assessment of post storm recovery of beaches using video imaging techniques a case study at gold coast australia ever expanding networks of surf cameras offer a unique opportunity to monitor the coastline over large expanses at very little cost compared to traditional in situ survey methods here we describe and test a new coastal monitoring system maintained by coastalcoms pty ltd at their test site at gold coast australia the two camera system monitors two highly sensitive 4 km stretches of sandy coastline adjacent to high value assets the traditional static multi camera setup has been replaced by a single rotational camera a 14 month data set encompassing one major storm a recovery period and a seasonal cycle was analyzed positive shoreline detections using the new camera system were available 64 of the time roughly 145 days of the available 226 where daily offshore significant wave heights hs 1 m comparison of the coastalcoms derived shorelines and in situ survey data showed a mean shoreward bias of 25 5 m daily shoreline estimates were used to calculate weekly and five week running mean beach widths at both sites analysis showed that both sites eroded between 15 22 m during the may 2009 storm and then recovered during the proceeding five month calm period distinct intersite variability was observed between the more exposed northern beaches that displayed an annual shoreline cycle and very little intrasite variability and the more sheltered southern palm beach site that displayed large intrasite spatial variability and sensitivity to changes to both wave direction and wave height

the spatial variability of large scale sand bars in this work we describe preliminary results from a newly developed aerial video system which can be used to rapidly 2 4 hours and accurately 5 m resolution sample the horizontal scales of sand bar morphology over several hundred km s of coastline observations from for example the north carolina coastline on the central eastern seaboard of the u s indicate marked changes in the alongshore morphological patterns which can be cyclic with lengths scales of 5 10 km s along one stretch of coast but adjacently the bars can be absent altogether other observations from the lower sloping west coast beaches of the u s pacific northwest show highly complex sand bar morphology which also exhibit marked alongshore variability along this coast the beach systems are not continuous and are separated by large headlands and the morphology at any particular beach behaves independently from the bar morphology in adjacent compartments

nonlinear transfer function modelling of beach morphology at duck north carolina abstract this paper presents a simple nonlinear data based modelling approach for predicting the beach profile volume at duck north carolina usa the state dependent parameter form of the general transfer function sdp tf model is used to describe nonlinearity influencing these morphological data in two case examples case 1 investigates the nonlinearity associated with the dependency of wave forcing on the preceding beach volume case 2 investigates the ability to model the variables within the well known diffusion equation for beach volume using this data based approach the results of this study show that the sdp tf approach can be used successfully to develop statistically robust models for describing nonlinearity in beach morphological systems furthermore these models are shown to predict the beach volumes over both short 1 month ahead and long 2 years ahead time periods and thus show great potential for practical applications in coastal zone management and engineering

storm induced response of a nearshore bar system abstract a nearshore bar system was surveyed periodically through a storm and the following recovery period the data showed a very rapid response of morphology to changing wave conditions and allowed various models on bar formation to be tested under low energy conditions prior to the storm a small bar was surveyed 13 m offshore both the high reflectivity of the beach and the cross shore distance to the bar are consistent with a model of sediment convergence at the node or antinode of a standing wave of incident period such a small scale bar may be a common feature on beaches with steep foreshores and more gentle offshore slopes with the increase in wave height during the storm the bar became better developed and migrated offshore at rates up to 2 2 m h 1 the bar maintained its form in that the ratio of trough depth to crest depth h t h c remained roughly constant the bar was in no way related to processes which would cause the convergence of sediment in the breaker zone through most of the storm the bar crest distance offshore was typically only 10 of the surf zone width analysis of the bar distance offshore in terms of a standing wave motion showed that the causative wave period must have been much longer than that of incident waves probably on the order of a minute surf zone wave data showed significant energy in the infragravity band at these periods although no definite link has been made after the height of the storm the bar had a crescentic morphology the development of this morphology occurred very rapidly with parts of the bar migrating onshore at rates up to 1 2 m h 1 in contrast to the storm during the recovery period h t h c varied by nearly a factor of three analysis of the offshore and longshore length scales showed the bar to be similar to one which would be generated by a standing mode 1 edge wave of period on the order of one minute

morphodynamics along a micro tidal sea breeze dominated beach in the vicinity of coastal structures abstract the present study investigates the seasonal and interannual morphodynamics on a micro tidal sea breeze dominated tropical beach located in the northern yucatan peninsula mexico the coastal dynamics in the study area are controlled by both local sea breeze and synoptic central american cold surge cacs scale atmospheric events however the net westward littoral drift is dominated by more persistent sea breeze events the field study was conducted along a 2 km stretch of sandy beach located in the vicinity of two coastal structures one hundred beach surveys 2000 beach profiles were undertaken between may 2015 and june 2019 on a weekly and bi weekly basis to investigate beach morphodynamics empirical orthogonal function eof analysis of the morphological features are used to identify the dominant modes of beach variability the first and second spatial eof modes explain the beach long term trend and rotation respectively the first spatial mode is highly influenced by the presence of the structures for all morphological features the second spatial mode associated to beach rotation shows accretion erosion eastward westward of the structures during spring summer fall winter months field observations were employed to correlate the beach response with physical parameters i e water level and wave parameters the long term trend of the shoreline and subaerial volume show no significant correlations with the physical parameters whereas the temporal mode of the high water contour presents a step like behavior which is correlated to the still water level on the other hand beach rotation is highly correlated to the seasonal variability of wave parameters field observations suggest that increase of cacs events activity and water level during el nino 2015 2016 winter season enhanced decreased the beach rotation translation implying a high beach sensitivity to climate variability in this region

source complexity of the october 1 1987 whittier narrows earthquake long and short period body waveform data recorded at regional and teleseismic distances are modeled to obtain the source parameters of the whittier narrows earthquake of october 1 1987 although the long period data can be satisfied by a simple thrust earthquake on a plane striking 280 at a depth of 14 km we require a double source solution to satisfy both the long and short period teleseismic data the first subevent has a focal mechanism of strike 250 dip 30 n and a slip vector 90 the second is 280 40 n and 98 the second event occurred 1 0 s after the first was 5 times larger 1 2 1025 dyn cm for the second 0 23 1025 for the first in terms of seismic moment and was also shallower 12 km whereas the first subevent was at 15 km the two subevents probably occurred on a north dipping listric fault but may have occurred on two subparallel faults these features were determined by studying a variety of phases including teleseismic p and sh and regional pnl the whittier narrows earthquake was a high stress drop event but a single value for stress drop cannot be obtained because of the complex nature of the source if we define the fault area as the aftershock area we obtain a stress drop of about 750 bars

evaluation of depth of closure using data from duck nc usa using 12 years of frequent high precision profiles collected on a wave dominated sandy oceanic beach to 8 m depth the characteristics and interpretation of depth of closure or the seaward limit of significant profile change is critically examined this includes evaluation of the predictive capability of d1 the seaward boundary of the littoral zone as originally defined by hallermeier 1981 hallermeier r j 1981 a profile zonation for seasonal sand beaches from wave climate coastal eng 4 253 277 depth of closure during major erosional events is usually produced by the seaward limit of offshore bar movement following the original recommendation of hallermeier 1981 d1 based on 12 h exceeded wave height and a reference depth of mean low water provides a robust limit to the observations using a 6 cm change criterion empirically the observed depth of closure is 69 of d1 although the scatter is large this scatter is partly controlled by pre event profile shape most particularly bar configuration depth of closure under accretional conditions can also be measured but it is time scale dependent as accretion is a slow steady process d1 underpredicts closure for accretional situations time interval e g annual depth of closure represents the integral effect of erosional and accretional events an important observation of the data is that depth of closure increases with time scale however the full population of time interval observations is not resolved at duck due to the measurement limit 8 m depth as time interval increases from 1 year to 8 years less cases close most non closing time interval cases coincide with the periods influenced by the most energetic wave events however time interval closures are generally deeper than the biggest event closure in the period showing that it represents more than the largest event the frequency distribution of the data suggests that most if not all of these missing data simply represent closures deeper than 8 m depth up to a 4 year time interval d1 t appears to provide a reasonable limit to the quantified observations it is an interesting result that d1 an event based approach might provide a limit to closure over periods up to 4 years as these time interval closures are generally larger than those produced by single storms therefore the general applicability of this result for more complete data sets or on rapidly evolving i e eroding or accreting coasts is uncertain the present data also suggest that on swell dominated coastlines where accretional processes are dominant d1 may underpredict closure suggesting an important limitation to this approach but as sediment would be moving onshore this may not be a practical problem therefore within the limits of the data set hallermeier s 1981 approach is found to define robust estimates of depth of closure particularly for individual erosional events this useful result is expected to find widespread application in coastal geology and engineering

