The startling was mutual.

EMAIL THIS PRINT THIS MOST POPULAR

The last thing I expected on Bull Island was a posse of academics. But there they were, a foursome with a pickup in a thicket off Lighthouse Road.

While others at the University of South Carolina headed home or to a partying beach for spring break, geology professors Doug Williams and Eugene Karabanov, grad student Abby Springer and undergrad Steven Traynum were out in the boonies — dip-sticking aluminum irrigation pipes into the ground in the name of paleotempestology.

That's a $7 word for "the study of old storms," and their project involves studying layers of sediment for signs of the intensity and frequency of past storms.

They first got an aerial photo of Bull Island taken in 1930, and compared it with a recent one. The idea is to find a spot on the island the least disturbed by 74 years of anything.

"The ponds here are significantly managed now," Williams explained. "They adjust the water level and salinity to make the ponds attractive for waterfowl in the Atlantic flyway. And this alters the record in the sediment."

As does erosion: Some ponds on Bull island weren't here in 1930. But Moccasin Pond, now about 300 yards from the beach, was. And humans hadn't tampered with it.

Pipes, some 20 feet long, were sunk by a machine that literally vibrates them straight into the ground. Six core samples were taken here.

The USC team was looking for buried white sand.

"Normal sediment is blackish mud," Williams said. "During a storm surge, a layer of sand is put down, carried up from the beach by wind or waves.

"We know we went through some sand layers here. Now we need to date the events and compare them with historical record."

Hugo layers would be close to the surface.

Twenty feet down they hope to find records of storms that raged 300 to perhaps 1,000 years ago. Each weather report would consist of a deposit of sand anywhere from a millimeter to 5 or 6 inches thick.

Nadara Hoffmann of Charleston was also on Bull Island — not as a casual visitor. On this March day she was cleaning the pens of the red wolves. Spring through fall, she's a volunteer four or five days a week, helping the staff with ... well, anything.

Her love, though, is the refuge's loggerhead turtle project. The loggerhead is a threatened marine reptile that comes ashore to lay its eggs. Last year, there were slightly more than 1,000 nests in the refuge.

"We take a boat out to Cape Island and South Cape Island and look for nests. If they're in a dangerous location — where they can be washed away — we move them to a hatchery or to a new site."

Nests that stay on a beach are covered with cages, to keep hungry raccoons at bay.

The egg-laying season begins in late May or early June. At that critical time, a day of volunteering can last eight to 10 hours or turn into an overnighter.

It's worth it, she says, despite shoveling sand and digging holes in muggy heat, keeping an eye peeled for black widow spiders and water moccasins, sitting in a dirt road for an hour in a downpour because boats can't leave safely leave refuge islands during thunderstorms.

"It's awesome to see the turtles as newborns right out of the eggs become huge, 250- to 300-pound adults. It's helping with endangered species. It's doing my part in the whole picture."

"This is my fourth year out here."

Hoffmann works nights at the Medical University of South Carolina, in Charleston. She is an antepartum nurse, helping patients who have problem pregnancies.