Observations of mixing and transport on a steep beach

Surfzone mixing and transport on a sandy, steep (∼1/8 slope), reflective beach at Carmel River State Beach, California, are described for a range of wave and alongshore flow conditions. Depth-limited wave breaking occurred close to the shore due to the steepness of the beach, creating a narrow surf/swash zone (∼10 m wide). Fluorescent...

Persistent Differences in Horizontal Gradients in Phytoplankton Concentration Maintained by Surf Zone Hydrodynamics

Surf zones, regions of breaking waves, are at the interface between the shore and coastal ocean. Surf zone hydrodynamics may affect delivery of phytoplankton subsidies to the intertidal zone. Over a month of daily sampling at an intermediate surf zone with bathymetric rip currents and a reflective surf zone, we measured surf zone...

Field Observations of Surf Zone-Inner Shelf Exchange on a Rip-Channeled Beach

Cross-shore exchange between the surf zone and the inner shelf is investigated using Lagrangian and Eulerian field measurements of rip current flows on a rip-channeled beach in Sand City, California. Surface drifters released on the inner shelf during weak wind conditions moved seaward due to rip current pulses and then returned shoreward in an...

Transport of larvae and detritus across the surf zone of a steep reflective pocket beach

Larvae of many intertidal species develop offshore and must cross the surf zone to complete their onshore migration to adult habitats. Depending on hydrodynamics, the surf zone may limit this migration, especially on reflective rocky shores. As a logistically tractable analog of a rocky shore environment, we carried out a comprehensive...

Observations and modeling of steep-beach grain-size variability

Novel observations of surface grain-size distributions are used in combination with intra-wave modeling to examine the processes responsible for the sorting of sediment grains on a relatively steep beach (slope?=?1:7.5). The field observations of the mean grain size collected with a digital camera system at consecutive low and high tides for a 2...

Surf zone diffusivity on a rip-channeled beach

Absolute and relative diffusivity are measured on a rip-channeled beach using 30 position-tracking drifters released in clusters (4–12 drifters) deployed on 7 days with different wave forcing and tidal elevations at Sand City, Monterey Bay, California. Diffusivity and dispersion were found to be larger on days with rip current flow patterns and...

Surf zone surface retention on a rip?channeled beach

The retention of floating matter within the surf zone on a rip-channeled beach is examined with a combination of detailed field observations obtained during the Rip Current Experiment and a three-dimensional (3-D) wave and flow model. The acoustic Doppler current profiler–observed hourly vertical cross-shore velocity structure variability over a...