the modified bruun rule extended for landward transport article i nfo the bruun rule bruun 1954 1962 provides a relationship between sea level rise and shoreline retreat and has been widely applied by the engineering and scientific communities to interpret shoreline changes and to plan for possible future increases in sea level rise rates the bruun rule assumes that all sand removed from the upper profile is deposited offshore as sea level rises although overwash during storms and landward aeolian transport clearly indicate otherwise herein we examine processes associated with sandy beach evolution in response to relative sea level rise and propose a modified form of the bruun rule that considers the full range of parsing cross shore transport from completely seaward to completely landward depending on the prevailing storm and surge conditions and whether there is a surplus or deficit of sand in the profile with respect to the equilibrium beach profile a methodology is proposed that more appropriately represents the long term processes and beach response however an improved quantitative understanding of landward transport is required for optimal application of the proposed method published by elsevier b v

microwave radar cross sections and doppler velocities measured in the surf zone 1 the relationship between microwave imaging radar measurements of fluid velocities in the surf zone and shoaling breaking and broken waves is studied with field observations normalized radar cross section nrcs and doppler velocity are estimated from microwave measurements at near grazing angles and in situ fluid velocities are measured with acoustic doppler velocimeters advs joint histograms of radar cross section and doppler velocity cluster into identifiable distributions the nrcs values from pixels with large nrcs and high doppler velocities 2 m s decrease with decreasing bore height to the shoreline similar to scattering from a cylinder with decreasing radius the doppler velocities associated with these regions in the histograms agree well with theoretical wave phase velocities radar and adv measurements of fluid velocities between bore crests have similarly shaped energy density spectra for frequencies above about 0 1 hz but energy levels from the radar are an order of magnitude higher than those of the adv data instantaneous interbore doppler velocities are correlated with adv measured fluid velocities but are offset by 0 8 m s this offset may be due to bragg wave phase velocities wind drift range and azimuth sidelobes the finite spatial resolution of the radar and differences between mean flows measured at the surface with radar and flows measured below the surface with advs shoaling and breaking waves measured through radar grating lobes significantly affect both the doppler velocities near the edges of the images and the scattering from the rear faces of waves causing large doppler velocities to be observed in these regions

evidences for strong directional resonances in intensely deformed zones of the pernicana fault mount etna italy 1 in this paper we investigate ground motion properties in the western part of the pernicana fault this is the major fault of mount etna and drives the dynamic evolution of the area in a previous work rigano et al 2008 showed that a significant horizontal polarization characterizes ground motion in fault zones of mount etna both during earthquakes and ambient vibrations we have performed denser microtremor measurements in the ne rift segment and in intensely deformed zones of the pernicana fault at piano pernicana this study includes mapping of azimuth dependent horizontal to vertical spectral ratios along and across the fault frequency wave number techniques applied to array data to investigate the nature of ambient vibrations and polarization analysis through the conventional covariance matrix method our results indicate that microtremors are likely composed of volcanic tremor spectral ratios show strong directional resonances of horizontal components around 1 hz when measurements enter the most damaged part of the fault zone their polarization directions show an abrupt change by 20 to 40 at close measurements between the northern and southern part of the fault zone recordings of local earthquakes at one site in the fault zone confirm the occurrence of polarization with the same angle found using volcanic tremor we have also found that the directional effect is not time dependent at least at a seasonal scale this observation and the similar behavior of volcanic tremors and earthquake induced ground motions suggest that horizontal polarization is the effect of local fault properties however the 1 hz resonant frequency cannot be reproduced using the 1 d vertically varying model inferred from the array data analysis suggesting a role of lateral variations of the fault zone although the actual cause of polarization is unknown a role of stress induced anisotropy and microfracture orientation in the near surface lavas of the pernicana fault can be hypothesized consistently with the sharp rotation of the polarization angle within the damaged fault zone

low energy sandy beaches in marine and estuarine environments a review this review was undertaken to identify locations where low energy beaches may occur and their diagnostic forms and process controls including waves tides and water levels examples are drawn from the sheltered coastline of western australia near perth and fetch limited estuarine environments on the northeast coast of the united states we suggest that the term low energy be used in locations where 1 non storm significant wave heights are minimal e g 0 25 m 2 significant wave heights during strong onshore winds are low e g 0 50 m 3 beachface widths are narrow e g 20 m in microtidal environments and 4 morphologic features include those inherited from higher energy events micro topographic features can persist in the swash zone of low energy beaches under non storm wave conditions there is little evidence of cyclic cross shore sediment exchange bars excepting transverse forms located seaward of low still water level do not appear to be part of the sediment exchange system with the foreshore developing a better definition of the term low energy requires understanding the occurrence and duration of morphological characteristics and the type magnitude and frequency of hydrodynamic controls that are responsible for these characteristics efforts also should be directed toward 1 discriminating between processes generated within basins in true fetch limited environments and processes generated outside basins that affect sheltered environments 2 identifying the relative contributions of tide and surge related water level fluctuations on low energy beach shape and 3 estimating thresholds for beach change

observations of sand bar evolution on a natural beach waves currents and the location of the seafloor were measured on a barred beach for about 2 months at nine locations along a cross shore transect extending 255 m from 1 to 4 m water depth the seafloor location was measured nearly continuously even in the surf zone during storms with sonar altimeters mounted on fixed frames the crest of a sand bar initially located about 60 m from the shoreline moved 130 m offshore primarily when the offshore significant wave height exceeded about 2 m with 1 5 m of erosion near the initial location and 1 m of accretion at the final location an energetics type sediment transport model driven by locally measured near bottom currents predicts the observed offshore bar migration but not the slow onshore migration observed during low energy wave conditions the predicted offshore bar migration is driven primarily by cross shore gradients in predicted suspended sediment transport associated with quasi steady near bottom offshore flows these strong 50 cm s currents intensified near the bar crest by wave breaking are predicted to cause erosion on the shoreward slope of the bar and deposition on the seaward side the feedback amoung morphology waves circulation and sediment transport thus forces offshore bar migration during storms

detailed evaluation of site response estimation methods across and along the sedimentary valley of volvi euro seistest using records from the euro seistest area near thessaloniki greece we studied empirically the amplification effects of a sedimentary valley one of the main advantages of this site is the very detailed knowledge of the near subsurface structure due to exhaustive geophysical and geotechnical measurements and data analyses jongmans et al 1998 the uniqueness of the seismological data set is the very dense network 31 stations were installed perpendicular and parallel to the valley axis with minimum interstation distances of 250 m the mean ampli fications along both axes estimated from 13 local events were imaged using the traditional spectral ratio technique variations of the mean amplifications due to the choice of different data subsets were tested by the use of up to 89 local events supplemented by four teleseismic events offering good low frequency resolution results obtained using the traditional spectral ratio technique were compared with results from a generalized inversion technique the h v ratio technique a coda wave technique and nakamura s technique advantages and disadvantages of each method are outlined especially from a practical point of view

modeling the alongshore current on barred beaches mean alongshore currents observed on two barred beaches are compared with predictions based on the one dimensional time and depth averaged alongshore momentum balance between forcing by breaking waves wind and 10 100 km scale alongshore surface slopes bottom stress and lateral mixing the observations span 500 hours at egmond netherlands and 1000 hours at duck north carolina and include a wide range of conditions with maximum mean currents of 1 4 m s including rollers in the wave forcing results in improved predictions of the observed alongshore current structure by shifting the predicted velocity maxima shoreward and increasing the velocity in the bar trough compared with model predictions without rollers for these data wave forcing balances the bottom stress within the surfzone with the other terms of secondary importance the good agreement between observations and predictions implies that the one dimensional assumption holds for the range of conditions examined despite the presence of small alongshore bathymetric nonuniformities with stronger bathymetric variations the model skill deteriorates particularly in the bar trough consistent with earlier modeling and laboratory studies

