. Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology. Don't be surprised if someday you see a giant crab stalking the beach near Duck. Thirty-five ft. high, 25 ft. wide and weighing 15,000 pounds, this crab is no typical crustacean. It's the coastal research amphibious buggy (crab) designed and built by the Wilmington District of the Army Corps of Engineers to collect data on the ocean bottom. Its home is the Corps' Field Research Facility a mile north of Duck. Powered by a Volkswagen engine, the tripod-shaped vehicle rolls out into the water with scientists perched atop. The crab is capable of going out to depths of 30 ft. for bottom-sampling. The facility's staff used it during tropical storm Dennis to record the storm's effect on the bottom. But the crab isn't the only attrac- tion to scientists using the Field Research Facility. Four years ago, a 1,840-ft. steel-piling, concrete pier was built and fitted with wave gauges, wind instruments and other equipment feeding data into the lab's computer system. Equipment is checked four times daily by the staff of 10 for numerous changes in the beach profile. According to Kurt Mason, chief of the facility, the area has been available, not only for Corps-related projects, but also for research by uni- versities and science foundations at no charge. Last year, Sea Grant researcher Ernie Knowles from North Carolina State University (NCSU) joined 40 international scientists at the facility for a two-month study on wave direction and generation. Knowles' test buoy floated beside buoys from Canada and Norway, providing par- ticipants a chance to compare equip- ment and data. Two other Sea Grant researchers, Tom Curtin and Yates Sorrell of NCSU, have used the facility's pier in their work. Twice, they have set out their current-monitoring gear on brackets mounted to the pier, and have matched data with that collected by the facility. "That's one of the most valuable things about this
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookcollectionunclibra, booksubjectoceanography
