Coastal plain evolution in southern Hainan Island, China

The coast of southern Hainan Island is characterized by wide sandy embayments, which consist of (i) drowned valleys bounded by steep bedrock hills and only locally receiving sediments, and embayments of various dimensions covered either by (ii) alluvial-deltaic deposits or by (iii) sands of coastal beach ridges/barriers and associated elongated lagoons. During the late Tertiary-Pleistocene the area has experienced isostatic and eustatic movements associated with neotectonics and climatic changes. Such history is recorded in terraces at various altitudes (80, 40, 20 m asl) and sequences of coastal sand ridges/baymouth bars. The Holocene variations in sea level and climate are recorded in the dated coastal ridges, coral reef and beachrock. Conditions suitable for reef development started about 8000 a BP. The GPR profiles also show that the internal structures of the sand ridges have composite nature being formed by several superimposed secondary ridges.