decoupling processes and scales of shoreline morphodynamics abstract behavior of coastal systems on time scales ranging from single storm events to years and decades is controlled by both small scale sediment transport processes and large scale geologic oceanographic and morphologic processes improved understanding of coastal behavior at multiple time scales is required for refining models that predict potential erosion hazards and for coastal management planning and decision making here we investigate the primary controls on shoreline response along a geologically variable barrier island on time scales resolving extreme storms and decadal variations over a period of nearly one century an empirical orthogonal function analysis is applied to a time series of shoreline positions at fire island ny to identify patterns of shoreline variance along the length of the island we establish that there are separable patterns of shoreline behavior that represent response to oceanographic forcing as well as patterns that are not explained by this forcing the dominant shoreline behavior occurs over large length scales in the form of alternating episodes of shoreline retreat and advance presumably in response to storms cycles two secondary responses include long term response that is correlated to known geologic variations of the island and the other reflects geomorphic patterns with medium length scale our study also includes the response to hurricane sandy and a period of post storm recovery it was expected that the impacts from hurricane sandy would disrupt long term trends and spatial patterns we found that the response to sandy at fire island is not notable or distinguishable from several other large storms of the prior decade

medium term bar behavior and associated sediment transport at hasaki japan 1 the medium term movement of a longshore bar and the associated cross shore sediment transport were investigated using beach profile data obtained nearly daily for 8 years from the seaward foot of a dune to a water depth of about 5 m at hazaki oceanographical research station hors bar crests were found to move seaward repeatedly with a period of a year the duration time of the seaward bar migration is shorter than those on the other coasts in the united states the netherlands and new zealand although bars migrated in one direction seaward the cross shore sediment transport rate associated with the bar migrations fluctuated seaward and shoreward seaward sediment transport occurred on and around bar crests whereas shoreward sediment transport occurred in trough regions the cross shore sediment transport was active when the offshore wave energy was large from winter to spring and in autumn however the direction of the sediment transport in a region where bars were most developed was different during the two periods it was seaward from winter to spring and shoreward in autumn a numerical model for beach profile change confirmed that the development and decay of a bar was caused by the spatial and temporal variations of the cross shore sediment transport rate

short term changes in the morphodynamic states of beaches and surf zones an empirical predictive model a time series of 6 5 years of daily observations of beach states and wave characteristics from southeastern australia was analyzed with the aim of determining the degree to which time varying beach state can be explained and predicted the six commonly occurring beach states dissipative longshore bar trough rhythmic bar and beach transverse bar and rip low tide terrace and reflective discussed earlier were related by means of discrete discriminant analyses to the parameter hb wst where hb is breaker height ws is the fall velocity of the beach sand and t is peak breaker period using a total of 1545 cases two values were used in the analyses the immediate value occurring on the day the particular state was observed and a weighted mean value expressing recently antecedent conditions the immediate value made a negligible contribution to explaining day to day beach state observations however the antecedent conditions showed a strong relationship and provide a successful means of prediction by examining cases where the time derivatives of both state and were near zero it was possible to define the equilibrium conditions associated with each state directions of change erosional or accretionary are predicted in terms of departures of from the equilibrium value appropriate to the beach state prevailing at the time change begins

role of wave forcing storms and nao in outer bar dynamics on a high energy macro tidal beach abstract outer sand bar dynamics on a high energy macro tidal beach were investigated using long term multi year field datasets of intertidal morphology and offshore bathymetry utilising a 15 year time series of argus video images five distinct outer bar types were identified mega rip longshore crescentic crescentic attached and welded the most common classification was crescentic attached with the outer bar oscillations being out of phase with the inner bar oscillations as would be expected for the shore normal wave approach at this site the outer bar had a typical amplitude of 0 5 1 m and a longshore wavelength of 600 m changes in outer bar morphology were related to measured and modelled nearshore wave data however the outer bar morphology changed over a much longer timescale monthly to annual than the daily to weekly variations in wave height and period an extended duration of energetic wave action was required to bring about an upstate bar transition to the longshore or mega rip state where the bar then remained arrested for a significant amount of time requiring several months of low wave conditions to induce a down state transition through crescentic to welded this slow morphological response is explained by extended relaxation times attributed to the large tidal range at the study site where the outer bar morphology is only active for part of the tidal cycle several hours around low tide the configuration and position of the outer bar were related the more upstate downstate bar types being associated with a more offshore onshore bar position the detrended outer bar position was significantly related to a forcing term based on wave power and disequilibrium of the dimensionless fall velocity with offshore onshore bar migration occurring when wave conditions were more less energetic that the antecedent conditions the upstate end member longshore or mega rip was attained sometime during the winter months for 14 out of the 16 years of monitoring the outer bar remained attached to the low tide shoreline over the winter 2005 2006 and 2010 2011 these two winters with incomplete upstate cycles were characterised by the lowest winter wave conditions and negative winter north atlantic oscillation nao indices suggesting that the winter nao is correlated with both beach state and nearshore bar configuration

analysis of the scale of errors in nearshore bathymetric data most studies of nearshore hydrodynamics sediment transport and morphology focus on bathymetric variability within a narrow band of spatial and temporal scales typically these studies rely on bathymetry estimates derived from field observations consisting of discrete samples in space and time with varying degrees of measurement error sampling limitations which result in aliasing and measurement errors can significantly contaminate variability at resolved scales and may lead to large errors in the representation of the scales of interest using a spectral analysis interpolation errors were analyzed for three different nearshore bathymetric data sets each of which targeted a different range of spatial scales bathymetric features that were unresolved or poorly resolved e g beach cusps introduced the potential for contamination in two of the data sets this contamination was significantly reduced using an appropriate scale controlled interpolation method leading to more accurate representations of the actual bathymetry an additional benefit of using scale controlled interpolation is that interpolation errors may be estimated independently of actual observations which allows one to design bathymetric sampling strategies that ensure that dominant scales are either resolved or largely removed finally interpolation errors corresponding to a particular sample design can be used to determine which interpolated values contribute usefully to a band limited analysis of bathymetric variability

complex polarization analysis of particle motion knowledge of particle motion polarization aids in identifying phases on three component seismograms the scheme of montalbetti and kanasewich 1970 is extended to analytic three component seismograms where the imaginary part of the signal is the hilbert transform of the real part this scheme has only one free parameter the length of the time window over which the polarization parameters are estimated so it can be applied in a routine way to three component data the azimuth and dip of the direction of maximum polarization and the degree of elliptical polarization as a function of time for the seismograms are obtained polarization analysis of strong motion data from the 1971 san fernando earthquake aids in the discrimination between wave types which is important for the understanding of the complicated earthquake induced shaking observed in basins most arrivals are incident on the receivers in the direction of the back azimuth to the epicenter which suggests that despite the complicated motions two dimensional finite difference methods are sufficient to understand the effect on seismic waves of the los angeles and san fernando basins vidale and helmberger 1986b

site resonance from strong ground motions at lucerne california during the 1992 landers mainshock analog station luc near lucerne california recorded strong motions from the nearby 1 25 km fault rupture during the 28 june 1992 landers mainshock the records illustrate general issues that can arise at near field stations in the area of the station weathered granite regolith with 400 m s s wave velocity overlies intact granite with 3000 m s s wave velocity a strongly reverberating signal persisted for several seconds after near field velocity pulse passed recovery of the vertical record in digital form provided calibration of resonant site properties and qualitative separation of site and source effects the dominant signal on the vertical spectrum arises from vertically reverberating p waves in an 13 5 m thick layer horizontal spectra marginally resolve the analogous resonance for vertical s waves and coupling of vertical p waves into horizontal motion here resonant amplification of a broad high frequency band 5 40 hz by a factor of a few over lower frequencies sufficed to dominate acceleration records and to make velocity records jittery conversely the amplitude damping times of these resonances are much less than 1 s indicating that the time domain decay of the acceleration signal over 8 s is an incident wave effect overall the raw seismograms represent incident incoming high frequency 5 40 hz signals but poorly resolved directional effects preclude straightforward determination of the incident body waves

influence of focal mechanism on peak accelerations of strong motions of the whittier narrows california earthquake and an aftershock focal mechanisms affect the pattern of the peak accelerations of the october 1 1987 whittier narrows earthquake and its october 4 aftershock the peak accelerations observed on 21 strong motion instrumentation program and 22 u s geological survey accelerograms correlate well with the ratio of shear wave amplitude computed from the thrust mechanism of the main shock and the strike slip mechanism of the aftershock this correlation means that seismic energy is radiated from the fault with close to the standard double couple radiation pattern at the frequencies 3 6 hz corresponding to the peak accelerations

