Influence of particle shape on pebble transport in a mixed sand and gravel beach during low energy conditions: Implications for nourishment projects

The Role of Detailed Geomorphic Variability in the Vulnerability Assessment of Potential Oil Spill Events on Mixed Sand and Gravel Beaches: The Cases of Two Adriatic Sites

“…In Portonovo, storm berms are very close to the shoreline, with their seaward steep side often joined to the beachface (Figures 3C,E,G): therefore, the burial generated by storm berms has to be taken into serious consideration in the case of an oil spill event since the contaminant is expected to penetrate the beach body from the beachface, which could be rapidly buried if severe storm waves are approaching the beach. As suggested by Quick and Dyksterhuis (1994), storm berm formation on highly permeable beaches is mainly due to wave breaking [typically by plunging on this type of beaches, Grottoli et al (2019)], which produces a net onshore shear stress over the swash and backwash cycle, leading to net onshore transport and profile steepening as experienced in Portonovo (Figure 3). Moreover, the hydraulic conductivity, related to the coarse sediment size of the beach, is directly responsible for the steep profile (Mason and Coates, 2001) and should be an aspect that still needs further consideration on mixed sand and gravel beaches.…”

“…Given its predominant gravelly fraction, Portonovo is constantly affected by rapid burial (Figures 2B1,2), which can be led not only by severe storms as already documented by Grottoli et al (2017), who analyzed the storm response of the beach with a typical wave climate for the area. The high dynamicity of Portonovo was also experienced with low energy conditions which generated 0.5 m of burial due to the formation of the fair-weather berm in the intertidal zone (Grottoli et al, 2019). Nevertheless, storm berms represent the most dangerous geomorphic factors in the case of an oil spill event that reaches the beach.…”

Beach Gravels as a Potential Lithostatistical Indicator of Marine Coastal Dynamics: The Pogorzelica–Dziwnów (Western Pomerania, Baltic Sea, Poland) Case Study

“…The beach profile responses occur over semidiurnal, spring-neap, and seasonal time scales [14,15]. The coarse-fine grain sorting processes are usually related to longshore movement of sedimentary material in the swash zone, especially during storms [2,[16][17][18][19].…”

“…The variability of gravel pebbles may show a different transport pattern under low energy conditions. Spherical grains, resulting from their capability to roll over in the swash zone, usually cover longer distances and indicate more dynamic conditions, when compared to discoidal grains [19]. Compared to sandy beaches, gravel beach sediments are usually spatially differentiated in terms of size and shape to a greater degree, affecting more obvious textural zonation, mainly in the form of mixtures of relatively fine and coarse fractions [21,24].…”

Sedimentary succession and recognition marks of lacustrine gravel beach-bars, a case study from the Qinghai Lake, China

“…Lacustrine beach-bars are widely spread in modern lakes, but they, especially gravel beach-bars, have rarely been found in ancient lakes [1][2][3]. In all probability, many ancient lacustrine beach-bars were not correctly identified or were mistakenly interpreted as delta fronts.…”