Beach sands from Baja California Peninsula, Mexico

Fifty beach locations were sampled in Baja California Peninsula, Mexico, in order to characterize textural and compositional parameters. The western beach sands are mainly associated with a lower relief coastal plain and high energy of waves and currents with the beach sands of the eastern littoral zone. Finer, better sorted and low carbonate and rich quartz and feldspar contents are observed for the western beach sands when compared to the eastern beach sands. The mineralogical maturity and provenance index are greater for the western beach sands than for the eastern beach sands. These contrasts may be explained by differences on coastal plain relief and differences on hydrodynamic energy of waves and currents that are responsible for the rock fragment dilution by enrichment of more stable quartz debris. Finally, some distinctions were found for Na2O-K2O-CaO values. This is thought to be a result of the presence of some samples from the eastern coastline with higher values in CaO content, probably due to the presence of basaltic rocks. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.