Oceanographers solve mysterious beach explosion

Late on the morning of Saturday, July 11, 2015, Kathleen Danise, a 60-year-old nurse and grandmother from Waterbury, Conn., was enjoying a sunny day at Salty Brine State Beach on the shores of Block Island Sound in Narragansett, R.I., when an explosion knocked her from her beach chair. She landed a few meters away near a rock jetty, unconscious and suffering a concussion, two fractured ribs and bruising for which she was hospitalized overnight.

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Sara E. Pratt

Pratt, EARTH's senior editor, is based in Boulder, Colo. She is a graduate of the earth and environmental science journalism dual master’s program at Columbia University and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and has written for Discover, Oceanus, Geotimes, NOVA and NOVA ScienceNow, and worked in scientific publishing and educational outreach. Email: sepratt@earthmagazine.org. Twitter: @GeoScienceSara.

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