M. Dane Picard wrote these striking words in an article, "Journey to Normandy", in the Journal of Geoscience Education, v. 47 (1999), no. 2, p. 177-181: "We came to Utah Beach past Ste-Marie-du-Mont. It had rained during the night and was raining still. There were seabirds feeding on shore, and the wind caught them when they flew and held them over the white caps. On the dark afternoon mollusk shells glistened. "There were no artifacts of the Normandy landings. In the last more than a half century, the beaches and countryside have been scoured, stripped of [gun] shells and other war remains by collectors and by the sea. "I walked along the Beach. Normandy clams alive at the time of the landings died long ago, as did the gastropods. Assuming a clam's life is about 12 to 15 years, 8 generations or so of clams have prospered and perished on the Normandy beaches since D-Day. Could we have seen in clam shells evidence of the stress they experienced?" Picard goes on to describe the mollusks and rocks, but this unusual question remains unanswered. The surf pounds the shells into sand and gravel. "Yet, the species of the population could be readily identified." Andrew K. Rindsberg Geological Survey of Alabama