beach systems of the central netherlands coast processes morphology and structural impacts in a storm driven multi bar system abstract the 124 km long central netherlands coast consists of a sand barrier system fronted by beach and surf zone containing 2 to 3 bars the beach and surf zone are the product of wind waves generated in the north sea interacting with the medium to fine shoreface sands in a micro tidal environment the inner bar is usually attached to the beach as a ridge and runnel cut by drains and rips the second and third bars are highly rhythmic and are characterised respectively by transverse bars and rips and rhythmic to longshore bar and trough bar types structural impacts influence 48 km of shore with harbour moles inducing lower wave energy and shoreline progradation a 4 5 km long dyke replaces part of the beach but apparently has had little impact on mesoscale bar dynamics while 158 groynes in three fields have produced more intermediate rip driven surf zones natural beach processes however dominate the entire coast with the hierarchical bar morphology related to cross shore wave breaking the equilibrium beach concept of wright et al 1987 was used to empirically predict beach bar type the results explain both the hierarchy of bar type and the temporal variation in beach bar type finally a multi bar beach model for the coast is presented which builds upon the single bar model of wright and short 1984

a stereoscopic method for rapid monitoring of the spatio temporal evolution of the sand bed elevation in the swash zone abstract a stereoscopic technique is developed in order to measure the sand bed elevation in the swash zone at the wave time scale the present technique allows one to perform highly resolved measurements both in time and in space an accuracy and a precision of less than 300 m and 600 m respectively are obtained in each direction this technique has been used during a large scale wave flume experiment where an erosive process of a plane beach is studied the stereoscopic technique allows one to accurately measure the long term evolution of the beach profile in addition spatially dependent variability on shorten time scales is observed featuring accretion as well as erosion at the wave time scale

comment on the article morphodynamic classification of sandy beaches in low energetic marine environment by gomez pujol l orfila a canellas b alvarez ellacuria a mendez f j medina r and tintore j marine geology 242 pp 235 246 2007 abstract in a recent study gomez pujol et al gomez pujol l orfila a canellas b alvarez ellacuria a mendez f j medina r tintore j 2007 morphodynamic classification of sandy beaches in low energetic marine environment mar geol 242 pp 235 246 used the wright and short beach classification scheme fed with hindcasted wave and sediment settling velocity data to classify the morphodynamic states of a group of low energy mediterranean beaches mallorca spain here we use morphodynamic data obtained from an argus video station and a morphodynamic model to assess the validity of this type of model for predicting beach states under typical mediterranean wave conditions the results show that values alone do not provide a realistic prediction of beach states statistics and that the intensity of the forcing represented by the wave energy level and the duration of the events must also be taken into account

near surface velocities and attenuation at two boreholes near anza california from logging data to investigate near surface site effects in granite rock we drilled 300 m deep boreholes at two sites which are collocated with stations from the digital array at anza california the first borehole was sited at station knw keenwild fire station which is located along a ridge line about 8 7 km east of the san jacinto fault zone station pfo pinon flat observatory chosen for the second site is another 6 km further to the east of station knw and is located on a gently sloping hillside we logged each borehole for p and s wave velocities as well as for crack density and orientation p waves were generated by striking a plate with a hammer at the surface a tool consisting of weighted anvils driven by compressed air against end plates along a 3 5 m beam was used to generate shear waves signals were recorded downhole with a three component sensor package at 2 5 m intervals from the surface to 50 m depth and at 5 m intervals from 50 m depth to the bottom of the hole velocities were determined by differencing the measured arrival times of first arrivals or peaks over each interval in depth travel times were computed for the first breaks at shallow depths however below about 100 m depth times were computed for the first peaks rather than for first breaks since the first arrival was no longer clearly distinguishable the knw site yielded a shear velocity of 1 9 km sec by only 30 m in depth and reached close to 2 6 km sec at the bottom of the hole p wave velocities at knw were also high at 5 4 km sec starting at 120 m depth the pfo site had similar but slightly higher shear wave velocities the bottom hole shear wave velocity reached 3 0 km sec and the p wave velocity was 5 4 km sec shear wave attenuation was computed using both the pulse rise time and spectral ratio methods at station knw attenuation was significant only in an interval between 17 5 and approximately 40 m in depth over the top 50 m attenuation corresponding to a q of about 8 was obtained a total t of 0 004 sec was measured for this interval pulse rise times also increased rapidly in this zone the spectral ratio data for station pfo yields two peaks in attenuation above 50 m similar to the attenuation found for station knw the peak in attenuation corresponds to a q of about 11 averaged over the top 50 m spectra of the seismic pulses produced by the hammer give good signal between 20 to 80 hz significant motion perpendicular to the polarizations of the first shear wave arrival was recorded within a few meters of the surface apparently the rock structure is sufficiently complicated that body waves are being converted sh to sv at oblique incidence very close to the surface the presence of these elliptical particle motions within a mere few m of the pure shear wave source suggests that the detection of polarizations perpendicular to the main shear arrival at a single location at the surface is not by itself a good method for detecting shearwave splitting within the upper few tens of kilometers of the earth s crust crack densities and orientations were determined from televiewer records these records showed cracks with a preferred direction at station knw and of a greater density than at station pfo at station pfo crack densities were smaller and more diffuse in orientation

quantification of sand bar morphology a video technique based on wave dissipation a technique is presented to remotely measure the scales and morphology of natural sand bars based on the preferential dissipation of wind waves and swell over the crests of the bar photographic or video images are recorded and statistical uncertainties associated with incident wave height modulations removed by averaging time exposures ground truth testing of the technique was carried out as part of the superduck experiment in october 1986 the time exposures generally provided a good mapping of underlying morphology allowing detection of the bar and determination of cross shore and longshore length scales however during high waves persistent surface foam obscures the relationship of image intensity to local dissipation modeled theoretically by dissipation of a random wave field and an enhancement technique of image differencing must be done to remove the bias errors in the estimate of bar crest distance from the shoreline are generally less than 35 but this value depends on the geometry of the particular bar logistic simplicity and quantitative capabilities make this technique very attractive

observations of shoreline sandbar coupling on an embayed beach we analyse a seven year dataset 1999 2005 of shoreline and sandbar variations derived from video observations at the embayed tairua beach new zealand to explore sandbar shoreline coupling and to determine how this coupling is related to alongshore averaged sandbar shoreline separation and beach rotation our results quantify the coupling between the sandbar and the shoreline which is directly related to the reduced separation between the sandbar and the shoreline using a simple predictive shoreline model we show that this behaviour is related to the energy of the incoming waves our observations are obtained from a headland enclosed beach and show aspects of the morphological state that relate to the existence of headlands that are not considered in the wright and short beach state classification both the sandbar and shoreline at tairua beach rotate relatively quickly 1 month during the winter storm events when the storms are accompanied by strong alongshore components gradually returning during the summer months the sandbar shoreline coupling length scale is controlled by this rotation with large wavelengths occurring when the sandbar is strongly rotated

experimental study of site effects in the fort de france area martinique island abstract we used weak motion recordings of regional events to quantify the site effects in the fort de france martinique area in the frequency band 1 to 25 hz the studied area extends over three distinct geological units the morne pitault volcanic massif 15 to 11 m a the carbet volcanic massif 4 to 2 m a and the lamentin alluvial plain quaternary age the topography being complex 31 sites were selected in order to get a representative sampling of the various topographical and geological configurations the large number of studied sites also allowed us to define a reference site whose selection was not obvious large broadband amplifications are observed in the lamentin plain instead of the expected peak resonances more surprising such resonance is observed around 2 to 3 hz on several sites of the volcanic vauclain pitault chain though no sedimentary layer is present on the other hand in the inner fort de france where significant effects were expected because of the very complex topography no large amplication is observed except for at one site clear three dimensional 3d effects are also observed at some stations though not very well documented the low frequency behavior deduced from teleseismic observations seems rather different illustrating the difficulty in finding a convenient reference site in such a volcanic area

the quantitative description of beach cycles abstract a quantitative method is developed to describe sequential changes in beach profile morphology dominant cycles in temporal eigenfunctions computed by empirical eigenfunction analysis and rotary component analysis are defined and used to construct a sequence of profiles representing the energetic portions of beach cycles five sets of beach profile data from torrey pines beach in southern california were analyzed with these techniques because the first and second eigenfunctions account for between 65 and 90 of the variability of the data the beach profiles are accurately described with only these two variables and the mean profile using rotary component analysis beach changes represented by the two dominant eigenfunctions can be separated into many elliptical components each representing a particular frequency associated with cycles in beach state profiles are reconstructed using points from the perimeter latera recta of these beach state ellipses a frequency of 1 cpy is the most energetic frequency in the first and second eigenfunctions corresponding to the cyclic onshore offshore sediment movement associated with bar and berm profiles profiles constructed from points on the elliptical path associated with annual cycles graphically depict the sequential development of bar and berm during the beach cycle beach cycles corresponding to a frequency of 2 cpy are also significant primarily due to the energy of the second eigenfunction no other frequencies are consistently found to be as significant as the annual and semi annual cycles at this beach in particular monthly beach cycles have little energy associated with them the method described provides a uniform way to objectively discriminate energetic beach cycles and yields a concise representation for beach modeling and prediction it should be a valuable tool for uniform quantitative intercomparison of beaches and beach cycles

