OceThe OFFiciala MaganZineog OF the Oceanographyra Spocietyhy CITATION Dybas, C.L. 2011. Ripple marks—The story behind the story.Oceanography 24(3):8–13, http://dx.doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2011.84. COPYRIGHT This article has been published inOceanography , Volume 24, Number 3, a quarterly journal of The Oceanography Society. Copyright 2011 by The Oceanography Society. All rights reserved. USAGE Permission is granted to copy this article for use in teaching and research. Republication, systematic reproduction, or collective redistribution of any portion of this article by photocopy machine, reposting, or other means is permitted only with the approval of The Oceanography Society. Send all correspondence to:
[email protected] or The Oceanography Society, PO Box 1931, Rockville, MD 20849-1931, USA. doWnloaded From WWW.tos.org/oceanography Ripple Marks The Story Behind the Story by CHeryL Lyn Dybas THE GULF of Maine: Between A RocK and A Hard PLace? Slack Tide for Seabirds To understand the shore, it is not enough to stand like sentinels, their craggy granite faces cliff. My gaze drifts meter by meter along an catalogue its life. Understanding comes only inviting—if you’re a seabird. For hundreds old wooden railway, its rockweed-covered when we can sense the long rhythms of earth upon hundreds of Atlantic puffins, guil- planks stretching from the waterline to a and sea that sculptured its land forms and lemots, razorbills, and other birds of the lighthouse perched high above. The railway produced the rock and sand of which it is open ocean, the welcome mat is out. The once carried supplies up and down the steep composed; when we can sense with the eye birds spend their summers on the islands, edge.