Q. I hope someday to live near ocean. What should I look for in buying property there?
A. Firm ground. Coastal Maine would be ideal bet. The dense metamorphic rock of much of the Maine shore is stable (within the human time frame) and hard ideal footings for a house. Make sure the site is far enough inland to avoid high surf, storm surge and tides. If the winters in Maine do not appeal to you, coastal Florida might make a choice. If you insist on building on a barrier island, make sure your home is on the mainland side of the southern end. Parts of the Pacific coast are all right, but local variability on the active margin makes some knowledge of the geological history of the area would be very valuable. For example, some parts of the San Diego shoreline is eroding about (3) meters (10 feet) per year - hardly a solid investment.
ACTIVE MARGIN
In plate tectonics, a convergent boundary also known as a destructive plate boundary (because of subduction), is an actively deforming region where two (or more) tectonic plates or fragments of lithosphere move toward one another and collide. ...
BARRIER ISLAND
a long narrow sandy island (wider than a reef) running parallel to the shore
METAMORPHIC ROCK
Sedimentary rock (formed by debris) that has been compressed and heated