directional site resonances and the influence of near surface geology on ground motion the authors examine the horizontal motions at close stations from earthquakes in the loma prieta and whittier narrows sequences to study the shear wave polarizations they use a dense six station array recording 10 aftershocks for the former and use two events and 11 stations across the los angeles area for the latter they compute the average azimuth of strongest shaking in the shear wave as a function of frequency from 1 to 18 hz for each record of each earthquake the direction of shaking at a given frequency often correlates much better with an empirical site resonance direction than with the direction of shaking expected from the focal mechanism of the earthquake the effect tends to be greatest at the frequencies that are the most amplified this phenomenon can complicate determination of the earthquake source at frequencies higher than 1 hz further since sites only 25 meters apart show different preferred directions very near surface geology is probably responsible estimation of directional site resonances may prove useful for seismic design

vertical seismic profiling of oroville microearthquakes velocity spectra and particle motion as a function of depth direct evidence of site distortion of p and s wave microearthquake source spectra at oroville california is presented the data were gathered by placing vertical and three component seismometers at 90 m intervals in a 500 m borehole through the cleveland hill normal fault on which the 1975 ml 5 7 oroville earthquake took place high pressure hydraulic locking mechanisms were used to firmly lock the seismometer packages against the borehole wall digital event triggering geos recorders were used to receive the data some 30 seismic events including 12 microearthquakes were recorded during the 4 months the seismometers were deployed by comparing the velocity spectra of microearthquake waves at the different depths it can be seen that scattering and attenuation in the shallow crust around the borehole dominantly affect high frequency s waves above 15 hz the value of the apparent s wave quality factor qas for the upper 500 m of crust at this site is 9 one feature of this low qas is a gross difference between s wave corner frequencies observed at ground level and 500 m downhole for example the uphole and downhole s wave corner frequencies for the mcoda 0 4 microearthquake of julian day 259 differ by a factor of 2 or more low quality factors and depth dependent corner frequencies were also observed for p waves but these data are less definitive due to lower signal to noise ratios based on their three component particle motions and polarizations the direct s waves of the microearthquakes appear to be composed of two phases which have similar amplitudes but different apparent velocities it is possible that the velocity differences are a result of anisotropy in the underlying rock

the spatial and temporal variability of sand bar morphology the spatial and temporal variability of nearshore sand bar morphology is quantified using a unique data set spanning 2 years the data consist of daily time exposure images of incident wave breaking on an open coast sandy beach which may be used to infer bar morphology lippmann and holman 1989 the morphology in each image is classified into an eight state morphologic scheme in which bars are uniquely defined by four independent criteria the most frequently observed morphologies are the longshore periodic rhythmic bars observed in 68 of the data linear bars occur under highest wave conditions h s 1 78 m and are unstable mean residence time 2 days shore attached rhythmic bars are the most stable mean residence time 11 days and generally form 5 16 days following peak wave events non rhythmic three dimensional bars are very transient mean residence time 3 days eighty seven percent of transitions to lower bar types defined in text occurred one state at a time supporting our selection of the ordering of states and suggesting the suitability of a sequential morphology model transitions to higher states occurred under rising wave energy and were evenly spread among the possible higher states with more substantial changes in morphology resulting from larger wave increases this suggests that up state erosional transitions based on offshore bar migration are better described by an equilibrium model where response is better correlated with incident wave energy than with preceding morphological state time exposure images were also digitized to yield quantitative estimates of bar crest location as a function of longshore distance principal component analysis was used to decompose bar position into two dimensional linear and three dimensional longshore variable components cross shore linear bar position ranges 50 m about the 2 year mean 27 m standard deviation and dominates bar variability 74 6 three dimensional bar structure accounts for 14 of the variance 12 m standard deviation changes in incident wave height precede cross shore bar migration by less than 1 day changes in longshore variability are inversely correlated to changing wave conditions with bar morphology becoming linear rapidly during storms on time scales of less than 1 day evolution to significantly three dimensional structure typically occurs over 5 7 days following peak wave events

seismic wave field observations at a dense small aperture array located on a landslide in the santa cruz mountains california abstract a rectangular 4 by 5 array of short period three component seismometers with 15 m spacing was deployed to record several u s geological survey calibration explosions detonated around the santa cruz mountains the array was located at a site where an earlier station had recorded frequency dependent polarized site resonances for aftershocks of the 1989 loma prieta earthquake the site is on a hillside believed to be a landslide structure with the near surface consisting of poorly sorted sediments and weathered rocks with dipping subsurface layers the primary objective was to explore the site effects in this complex three dimensional soft rock environment characteristic of much of the loma prieta source region the direct p waves from four nearby 15 to 20 km explosions at easterly azimuths from the array show counterclockwise arrival azimuth anomalies of 30 to 50 these deflections are attributed to the presence of more than one dipping velocity contrast beneath the array with dips of from 10 to 50 and dip directions generally toward the south one such boundary may correspond to the landslide slip surface and the presence of dipping velocity contrasts underlying the site is probably responsible for some of the observed directional site resonance a slowness vector analysis demonstrates that arrivals early in the p coda have similar azimuthal anomalies while later scattered arrivals come from many azimuths particle motions indicate that the more coherent arrivals in the coda are comprised of scattered p waves and rayleigh waves probably associated with scattering from the rough topography in the region the coda displays greater spatial coherency along the hill strike than down the slope consistent with a wedge shaped landslide the overall wave field spatial coherence ccc f x decreases with increasing frequency f and spatial offset x and on average can be well represented by ccc f x e cf x with c 0 6 km 1 hz 1 for the vertical p wave in the first 1 sec window this behavior is comparable to that found for previously studied hard rock locations

seismic anisotropy in the shallow crust of the loma prieta segment of the san andreas fault system we study seismic anisotropy beneath the santa cruz mountains using digital recordings of s waves from 60 aftershocks of the 1989 loma prieta earthquake m 7 0 recorded at 18 local stations three component particle motion covariance matrix decomposition combined with a cross correlation method is used to estimate the polarization direction of the fast shear wave arrival and the delay time between the split shear waves results from this procedure are compared with those obtained through visual inspection of horizontal particle motions inclusion of the vertical component in the particle motion analysis allows the recognition and elimination of s to p converted phases from our study uncertainties in the polarization of the fast shear wave and in the delay time between arrival of the fast and slow waves are estimated to be about 20 and 10 ms respectively about half of the s wave records examined show clear evidence of shear wave splitting two persistent polarization directions of fast shear wave arrivals are observed regardless of the focal mechanism and hypocenter location of the individual events 52 of the polarizations are parallel to the strike of the san andreas fault nw se and 24 are parallel to the probable direction of local maximum horizontal compressive stress ne sw the fault parallel fast polarization direction dominates at 10 stations and may result from mineral or fracture alignment caused by shearing along the plate boundary the fast polarization direction perpendicular to the local axes of minimum horizontal compressive stress dominates at one station farthest from the san andreas fault and is consistent with the hypothesis of extensive dilatancy anisotropy eda where parallel alignment of fluid filled fractures produces the anisotropy the predominance of fault parallel fast shear wave polarizations indicates that the use of shear wave splitting results to deduce the orientation of local axes of principal stress may not always yield accurate results the splitting time between fast and slow shear waves varies from 10 to 125 ms and shows no systematic relationship with either hypocentral distance or focal depth this suggests that the seismic anisotropy is no deeper than 2 km the depth of the shallowest earthquakes analyzed for an anisotropic zone 2 km thick the average velocity anisotropy is about 5 in our study region

polarization and coherence of 5 to 30 hz seismic wave fields at a hard rock site and their relevance to velocity heterogeneities in the crust abstract except for its very onset the p wave of earthquakes and chemical explosions observed at two narrow aperture arrays on hard rock sites in the adirondack mountains have a nearly random polarization the amount of energy on the vertical radial and transverse components is about equal over the frequency range 5 to 30 hz for the entire seismogram the spatial coherence of the seismograms is approximately exp cf x where c is in the range 0 4 to 0 7 km 1 hz 1 f is frequency and x is the distance between array elements vertical radial and transverse components were quite coherent over the aperture of the array indicating that the transverse motion of the compressional wave is a property of relatively large 10 6 m 3 volumes of rock and not just an anomaly caused by a malfunctioning instrument poor instrument rock coupling or out crop scale effects the spatial coherence is approximately independent of component epicentral azimuth and range and whether p or s wave coda is being considered at least for propagation distances between 5 and 170 km these results imply a strongly and three dimensionally heterogeneous crust with near receiver scattering in the uppermost crust controlling the coherence properties of the waves

