Ursus Cove is an embayment about 6 miles (10 km) wide on the northwest coast of Kamishak Bay, roughly 80 miles (129 km) west-southwest of Homer and 44 miles (71 km) southeast of Iliamna, Alaska. In 1904 George C. Martin of the U.S. Geological Survey recorded the local name as Bear Cove. Because so many coves across Alaska shared that name, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names renamed it in 1906, using “Ursus,” the Latin word for bear.

Coastal lakes are common features of wave-dominated shorelines. They form when rapidly prograding beach sediment create beach ridges that dam small watersheds and estuaries. Their development depends on the volume of sediment moved by waves and currents along the coast, and on the amount of freshwater discharged from the watershed.

In winter, when small watersheds are typically frozen and river discharge is minimal, storms generate waves and currents that transport large volumes of beach sediment. Under certain conditions, sediment can prograde faster than the reduced freshwater flow can clear it, damming the drainage and forming a coastal lake. In spring and summer, when freshwater discharge rises and sediment transport slows, these beach dams may be partially or fully breached. Read more here and here. Explore more of Ursus Cove and Kamishak Bay here: