Aeolian transport of coarse sand over beach ridges in NE Australia: A reply to a discussion of ‘Beach ridges and prograded beach deposits as palaeoenvironment records’

Abstract

Nott (2013) argued that Tamura's (2012) review of beach ridges as palaeoenvironment records comprises an incorrect interpretation of the processes of building coarse sand beach ridges in NE Australia. Nott (2013) stressed no possibility of aeolian transport of coarse sand onto beach ridges during both cyclone and non-cyclone conditions. The facts presented by Nott (2013) however fail to completely rule out the possibility that aeolian transport could be at least contributing to the building of the beach ridges. This reply aims to clarify the original intentions of Tamura (2012), which Nott (2013) appears to have misunderstood, and further examines the possibility of aeolian transport of coarse sand onto the beach ridges from incipient ridges. If this does occur, then it is appropriate to question how this might affect the theory and algorithm employed by Nott et al. (2009) and Forsyth et al. (2010) to assess the intensity and frequency of prehistoric cyclone landfall.