morphodynamics of a bar trough surf zone abstract a field study was made of the distinguishing morphodynamic processes operating in a surf zone which perennially exhibits accentuated bar trough topography the longshore bar trough and rhytmic bar and beach states as described by wright and short 1984 characteristic features of the morphology include a shallow bar with a steep shoreward face a deep trough and a steep beach face this morphology which is favored by moderate breaker heights and small tidal ranges strongly controls the coupled suite of hydrodynamic processes in contrast to fully dissipative surf zones the bar trough surf zone is not at all saturated and oscillations at incident wave frequency remain dominant from the break point to the subaerial beach the degree of incident wave groupiness does not change appreciably across the surf zone infragravity standing waves which in dissipative surf zones dominate the inshore energy remain energetically secondary and occur at higher frequencies in the bar trough surf zone analyses of the field data combined with numerical simulations of leaky mode and edge wave nodal antinodal positions over observed surf zone profiles indicate that the frequencies which prevail are favored by the resonant condition of antinodes over the bar and nodes in the trough standing waves which would have nodes over the bar are suppressed sediment resuspension in the surf zone appears to be largely attributable to the incident waves which are the main source of bed shear stress in addition the extra near bottom eddy viscosity provided by the reformed non breaking waves traversing the trough significantly affects the vertical velocity profile of the longshore current whereas the bar is highly mobile in terms of onshore offshore migration rates the beach face and inner regions of the trough are remarkably stable over time

temporal and spatial behaviour of rip channels in a multiple barred coastal system a 15 month data set of daily time averaged video images argus has been analyzed to describe the spatial and temporal variability of the rip channels on a multiple barred coast at noordwijk aan zee the netherlands the landward boundary of the intertidal bars and a proxy of the subtidal bar crest defined as the intertidal and subtidal bar lines respectively were derived from the argus images local seaward directed deviations of the bar lines represent the cross shore and alongshore locations of the rip channels the average intertidal rip spacing was 243 m but the rips were not spaced regularly 0 47 some intertidal rips were observed to fill up during falling tide but the majority remained open the filled intertidal rip channels had more landward positions and migrated more slowly 2 4 versus 4 6 m day in the alongshore direction than the open intertidal rip channels the number and the alongshore migration rate of open intertidal rip channels increased with the preceding wave heights r 0 26 p 0 01 and alongshore component of the offshore wave power r 0 25 p 0 01 respectively the shape of the intertidal bar lines was similar to the subtidal bar line shape suggesting that the intertidal morphology is coupled to the subtidal alongshore variability the phase of two bar lines could vary from in phase 0 to out of phase 180 the phase changes gradually due to different alongshore migration rates of the intertidal and subtidal bar lines copyright 2009 john wiley sons ltd

deep seated downslope slip during strong seismic shaking 1 strong seismic waves cause frictional failure within regolith on hillslopes the material responds anelastically to the combined oscillating dynamic and static gravitational stresses gravity drives preferential downslope movement of the transiently weakened material the net effect over many earthquake cycles is a tens of meter thick slow landslide that is a sackung the classical approach to hillside failure involves downslope dynamic accelerations or equivalently downslope dynamic shear tractions rate and state friction quantifies that the starting coefficient of friction is a few tenths higher that the apparent long term coefficient of friction from the angle of repose 0 96 1 25 in the calculations retaining an extra digit furthermore the dynamic coulomb stress ratio for dynamic to lithostatic stress for s waves refracted toward vertical paths is the dynamic acceleration in g s above the scale depth 1 k the inverse of the wave number in more detail a dynamic acceleration of 0 13 0 35 g destabilizes slopes near the angle of repose seismologists expect such acceleration near active major faults compatible with the widespread occurrence of sackungen on steep slopes accelerations of 0 96 1 25 1 g destabilize shallow slopes leading to net downhill movement analogous to the movement of an object down a vibrating ramp however sackungen are rare or even absent on shallow slopes in california indicating the rarity of sustained 1 g accelerations a second mechanism may drive downhill movement on modest 19 slopes as observed in the san gabriel mountains of california near the san andreas fault the near field velocity pulse on strike slip faults produces only a few tenths g acceleration but particle velocities of over 1 m s 1 persisting over 1 s dynamic stresses and strains scale with this velocity and extend all the way to the free surface coulomb failure criteria are exceeded at shallow depths failure greatly weakens the regolith allowing it to move downhill in response to gravity this mechanism appears capable of producing prehistoric 1 m per event slip on modest slopes observed in the san gabriel mountains

storms and shoreline retreat in the southern gulf of st lawrence abstract storms play a major role in shoreline recession on transgressive coasts in the southern gulf of st lawrence gsl southeastern canada long term relative sea level rise off the north shore of prince edward island has averaged 0 3 m century over the past 6000 years 0 2 m century over 2000 years this has driven long term coastal retreat at mean rates 0 5 m a but the variance and details of coastal profile response remain poorly understood despite extensive sandy shores sediment supply is limited and sand is transferred landward into multidecadal to century scale storage in coastal dunes barrier washover deposits and flood tidal delta sinks charlottetown tide gauge records show mean relative sea level rise of 3 2 mm a 0 32 m century since 1911 a further rise of 0 7 0 4 m is projected over the next 100 years when differenced from tidal predictions the water level data provide a 90 year record of storm surge occurrence combined with wind wave hindcast and sea ice data this provides a catalogue of potentially significant coastal storms we also document coastal impacts from three recent storms of great severity in january and october 2000 and november 2001 digital photogrammetry 1935 1990 and shore zone surveys 1989 2001 show large spatial and temporal variance in coastal recession rates weakly correlated with the storm record in part because of wave suppression or coastal protection by sea ice large storms cause rapid erosion from which recovery depends in part on local sand supply but barrier volume may be conserved by washover deposition barrier shores with dunes show high longshore and interdecadal variance with extensive multidecadal healing of former inlet and overwash gaps this reflects recovery from an episode of widespread overwash prior to 1935 possibly initiated by intense storms or groups of storms in the latter half of the 19th century with evidence from the storms of 2000 2001 this points to the importance of storm clustering on scales of weeks to years in determining erosion vulnerability as well as the need for a long term large scale perspective in assessing coastal stability the expected acceleration in relative sea level rise together with projections of increasing storm intensity and greatly diminished winter ice cover in the southern gsl implies a significant increase in coastal erosion hazards in future

simultaneous mapping of coastal topography and bathymetry from a lightweight multicamera uas a low cost multicamera unmanned aircraft system uas is used to simultaneously estimate open coast topography and bathymetry from a single longitudinal coastal flight the uas combines nadir and oblique imagery to create a wide field of view fov which enables collection of mobile long dwell timeseries of the littoral zone suitable for structure from motion sfm and wave speed inversion algorithms resultant digital surface models dsms compare well with terrestrial topographic lidar and bathymetric survey data at duck nc usa with roor mean square error rmse bias of 0 26 0 05 and 0 34 0 05 m respectively bathymetric data from another flight at virginia beach va usa demonstrates successful comparison rmse bias of 0 17 0 06 m in a secondary environment uas derived engineering data products total volume profiles and shoreline position were congruent with those calculated from traditional topo bathymetric surveys at duck capturing both topography and bathymetry within a single flight the presented multicamera system is more efficient than data acquisition with a single camera uas this advantage grows for longer stretches of coastline 10 km efficiency increases further with an on board global navigation satellite system inertial navigation system gnss ins to eliminate ground control point gcp placement the appendix reprocesses the virginia beach flight with the gnss ins input and no gcps the resultant dsm products are comparable root mean squared difference rmsd bias of 0 62 0 09 m and processing time is significantly reduced

a synthetic review of remote sensing applications to detect nearshore bars abstract nearshore bars are important morphologic features associated with intermediate and dissipative natural beaches bars impact the direction magnitude and patterns of sediment transport in the nearshore they serve as a buffer against extreme and meso scale events in this review article we investigate remotely based observations specifically near earth and satellite imagery which have been used to investigate nearshore bars several recent advances in technology and techniques allow the remote measurement of bar width and height beach slope shoreline orientation and bar count video monitoring imagery is presently the most popular method to derive these data however spatial prediction models using satellite imagery can also provide reliable bar morphodynamic information

