Come along as we take a tour of the Army Cops of Engineers Field Research Facility, or what we OBX’ers call the Duck Research Pier in Duck, North Carolina. The Field Research facility is used to study coastal processes, especially those that cause beach changes. The pier fulfills four main objectives:

• provides a rigid platform through the surf  into deep water from which to attach instruments
• provides a permanent base of operations for various studies by the Corps, private industry, universities, and other branches of the military
• provides field data for use in laboratory experiments and numerical models
• provides a facility for testing new instrumentation in the field before deployment

If you have ever been out on the beach in Duck you may have seen the 1840 foot pier from a distance but there are only private beach accesses near the facility. The reason they Army chose to build the pier in Duck is pretty neat. Duck was chosen because of its distance from coastal structures, affected by the high frequency of storms and hurricanes, and only lightly affected by the dynamics of inlet processes. It also has access to both the Atlantic Ocean and Currituck Sound making it easier to conduct a variety of experiments.

I don’t want to tell you too much more about the pier because you need to get out there and do the tour. It was really educational and makes you appreciate all of the wonder that’s associated with the ocean. They are only doing the tours until August 19th and are Monday-Friday at 10:00 am. Only one more week left so get out there!