Depositional environments of coastal sediments of Calangute, Goa

Abstract

The grain-size statistics and environmental conditions of deposition of the beach and dune sediments from the Calangute region, Goa, have been studied. The results of Student's t test and bivariate plots reveal that there exist distinct differences in grain-size parameters of the sediments from different environments and that these differences are highly significant. The study shows that the variations in mean grain size (Mz), graphic standard deviation (O₁), graphic skewness (Sk₁), simple sorting measure (So_s) and simple skewness measure (O_s) are significant in identifying the sediments from different environments. Further, the study reveals the usefulness of grain-size parameters not only in differentiating beach and dune sediments, but also in delineating the beach into foreshore and backshore. The differences in grain-size characteristics of the sediments between the environments reflect the transport, erosional and depositional mechanisms (active hydrodynamic processes in the beach foreshore and aerodynamic processes in the backshore and dune environments) prevailing in the area of study.