Textural Analysis of Coastal Sediments along East Coast of India

The study investigates textural characteristics of sediment at selected tourist beaches extending from Rameswaram to Paradip along east coast of India. Samples were taken from backshore and foreshore at nine selected locations to evaluate sediment grain size distribution and its seasonality. Analysis of grain size distribution carried out to identify textural characteristics (mean size, standard deviation, skewness and kurtosis) and its variability in two different seasons (southwest and northeast monsoon). Results show that sediments lying in backshore regions are mostly medium sand, while its changes are relatively invariant against seasons. The percentage of fine sand is higher during January compared to September due to prevalence of calm wave conditions. The mean grain size trend decreases at backshore region while it increases at foreshore region from south to north along the coast indicating dominance of aeolian transport. Sediments are mostly moderately sorted at backshore and moderately well sorted at foreshore region. Mostly symmetrical and mesokurtic sediments are dominated along the coast indicating sediments are well sorted at central portion of sediment distribution. The CM diagram depicts sediment source are from beach environment during both the seasons and some of them transported by tractive current in September and transporting during September is by rolling, bottom suspension and rolling; and graded suspension no rolling.