Flow and Suspended Sediment Events in the Near-Coastal Zone off Corpus Christi, Texas

Each inner continental shelf region has an interesting combination of current, wave and sediment regimes. White et al. (1983) characterize the surface sediments off Corpus Christi, Texas, as dominantly very fine sand in the nearshore zone, from the shoreface out 6-8 km, transitioning to mud (silt-clay) farther offshore. The pattern does not vary substantially alongshore. They indicate that the main processes responsible for the shelf sedimentation in this region are (1) suspension and redistribution of preexisting shelf sediments during storms and (2) transportation of suspended sediment from the adjacent bay-lagoon system. Snedden et al (1988) found that the combined bottom currents and wave-orbital motion associated with storm events were the means by which fine sands could be transported across the shelf and deposited in thin (< 10 cm) beds (Berryhill and Trippet 1981). In the low tidal energy region of the Gulf of Mexico both stochastic and episodic events frequently dominate, driven by atmospheric fronts (including the forcing mechanisms of direct wind stress, surface waves, and heating/cooling), freshwater discharges, stratification, and seasonal upwelling. A strong focus of this proposal is the interaction of these processes and their role in the dynamics of flow and sediment distributions.