Before and after storm comparison of UCSB cliff, October 20, 2004 to 10 Jan. 2005.

View north along UCSB beach cliff, 20 October 2004, 2:15 PM, three hours before 5' high tide. Note beach berm, partly protected by wrack; large talus cone partly visible in cliff face left center; much vegetation in cliff, left center. ©AGS, 2004. View north along UCSB beach cliff, 11 January 2005, 12:49 PM three hours after 7.0' high tide. Talus cones have been eroded away, together with vegetation and supporting soil. Measurements of cliff top retreat relative to 12 July 2001 were made 21 Jan. 2005 and range from 0-110 cm with an average of 20 cm/yr for this stretch of cliff. Most of that loss probably happened in the Dec. 2004 - Jan. 2005 storms. ©AGS2005

Arthur Gibbs Sylvester
Department of Geological Sciences
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9630
sylvester@geol.ucsb.edu