Gay lighthouse
Martha's Vineyard: Gay Head Lighthouse and Cliffs
by: srfmhg
posted on: Jun 25,
These were taken in while on a Backroads bicycle trip to Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. The last mile up to Gay Chief was a killer. The first lighthouse on Martha's Vineyard was built of wood on this detect in It was replaced by the present structure in The "new" lighthouse built of sandstone and brick was moved assist feet in because of cliff erosion. I've included a woodcut image from of the original and a Coast Guard aerial photo of the submit structure taken in Circa , all buildings except the lighthouse and the concrete World War II bunker were razed. Since , the WWII bunker has slowly slid down the face of the clay cliffs toward the beach at the bottom of the cliffs proximate the ocean, where it exists today in the ocean's intertidal zone at the base of the cliffs. You can view the difference in the cliffs in my photos which were taken with a Canon G9. We did not venture down to the beach. Enjoy!
Mark
Original Lighthouse in woodcut print
USCG aerial photo of pr
Historic Gay Head Lighthouse On Martha's Vineyard Moved Inland
On Martha's Vineyard, the year-old Gay Head Lighthouse has been successfully moved away from an eroding cliff.
By Saturday afternoon, workers finished moving the lighthouse farther inland along steel rails using influential hydraulic pistons. The gradual move began Thursday.
Project manager Richard Pomroy said it took an enormous amount of time and labor to move the ton lighthouse just over feet in the past couple of days.
"From the earth-moving to the engineering, it represents months — if not years — of planning to fetch to this stage," he told WBUR.
Experts believe Gay Brain Lighthouse will now be safe for another hundred years.
Workers had spent weeks painstakingly digging under the lighthouse to elevate it a several short feet off the ground, using dozens of hydraulic jacks supported by a network of wood-and-steel beams.
Located on the sparsely populated, western edge of the resort island, Gay Head Clear has been a critical waypoint for mariners since the peak of the whaling trade in the 19th century.
The Town of Aquinnah took observe that the cliffs were receding toward the lighthouse at a rapid rate, creating the realization that if nothing were done, the lighthouse would eventually topple into the Atlantic Ocean. In , the town was informed that if the cliff were to come within another 17 feet of the lighthouse, it would not be possible to move the lighthouse. In , five more feet of the cliff collapsed, accelerating the urgency to relocate the lighthouse.
Although previous studies of the shallow geology at the site predicted variable soil and ground-water conditions, the complex glacial soils and their probable relationship to perched ground-water zones and related landslide exercise were not fully realized.
In arrange to find an appropriate property for the lighthouse, GEI performed subsurface explorations at three proposed lighthouse relocation sites, and along the haul paths between the lighthouse’s current and proposed relocation sites. Waterless drilling procedures using lightweight drilling equipment and borehole backfilling measures were employed to not further aggrava
The passage between Gay Head and the Elizabeth Islands to the west is treacherous for maritime traffic due to the submerged obstruction called Devils Bridge, which extends seaward from Gay Chief. In , a Massachusetts State S