D-Day site under assault again – from erosion

Visitors look at a German bunker at Pointe du Hoc, Normandy, France. The area has experienced 33-ft of coastal erosion since D-Day.

Visitors look at a German bunker at Pointe du Hoc, Normandy, France. The area has experienced 33-ft of coastal erosion since D-Day.

For those in my generation, the Steven Spielberg movie ‘Saving Private Ryan’ is probably what most sticks in people’s minds when they think of the WWII invasion of Normandy, otherwise known as D-Day. The graphic scenes of that battle and the US Army Rangers that scaled the cliffs that the Nazi’s thought were unscalable has left a mark in most people’s minds. This AP article discusses how one of these locations at Normandy, the Pointe du Hoc, has experienced over 33-ft of erosion since D-Day and the Lyon, France based GTS is currently working on a stabilization project to attempt to slow down Mother Nature’s processes. The description of the actual geotechnical work in the article left me a little mystified at what they are actually doing, if anyone has more details, I’d love to hear about them. But in trying to search for more info, I did find a paper by Warden, Burt, Briaud and Everett (all from Texas A&M University) entitled LaserScanning for Historical and Geotechnical Studies at Pointe du Hoc. It seems to have some more background on the geology and geotechnical aspects of this area. [Source: KansasCity.com. Image: AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere via ]