Boulder-strewn flats in a high-latitude macrotidal embayment, Baffin Island: geomorphology, formation, and future stability

Tidal flats are widely distributed on high-latitude coasts, where sea ice processes have been invoked to explain the abundance and distribution of boulders. This study documents surface morphology sediment dynamics a Low-Arctic macrotidal system, boulder-rich tidal Koojesse Inlet, fronting Nunavut capital, Iqaluit, Baffin Island. is region postglacial isostatic uplift forced regression, with raised littoral, deltaic, glaciomarine deposits. The spring-tidal range 11.1 m cover lasts roughly 9 months year. extensive intertidal up 1 km wide, veneer sand gravel (including large boulders) resting an erosional unconformity truncating underlying mud, forming terrace within present range. Over 3-year study, no consistent pattern erosion or deposition was evident. longer time scale, concave hypsometry, low supply, slight ebb dominance weak currents, abrasion by wave-entrained sand, ebb-oriented ripples formed under subaerial drainage, slumps flanks seaward hydraulic gravitational transport. These may be greater importance than shoreward underlines relict deposits, uplift, falling relative level in development these flats. Relative sea-level projections for Iqaluit ambiguous, but switch rising level, if it occurs, combined more open water wave energy, could alter foreshore system.