Observations and modeling of steep-beach grain-size variability
Autor: | B.C. van Prooijen, Jenna Brown, E. L. Gallagher, A. A. van Rooijen, J.S.M. van Thiel de Vries, Ad Reniers, Jamie MacMahan |
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Rok vydání: | 2013 |
Předmět: |
Shore
geography geography.geographical_feature_category 010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences Sorting (sediment) Sediment Surf zone 010502 geochemistry & geophysics Oceanography 01 natural sciences Grain size Geophysics Space and Planetary Science Geochemistry and Petrology parasitic diseases Earth and Planetary Sciences (miscellaneous) Submarine pipeline 14. Life underwater Sediment transport Geomorphology Geology 0105 earth and related environmental sciences Swash |
Zdroj: | Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans. 118:577-591 |
ISSN: | 2169-9275 |
Popis: | Novel observations of surface grain-size distributions are used in combination with intra-wave modeling to examine the processes responsible for the sorting of sediment grains on a relatively steep beach (slope?=?1:7.5). The field observations of the mean grain size collected with a digital camera system at consecutive low and high tides for a 2 week period show significant temporal and spatial variation. This variation is reproduced by the modeling approach when the surf zone flow-circulation is relatively weak, showing coarse grain sizes at the location of the shore break and finer sediment onshore and offshore of the shore break. The model results suggest that grain size sorting is dominated by the wave-breaking-related suspended sediment transport which removes finer sediment from the shore break and transports it both on-shore and offshore. The transport capacity of wave-breaking-related suspended sediment is controlled by the sediment response time scale in the advection-diffusion equation, where small (large) values promote onshore (offshore) transport. Comparisons with the observed beach profile evolution suggest a relatively short time scale for the suspended sediment response which could be explained by the vigorous breaking of the waves at the shore break. |
Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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