Erosion has been happening for over 10,000 years.  It is a natural process that is necessary to the ecology of the shoreline. In recent years it has been a hot topic and unfortunately can force home owners to alter or fix or move dwellings on their properties.

Without erosion, our beaches would disappear.  It is all apart of the costal process.

As the lake water has been rising over the last few years due to high precipitation. The storm waves will crash along the shoreline and the energy that is produced can cause erosion at the bottom of the bluffs. Lake Huron’s bluffs are made up of glacial till (clay, silt and sand left behind by glaciers)
The bottom of the bluffs become unstable when they are eroded by waves and can cause large slope failures, known as slumps.  When this occurs, large portions of the bluffs slide to the bottom of the beach or end up in the lake.  With the constant movement of the water, the waves then sort this material out as clay and silt.  The weight of the sand falls along the shoreline of our beaches and the remaining soil particles get deposited offshore.
The most common waves come from northwest, carrying the sand along the shoreline by alongshore currents.  They approach the Lake Huron shoreline at an angle that causes sand to carry from north to south. Then, dunes will form where beach grasses and other specialized coastal vegetation develop.

As these dunes develop and the sand form large beach areas from bluff erosion. This protects the shoreline from storm waves and erosion. Erosion is a natural process that is critical to the costal process.