morphodynamics of intermediate beaches a video imaging and numerical modelling study four years of time exposure images of palm beach sydney australia are used to a develop a phenomenological scheme based on surf zone properties for the classification of the four intermediate beach states low tide terrace ltt transverse bar rip tbr rhythmic bar beach rbb and longshore bar trough lbt identified by wright l d short a d 1984 morphodynamic variability of surf zones and beaches marine geology 56 93 118 and b determine environmental conditions associated with the different beach states the overall agreement between beach state classifications obtained by visual classifications of images and those predicted by the phenomenological scheme exceeds 90 analysis of time series of intermediate beach states and wave data indicates that the nearshore morphology continuously cycles through the four beach states in response to variations in the incident wave energy the results also indicate that lbt morphology is produced by high energy wave conditions erosive while the progression towards ltt occurs under lower waves accretive a depth averaged morphodynamic model is employed to determine the morphodynamic processes governing the rbb to tbr and tbr to ltt transitions model results indicate that the rbb to tbr transition is governed by the erosion of the original longshore bars in the initial rbb morphology and the formation and subsequent welding of shoals in the lee of the original longshore bars model results also indicate that rbb to tbr transitions can occur under shore normal and oblique wave conditions the tbr to ltt model simulations indicate that under obliquely incident waves progressive erosion of the transverse shoals and deposition of the eroded sediment in rip channels gradually diminishes the longshore variability in morphology resulting in an ltt morphology

morphodynamic response of a two barred beach to a shoreface nourishment abstract the response to a shoreface nourishment of the two bar system at noordwijk the netherlands is analyzed based on a daily data set of time exposure video images collected during about 6 years complemented with topographic and bathymetric surveys the 1 7 mm 3 nourishment implemented as a 3 km alongshore bump seaward of the outer bar migrated more than 300 m onshore in 4 years before losing its integrity furthermore the nourishment interrupted the autonomous seaward migration of both bars for the entire duration of the study period and allaying earlier fears did not intensify the three dimensional patterns in the bars such as the crescentic plan shape and rip channels the nourishment did result in clear head effects on both flanks with the bar becoming discontinuous and the flank section decaying or becoming attached to an offshore located bar while the section of bar landward of the nourishment became attached to a landward located bar this sequence of morphologies is known as bar switching each switching episode took almost one year to complete and can therefore not be ascribed to individual wave events we suspect that shoreface nourishments enhance the possibility of bar switching by creating alongshore variability in the position and depth of the outer bar and in its cross shore migration rate and direction the noordwijk nourishment did not influence the shoreline position as its trend did not undergo distinctive variations after 1998 differences in the response of the noordwijk sandbars to the shoreface nourishment compared with other dutch nourishments are attributed to the location and size volume per unit length of the nourishment with respect to the sandbars and to the median grain size of the nourished material

the 1987 whittier narrows earthquake sequence in los angeles southern california seismological and tectonic analysis the october 1 1987 whittier narrows earthquake m l 5 9 was located at 34 2 96 n 118 4 86 w at a depth of 14 6 0 5 km in the northeastern los angeles basin the focal mechanism of the mainshock derived from first motion polarities shows pure thrust motion on west striking nodal planes with dips of 25 5 and 65 5 respectively the aftershocks define an approximately circular surface that dips gently to the north centered at the hypocenter of the mainshock with a diameter of 4 6 km hence the spatial distribution of the mainshock and aftershocks as well as the focal mechanisms of the mainshock indicate that the causative fault was a 25 north dipping thrust fault striking west and is confined to depths from 10 to 16 km although most of the 59 aftershock focal mechanisms presented here document a complex sequence of faulting they are consistent with deformation of the hanging wall caused by the thrust faulting observed in the mainshock a cluster of reverse faulting events on north striking planes occurred within hours after the mainshock 2 km to the west of the mainshock the largest aftershock m l 5 3 occurred on october 4 and showed mostly right lateral faulting on the same north northwest striking plane within the hanging wall similarly several left lateral focal mechanisms are observed near the eastern edge of the mainshock rupture the earthquake and calibration blast arrival time data were inverted to obtain two refined crustal velocity models and a set of station delays when relocating the blast using the new models and delays the absolute hypocentral location bias is less than 0 5 km the mainshock was followed by nearly 500 locatable aftershocks which is a small number of aftershocks for this magnitude mainshock the decay rate of aftershock occurrences with time was fast while the b value was low 0 67 0 05 for a los angeles basin sequence

estimation of wave phase speed and nearshore bathymetry from video imagery a new remote sensing technique based on video image processing has been developed for the estimation of nearshore bathymetry the shoreward propagation of waves is measured using pixel intensity time series collected at a cross shore array of locations using remotely operated video cameras the incident band is identified and the cross spectral matrix is calculated for this band the cross shore component of wavenumber is found as the gradient in phase of the first complex empirical orthogonal function of this matrix water depth is then inferred from linear wave theory s dispersion relationship full bathymetry maps may be measured by collecting data in a large array composed of both cross shore and longshore lines data are collected hourly throughout the day and a stable daily estimate of bathymetry is calculated from the median of the hourly estimates the technique was tested using 30 days of hourly data collected at the sandyduck experiment in duck north carolina in october 1997 errors calculated as the difference between estimated depth and ground truth data show a mean bias of 35 cm rms error 91 cm expressed as a fraction of the true water depth the mean percent error was 13 rms error 34 excluding the region of known wave nonlinearities over the bar crest the accuracy of the technique improved and the mean rms error was 20 cm 75 cm additionally under low amplitude swells wave height h 1 m the performance of the technique across the entire profile improved to 6 29 of the true water depth with a mean rms error of 12 cm 71 cm

sequential stage development of crescentic bars hahoterim beach southeastern mediterranean abstract sequential bar development involving in order multiple bars ridge and runnels transverse oblique bars and meandering or crescentic shore attached or detached bars of both outer and nested inner systems were delineated at hahoterim beach northern israel the concomitant wave data including wave directions energy spectrum significant wave height and length of the calm period showed strong correlation with the bar stages there is a notable lack of correlation between bar stages and incident wave periods which were quite variable even on a daily basis two bar developmental sequences were delineated one shore normal and the other initially oblique but gradually rotating to shore normal in the mature stage threshold conditions for the initial stage development of shore normal crescentic systems were defined as h1 3 1 0 m peak spectral density of 1 m2 hz and swell directions within 7 from the normal the outer crescentic systems formed within 1 to 2 weeks the nested inner crescentic bar system formed under different wave conditions development of inner micro cresentic bars required 3 to 7 weeks of calm waves h1 3 0 3 m except for a short initiating pulse of wave energy from waves of about i m in height the double crescentic pattern indicates the optimal evolutiona y stage of crescentic systems the residence time of bar types was determined by the frequency of crossing of these threshold conditions the outer bars and the mega rip channels composed the most stable inshore elements out of phase relationships between inner and outer bar systems resulted from the lag in response of the outer bars behind changes in wave direction among the inner crescentic bars and shore rhythms phase correlation was the was the rule regional aerial photography and wave data indicate that the bar wave relationships at hahoterim axe representative of the eastern flank of the nile including most of the israeli coast although the bar types described from other coasts are similar to those mapped at hahoterim and the threshold wave conditions for initiation of bar stage development appear to be similar the frequency of occurrence of specific bar types appears to be different at hahoterim

morphodynamic classification of sandy beaches in low energetic marine environment abstract morphodynamic classification of beaches has achieved widespread acceptance in both geological and geomorphological literature in this sense the present work classifies twelve mediterranean low energetic beaches according to the dimensionless fall parameter parameter in the island of mallorca propagation of 44 yr of wave data as well as a detailed sediment study allows to provide probabilities for morphodynamical beach state on an annual and seasonal basis consequently beaches in mallorca fall between three major categories which are a truly reflective b reflective skewed to intermediate and c intermediate beaches the mallorcan beach position in the morphodynamical scheme is close related to the physiographical and geological framework comparison of observed values with those obtained in the analysis leads that for gross beach classification there is agreement between predicted and real state however on a seasonal classification mainly during summer there is no agreement between the predicted state and the real one as the model does not incorporate the role of summer sea breezes beach reflective states are highlighted real beach configurations correspond to more energetic wave dynamic conditions and to intermediate state scenarios

