Storm deposition is important not only because debris deposited by storms has to be removed during the rebuilding process, but also because storm deposits contain information about the storms that deposited them. We seek to understand the processes of sediment deposition by storms, and to understand how to interpret storm deposits to yield a history of an individual storms.

The ability to recognize coastal storm deposits and to distinguish them from the deposits of other coastal phenomena will lead to the ability to create storm histories for areas that only rarely see large storms. We hope to be able to say not only how often, but how large prehistoric storms might have been.

Although our research is currently focused on modern coastal storms, we also have an interest in storms here in the Ohio area, and in developing paleostorm histories for coastal areas.