Textural characteristics of sediments along the southern Red Sea coastal areas, Saudi Arabia
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Textural characteristics of sediments along the southern Red Sea coastal areas, Saudi Arabia Omar A. Alharbi 1,2 & Allan T. Williams 2,3 & Michael R. Phillips 2 & Tony Thomas 2
Received: 29 April 2016 / Accepted: 28 October 2016 # Saudi Society for Geosciences 2016
Abstract A lack of understanding exists of the origin and textural characteristics of Saudi Arabian Red Sea coastal sediments. This paper concerns the southern coastline of Jizan on the Saudi Red Sea. It is some 160 km long characterised by either narrow rocky headlands with intermittent pocket beaches or wide low-lying beaches dissected by wadis. Granulometric testing of samples from 135 locations showed that beach sand size was mainly very fine to medium grained (Mz = 3.93 Ø), sorting ranged from 1.65 to 0.41 and skewness values from −051 to 0.39, being mainly negative; dune sands were medium to fine grained (Mz = 1.13 Ø; average sorting 2.8), while skewness variations within dune samples indicated symmetrical to fine skewed values (бΙ = 0.55 to 0.89). Most foreshore samples were derived from wadis. Wadi mud levels can be high, e.g.
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s12517-016-2741-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Omar A. Alharbi [email protected]; [email protected] Allan T. Williams [email protected] Michael R. Phillips [email protected] Tony Thomas [email protected] 1
Geography department, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, Saudi Arabia
2
Faculty of Architecture, Computing and Engineering, University of Wales: UWTSD, Swansea, Wales SA1 6ED, UK
3
CICA NOVA, Nova Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa 1071, Portugal
Baysh (84%), and wadi Samrah (90%) with mean grain size ranging from very fine to medium sand (Mz = 3.9 Ø), sorting being well to poor (0.45 to 1.52) due to sediment influxes. Sabkha had a wide range of sand/mud and significantly higher carbonate percentages than other environments. Sediment source differences and littoral reworking contributed to grain size variation. The carbonate content varied between 1.5 and 31.5% due to hinterland contributions, and spatial analysis showed increasing quantities of carbonate minerals towards the south. On the wider geographical front, findings from Jizan are similar to those of the Northern United Arab Emirates (UAE), including sabkhas, being composed of sand, skeletal carbonate, fine fluvial material and wind-blown silt and clay components of wadi origin. Further work on the northeastern Red Sea edge can hopefully confirm these findings. Keywords Carbonate . Aeolian . Sabkha . Wadi . Beach . Foreshore
Introduction There is a significant lack of research into coastal activity in the Arabian-Red Sea (Alsharhan and El Sammak 2004), and a SCOPUS search produced only a few relevant publications from 1980 to 1990s. To date, no defined study has been completed in the Gulf area, with the exception of the one conducted by El-Sayed (1999). This paper is an investigation into tex
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