a behavior oriented dynamic model for sandbar migration and 2dh evolution 1 a nonlinear model is developed to study the time dependent relationship between the alongshore variability of a sandbar a t and alongshore averaged sandbar position xc t sediment transport equations are derived from energetics based formulations a link between this continuous physical representation and a parametric form describing the migration of sandbars of constant shape is established through a simple transformation of variables the model is driven by offshore wave conditions the parametric equations are dynamically coupled such that changes in one term i e xc drive changes in the other i e a t the model is tested on 566 days of data from palm beach new south wales australia using weighted nonlinear least squares to estimate best fit model coefficients the model explained 49 and 41 of the variance in measured xc and a t respectively comparisons against a 1 d horizontal 1dh version of the model showed significant improvements when the 2dh terms were included 1dh and 2dh brier skill scores were 0 12 and 0 42 respectively onshore bar migration was not predicted in the 1dh model while the 2dh model correctly predicted onshore migration in the presence of 2dh morphology and allowed the bar to remain closer to shore for a given amount of breaking providing an important hysteresis to the system the model is consistent with observations that active bar migration occurs under breaking waves with onshore migration occurring at timescales of days to weeks and increasing 2dh morphology while offshore migration occurs rapidly under high waves and coincides with a reduction in 2dh morphology citation splinter k d r a holman and n g plant 2011 abehavior orienteddynamicmodelforsandbarmigrationand2dh evolution j geophys res 116 c01020 doi 10 1029 2010jc006382

video measurement of swash zone hydrodynamics a new technique for recording two dimensional uprush and backwash depth profiles using standard analogue camcorder technology is introduced this technique has the potential to provide low cost high frequency high resolution measurements of individual swash events analogue to digital data conversion using multimedia software is discussed as is the derivation of metric data via image processing and geographical information systems techniques a series of field and laboratory experiments are described which provided an opportunity to refine and test the technique data from the laboratory video record are compared against measurements from standard surface piercing resistance type wave gauges and an assessment made of the next steps required for the enhancement of the technique the comparison between video and probe data indicates that the technique shows promise as a means of deriving two dimensional profiles of swash lens however further development and testing are necessary

longshore bar and trough systems in a microtidal storm wave dominated coast the ebro delta northwestern mediterranean abstract the ebro delta coast is a microtidal sandy shoreline affected by a low energy mean wave climate consecutive topographical and bathymetrical surveys during the years 1990 and 1991 have allowed us to identify nine major longshore bar and trough systems as the main morphological feature of the ebro coast bar systems show high mobility both cross shore and longshore the cross shore migration of these systems may be landward or seaward with mean migration rates of up to 0 25 m day the longshore migration is produced by the longitudinal growth of the bar systems in the downdrift direction with rates of up to 11 m day the major morphological changes in the nearshore zone occurred during storm periods when the nearshore profile is modified as a consequence of shoreline erosion and the cross shore migration and longshore growth of the bar systems produced by these events the modifications in the nearshore profile may continue during some months after the storm before attaining a new equilibrium profile a descriptive model relating the shoreline displacement with the cross shore migration and the longshore growth of the bar and trough systems is proposed

directional topographic site response at tarzana observed in aftershocks of the 1994 northridge california earthquake implications for mainshock motions abstract the northridge earthquake caused 1 78 g acceleration in the east west direction at a site in tarzana california located about 6 km south of the mainshock epicenter the accelerograph was located atop a hill about 15 m high 500 m long and 130 m wide striking about n78 e during the aftershock sequence a temporary array of 21 three component geophones was deployed in six radial lines centered on the accelerograph with an average sensor spacing of 35 m station c00 was located about 2 m from the accelerograph we inverted aftershock spectra to obtain average relative site response at each station as a function of direction of ground motion we identified a 3 2 hz resonance that is a transverse oscillation of the hill a directional topographic effect the top base amplification ratio at 3 2 hz is about 4 5 for horizontal ground motions oriented approximately perpendicular to the long axis of the hill and about 2 for motions parallel to the hill this resonance is seen most strongly within 50 m of c00 other resonant frequencies were also observed a strong lateral variation in attenuation probably associated with a fault caused substantially lower motion at frequencies above 6 hz at the east end of the hill there may be some additional scattered waves associated with the fault zone and seen at both the base and top of the hill causing particle motions not spectral ratios at the top of the hill to be rotated about 20 away from the direction transverse to the hill the resonant frequency but not the amplitude of our observed topographic resonance agrees well with theory even for such a low hill comparisons of our observations with theoretical results indicate that the 3d shape of the hill and its internal structure are important factors affecting its response the strong transverse resonance of the hill does not account for the large east west mainshock motions assuming linear soil response mainshock east west motions at the tarzana accelerograph were amplified by a factor of about 2 or less compared with sites at the base of the hill probable variations in surficial shear wave velocity do not account for the observed differences among mainshock acceleration observed at tarzana and at two different sites within 2 km of tarzana

bars bumps and holes models for the generation of complex beach topography in shallow water any two waves of the same frequency are shown to produce complex patterns of drift velocity above the sea bed if the longshore components hi h of the wave numbers of the two waves are different these steady flow patterns exhibit a longshore periodicity of wave number hi h irrespective of whether the waves propagate in the same direction say hi he positive or in opposite directions he negative the interaction of two edge wave modes is examined in detail the drift velocities are calculated and a simple sediment transport model is used to predict the beach topography that would be in equilibrium with these flow patterns as expected crescentic sand bars are produced by the special case of standing edge waves hi h intriguingly for all other cases a combination of complex transverse bars plus meandering or straight offshore bars result patterns that are surprisingly reminiscent of many published descriptions of complex rhythmic topography the extension of the model to three or more waves produces topography that appears to be very irregular although the pattern should repeat over sufficiently long distances along the beach even with only three waves these distances may be very large compared to the scale of the bars

applicability of parametric beach morphodynamic state classification on embayed beaches abstract use of parametric classification of beach morphodynamic state has been steadily increasing in coastal research despite identification of several shortcomings of their representativeness as elementary beach descriptors in this paper we analyse the parametric classification of beach morphodynamic state in a set of six embayed beaches in southwestern portugal exposed to diverse settings from high energy dissipative to intermediate to low energy intermediate to reflective conditions applicability of parametric approaches considered within the dimensionless space defined by dimensionless fall velocity and rtr relative tidal range according to averaged wave tide and sediment characteristics of beaches was assessed in association with a probabilistic analysis implemented through a bayesian network model that considered the full range of wave tide and sediment conditions at each site both parametric approaches were compared to field based beach state classification implemented using a novel hierarchical framework for beach state analysis the classification obtained within a probabilistic framework provided an innovative approach for analysis of beach state and mobility extending the insights on beach morphodynamic behaviour obtained from averaged environmental parameters reflective to lower intermediate beach conditions showed better agreement with parametric approaches while poor beach state differentiation was achieved for intermediate beach types limitations in the application of beach classification models result from i an inadequacy of existing beach state types in differentiating beaches particularly within the intermediate domain and for geologically controlled embayed beaches and ii shortcomings involved in the parametric approaches the beach state models disregard the major role of geological control in embayed beach morphodynamic behaviour in modulating beach shape and segmentation influencing sediment size and availability causing alongshore variations in the wave field and creating topographically induced nearshore circulations existing beach state models are unable to adequately represent the widely variable conditions observed in embayed beaches

formation and development of a breaker bar under regular waves part 1 model description and hydrodynamics abstract in this work a detailed hydrodynamic model is presented which is used for the study of cross shore sediment transport and morphodynamics in two dimensions the model is described in the framework of the generally unstructured finite volume method considerable emphasis is put on those subtleties in the morphological formulation which are required to achieve mass conservation for the amount of sediment in the bed and in suspension in this first part of two the hydrodynamic description over the cross shore profile is presented the model is validated against an experiment with detailed measurements of the free surface and turbulence over a fixed breaker bar profile a test matrix covering a large interval of the surf similarity parameter is simulated and the phase lag between the breakpoint and the initiation of the setup is described the relation of this phase lag to a cross shore delay in dissipation of organised energy into turbulence is described the relation of this phase lag to the distribution of the location of maxima in bed shear stresses and magnitude of the undertow is also described furthermore processes in the hydrodynamics which will have a smoothing effect on the mean cross shore sediment transport and morphodynamic response are considered all simulations are presented for regular waves and for values of the deep water surf similarity parameter 0 in the range from 0 08 to 1 19 i e covering both spilling and plunging breakers