Sedimentology of sandy beaches of Santa Catarina Island, SC, Brazil

Abstract

The sedimentological aspects of the beaches of Santa Catarina island: Cacupe Grande, Jose Mendes, Lagoinha, Mole, Matadeiro and Solidao were seasonally monitored. The used methods consisted on the sampling of surface sediments from the backshore, beach face and foreshore morphologic zones, in order to analyze parameters such as mean size, standard deviation, skewness, kurtosis and roundness. The beaches from Northwest and Southwest coasts, Cacupe Grande and Jose Mendes, respectively, adjacent to the North and South bays, protected from waves hydrodynamic action, are composed by coarse to very coarse sand, poorly selected, angular, typical of immature depositional environments. The Lagoinha and Matadeiro beaches, from the North and Southeast coasts, respectively, represents semi-exposed beaches, composed with fine sand, well sorted, rounded, which is typical of supermature depositional environments. The Mole beach, on the Northeast coast, represents an exposed beach from a supermature depositional environment, with medium sandy grains, moderately sorted and well-rounded. The Solidao beach, on the South coast, also considered exposed and supermature, has fine sandy grain, well selected and rounded. There were no significantly seasonal variations in any of the parameters.