Sedimentology and morphodynamics of a macrotidal beach, Pendine Sands, SW Wales

Abstract

The foreshore of Pendine Sands forms the seaward part of an extensive, sandy coastal barrier in a shallow Carmarthen Bay, SW Wales. The sedimentological features of the macrotidal foreshore reflect a tide-induced modification of nearshore wave characteristics. As the tide ebbs, the breaker height may decrease, the surf zone widens and becomes increasingly dissipative, and swash/backwash velocities diminish. A concomitant change from plunging to spilling breakers and increasingly symmetrical swash zone flows are associated with a decreasing beach gradient. A zero net transport model demonstrates that the beach profile is self-stabilising in the short-term, and periodic levelling has shown that the beach is in long-term equilibrium with prevailing conditions, though this does not preclude a significant dynamic response to changing tides and waves. The flow regimes of wave-generated currents decline as the tide ebbs, and normal beach processes do not usually affect the lower foreshore. Accordingly, there is an overall seaward-fining of the primary framework component of the sands. In more detail, this framework component displays a slight seaward-coarsening across an upper foreshore dominated by high water swash and surf; a rapid seaward-fining across the mid-foreshore in response to the ebb-attenuating swash zone flow velocities; and a slight seaward-fining across the lower foreshore under the action of nearshore shoaling waves. Bedforms vary from a swash/backwash emplaced flat bed across the upper foreshore to the small ripples of nearshore asymmetric oscillatory flows across the lower foreshore. The surface sediment veneer is not representative of the subsurface sediments which form in response partly to fairweather conditions, partly to storms. The upper foreshore is characterised by swash/backwash emplaced plane bedding in fine sands frequently disrupted by bubble cavities. The mid-foreshore is composed of coarser-grained shelly traction clogs arranged as landward- and seaward-dipping large-scale cross bedding and/or plane bedding; these are probably storm breaker/surf deposits. The lower foreshore, though partially and sometimes totally bioturbated, shows landward-dipping small-scale cross bedding in very fine sands sorted by nearshore shoaling waves. Tide- and storm-induced modification of the nearshore flow regimes therefore produces a distinctive shore-normal array of sedimentary facies. Each facies is characterised by diagnostic textural and structural signatures. A prograding sequence of such macrotidal deposits would be similar to, but more extensive than, a comparable microtidal sequence.