Major Erosion Events / Catastrophism

On soil field study we talk a lot about small scale events, and the slow and steady processes that change landscapes. However there are also many kinds of major events that rapidly move sediment and soil. Hurricane Sandy is a good example of this.

Check out these before and after pictures of the barrier islands!

In the early days of geology there were debates about looking at geologic events though a lens of Uniformitarianism or Catastrophism. The idea of Uniformitarianism being that all of the landscapes on earth were formed slowly, through a slow series of processes that can still be observed today. Whereas Catastrophism would be a single large (potentially unique) event that rapidly shaped the landscape. These days we are aware that both types of events contribute to weathering, erosion and landscape formation. They are calling these changes "30 years worth of coastal changes" that all happened in one high energy event.