Earth Sciences Commons^™

Geomorphic And Temporal Evolution Of A Mississippi Delta Flanking Barrier Island: Grand Isle, La, Julie A. Torres

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating beach ridge sediments is one method for resolving barrier island growth at intermediate scales (decades-centuries), information that is lacking for Louisiana. This research combines OSL, GPR, aerial imagery, and cores to document temporal and spatial evolution of a Louisiana barrier island.

Grand Isle is composed of beach ridges organized in distinct, unconformable sets that began forming 0.75 ka until 0.575 ka when deposition ceased, the ridges were partially eroded, and deposition resumed in a more eastward direction. The central ridges formed between 370±30 and 170±10 years ago at a rate of one ridge every 11.6 …

Reconstructing Coastal Sediment Budgets From Beach‐ And Foredune‐Ridge Morphology: A Coupled Field And Modeling Approach, Dj Ciarletta, Jl Shawler, C Tenebruso, Christopher J. Hein, J Lorenzo‐Trueba

VIMS Articles

Preserved beach and foredune ridges may serve as proxies for coastal change, reflecting alterations in sea level, wave energy, or past sediment fluxes. In particular, time‐varying shoreface sediment budgets have been inferred from the relative size of foredune ridges through application of radiocarbon and optically stimulated luminescence dating to these systems over the last decades. However, geochronological control requires extensive field investigation and analysis. Purely field‐based studies might also overlook relationships between the mechanics of sediment delivery to the shoreface and foredune ridges, missing insights about sensitivity to changes in sediment budget. We therefore propose a simple geomorphic model of …