Morphology,sedimentary bedforms and sand transport across a ridge- and- runnel beach under the action of summer waves |
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| Authors: | Christopher E Vincent Robert C Kay Chen Chenghui Li Li Jack Jarvis |
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| Institution: | (1) School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, U. K.;(2) 3rd Institute of Oceanography, SOA, Xiamen, China;(3) Department of Geography, University of St. Andrews, Scotland |
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| Abstract: | As part of a collaborative study between the 3rd Institute of Oceanography, Xiamen, and the U. K. Universities of East Anglia
and St. Andrews, a 4-day experiment was conducted on a ridge- and- runnel beach of north Norfolk on the North Sea coast. Detailed
surveys were made of every low water of an area 10m by 30m and electromagnetic current meters were used to measure wave-induced
currents over the ridge and in the runnel. The locations of bedform fields were noted, fluorescent sand was used to follow
the sand movement and, at the end of the experiment, lacquer peels were taken of the top 0.2m of a vertical section through
the ridge- and- runnel.
During the 4 days 0.75m3 of sand per metre width of beach accreted in the runnel and a similar volume was eroded from the upper foreshore. The dominant
shoreward transport, identified qualitatively by the movement of the fluorescent sand, suggests the ridge- and- runnel system
migrated shorewards up the general beach slope of 1o by 2–3m. The wave orbital currents were used to predict the bedforms to be expected over the tidal cycle: an upper phase
plane- bed was predicted for most of the period but vortex and rolling- grain ripples were predicted and observed when the
water level over the ridge was low. As the tide dropped ripples on the ridge were eliminated by swash action but the ripples
in the runnel were protected by the ridge and remained on the beach after the tide dropped.
The observed accretion of the beach in the runnel and on the lee slope of the ridge was used to calculate that a net average
shoreward transport of 0.11g/cm·s−1 occurred over the ridge crest during the period it was underwater. The current meter measurements of the wave orbital currents
and the mean currents over the ridge crest were used with the wave- current interaction model of Grant and Madsen (1982),
ripple dimensions defined by Nielsen (1981), and resuspension coefficient of Vincent and Green (1990), to compute bedload
sand transport rates from the equations of Madsen and Grant (1976), Sleath (1978), and Vincent et al. (1981), and also the
suspended sand transport rates. The results from one of these bedload equations (Madsen and Grant, 1976) compared well with
the observed net transport. The calculated suspended load transport rates (due to steady currents alone) were a factor of
5 too great, and were also several orders of magnitude greater than suspended transport rates measured directly under similar
or more energetic wave and current conditions. |
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