Boyle Family - The Tidal Series

1-14. Tidal Series (sand on Epikote and fibreglass) - details.

Appendix 4 - Mineral Solids. The Tidal Series.
A series of 14 studies 4'9" x 4'9" made on the same square of the beach at Camber Sands after each tide for a week. The objective was to examine the effect of the elemental forces on the site; and to lift the actual sand off the surface and to fix it in its exact place and shape. Camber Beach was chosen because it was extensive, with a considerable area between high and low tide marks. The sands are situated between the sea and Romney Marsh, a very extensive flat area of country. For this reason there is no protection from the wind from any direction. A site was chosen about mid way between high and low water just landward of a large sandbank. The site was not chosen at random. It was selected deliberately to give maximum time to work on the site, in an area that always seemed to be rippled (as was 90% of the beach). The series started on the first of November 1969. It was a week of ferocious gales — Force 9 gusting to 10 much of the time. The wind swept all around the compass. When it came from the south west the Beach Cafe, where the series was being assembled, was half buried in sand. The ripple variation on the site was considerable and the sand bar moved about in the storm, with the result that, where the series started to landward of it, on some days the square was actually on the bar either on its seaward or landward slope. Some days there was a considerable amount of animal and vegetable material on, or in the vicinity of, the square with the result that sea-birds moved across the surface of the square. On other days the marks of annelids and crabs appeared in the sand. I.2. All of these were fixed, the actual grains of sand these creatures touched being in their correct position, in the final study. So that to a very large extent the studies are microscopically accurate, and the individual crystals of quartz and salt can be isolated.