REVISITING THE AGE AND DEVELOPMENT OF PROVINCELANDS HOOK, CAPE COD MASSACHUSETTS – A FRESH LOOK

Provincelands Hook, a Late Holocene depocenter on the inner continental shelf of southern New England, forms the northern terminus of Outer Cape Cod. Physiographically complex, it includes parallel and curving dune ridges, marshes and sandy beaches. The Hook was created by prograding barrier spits derived form the erosion of the Late Pleistocene glacial-fluvial deposits of Outer Cape Cod (Davis, 1896). Zeigler and others (1964) hypothesized that formation of the Hook was initiated around 6 kyr BP when offshore shoals (Georges Bank) became inundated by rising sea level, causing littoral transport to shift from southward to northward.

High resolution acoustic seafloor mapping projects and environmental surveys conducted over the past decade by scientists at the Center for Coastal Studies and the Cape Cod National Seashore within the active sediment transport zone of the Hook have uncovered previously undetected clues bearing on its development. GPS locations and elevations of in-situ remnants of Atlantic White Cedar trunks have been recorded, as have those of surf zone deposits. Ongoing analysis of these new data is expected to reveal additional detail concerning the history of Provincelands Hook.