Dr. Richard A. Davis Jr. was a professor of geology at the University of South Florida until 2005. He is now an emeritus distinguished university professor at USF and visiting professor/research associate at Harte Research Institute, Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi, Texas. His area of specialization is coastal geology with emphasis on beaches, barrier islands, and tidal inlets. He has written/edited 20 books and about 150 journal articles on topics of oceanography, coastal geology, stratigraphy, and sedimentology. He has been a visiting professor in Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlan...