Here in Long Beach we sit at the edge of the continent, with nothing between our streets and buildings and the wide Pacific Ocean but a buffer of sand that makes up our namesake’s long beach.

Rachel Carson, the poetic science and nature writer, noted that “In every outthrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand there is the story of the earth.”

It’s true: Sandy beaches everywhere are made up of rocks, boulders and mountains, eroded and ground down and washed along rivers to the sea over thousands, perhaps millions, of years before finally washing up to shore where they become the foundation for recreation, leisure, meditation and wonder.

This month, Post photographers Thomas R. Cordova and Brandon Richardson trained their lenses on the local beaches to find people surfing, fishing, cycling and playing, biking, walking and playing splashing along the beach, perhaps unaware that they’re also enjoying the story of the earth.