Role of geological inheritance in Australian beach morphodynamics

The Australian coast contains 10,685 beaches which occupy 49% of the 30,000 km coast and average 1.37 km in length. Their relatively short length is largely due to the presence of bedrock, calcarenite and laterite, which form boundaries to many of the beaches, as well as occurring as rocks, reefs and islands along and off the beaches. This geological inheritance plays a major role in Australian beach systems — determining their length and through wave refraction and attenuation influencing beach location, shape, type, morphodynamics and circulation, which in turn influence sediment transport and the backing dune and barrier systems. This paper uses a database covering every Australian beach to review the role of headlands, rocks and reefs on Australian beaches. Major effects are the short average beach length; reduction in breaker height resulting in lower energy beach types; wave refraction resulting in increased beach curvature; the presence of topographic rips on moderate and higher energy beaches and megarips during high wave conditions; and the interruption of and/or trapping of longshore sand transport leading to beach rotation.     

Distribution patterns of interstitial polychaetes in sandy beaches of southern Brazil

This study describes the distribution patterns of interstitial polychaetes along morphodynamic gradients on six exposed sandy beaches in Santa Catarina and Paraná (South Brazil). Three random transects were sampled at two points on each beach, one at the swash and another at the surf zone, in winter and summer conditions. Six sediment replicates were collected at each sampling point using a corer of 4.6 cm internal diameter that removed 10 cm into the sediment. Abundance and composition of interstitial polychaete were correlated to wave height, slope, grain size, CaCO₃, chlorophyll a , omega indexes, temperature and relative tide range using a canonical correspondence analysis (CCA). A factorial ANOVA showed that taxa richness, mean density and Shannon's diversity were significantly higher at the reflective beaches, but average values differ significantly between transects and these differences change according to the beach zones on both sampling dates. PERMANOVA showed that polychaete associations differ among transects according to the beach zones. The composition of interstitial polychaete associations was significantly correlated to beach morphodynamics and features (P < 0.01). Polychaete associations of reflective beaches were more diverse than in other morphodynamic states. Intermediate beaches may also sustain diverse associations due to temporal variability of the morphodynamic patterns. Beaches presenting extreme dissipative morphodynamics and compacted sediments appear to be unfavourable for the occurrence of interstitial polychaetes.     

黄河三角洲北部贝壳堤岛的近期演变

通过不同年代地形图、卫星影像的对比及野外实地测量等,综合分析了黄河三角洲北部开敞型和潮沟型两类贝壳堤岛近50年来的数量和面积变化及其演化特征。结果表明,该区两类贝壳堤岛自20世纪50年代以来在自然和人为因素的共同作用下发生了明显的变化,但其演化特征因岛屿成因的类型差异而各不相同。目前,该区贝壳堤岛群逐渐萎缩,人类活动已成为影响三角洲北部两类贝壳堤岛发育演变的主导因素,特别是潮沟型贝壳堤岛,基本上结束了自然演化的历史,呈现出新的演化特征。     

Beach nourishments at Coolangatta Bay over the period 1987–2005: Impacts and lessons

Erosion of the southern Gold Coast beaches (SE Queensland, Australia) was exacerbated after the extension of the Tweed River training walls in the early 1960s. To achieve the objective of restoring and maintaining beach amenity, significant nourishment works have been undertaken in Coolangatta Bay over the past 30 years. Particularly, under the Tweed River Entrance Sand Bypassing Project (TRESBP) since 1995, a number of nourishment campaigns and the implementation of a permanent sand bypass system in 2001 have resulted in significant changes of Coolangatta Bay morphology. The present case study investigates the influence of both wave climate and nourishment works on the area extending from the updrift Snapper Rocks area to downdrift Kirra Beach. SWAN spectral wave model is implemented at Coolangatta Bay area and forced by the global wave model WW3 to estimate wave forcing and the potential natural longshore drift entering in Coolangatta. Specific transects extracted from accurate bathymetric surveys are used to investigate and quantify Coolangatta Bay sedimentation for the period 1987–2005. A network of Argus video stations provides high sample rate information on the shoreline evolution. Results show that, over the past 10 years, Coolangatta Bay has infilled rapidly. Sedimentation reached up to 6 m in some areas between 1995 and 2005, with beach width increasing by 200 m at Kirra Beach. Rapid seaward shoreline migration is consistent with the intense over-pumping of sand relative to the natural potential to move sand alongshore. The nourishment strategy used during this project has successfully delivered large amounts of sand to the southern Gold Coast embayment, although it has been up to now controversial from many community perspectives. The artificial sand bypassing process proved to be much more efficient than depositing the dredged sand in the nearshore area which requires a significant period of low energy condition in order for the deposited sediment to migrate shoreward and weld to the shore. This case study confirms that, when carefully undertaken, sand bypassing is a sustainable and flexible soft engineering approach which can work in concert with natural processes.     

Nonlinear transfer function modelling of beach morphology at Duck,North Carolina

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.     

参数带椭球约束平差算法的应用

针对实际工程应用中遇到的参数带有范围约束的情形,提出带椭球约束的平差算法,并给出其具体模型和解算步骤。数值模拟实验和病态测边网数据计算表明,在处理病态问题时,最小二乘平差（least-squares,LS）已不适用,而与岭估计、奇异值分解法（singular value decomposition,SVD）以及不等式约束相比,本文算法精度更高。     

“全新特提斯洋”概念与广义特提斯构造域

特提斯最初是指欧亚大陆南缘的古海洋,后逐渐引申出从元古宙、古生代到中生代的一系列位于劳亚大陆与冈瓦纳大陆之间的古大洋,如原特提斯洋、古特提斯洋和新特提斯洋,不同大洋在时间上前后交叠。如今横亘在冈瓦纳大陆(南极洲)和欧亚大陆之间的是印度洋,是新特提斯洋的继承者,可以另称为“全新特提斯洋”。这一概念的引申直接体现了印度洋与特提斯构造域一脉相承的关系,有助于将今论古、由此及彼,更直观地了解特提斯构造域的演化过程。本文按时间序列梳理了印度洋的大地构造演化和岩浆作用过程,识别了印度洋在155 Ma、120 Ma、90～84 Ma、76 Ma、65 Ma、52 Ma、45 Ma、38 Ma等关键时期的异常海底扩张记录,这些扩张事件将为标定新特提斯构造域的演化提供参照。其中155 Ma可能指示了新特提斯洋的鼎盛期,90 Ma指示了新特提斯洋的洋中脊俯冲,76～52 Ma是非洲-阿拉伯大陆与欧亚大陆初始碰撞-主碰撞(即新特提斯洋西部关闭)的时期,65～45 Ma是印度次大陆与欧亚大陆初始碰撞-主碰撞(即新特提斯洋中部关闭)的时期,38 Ma是澳大利亚北部大洋开始净俯冲(即新提斯洋东部开始消减)的时间。...     

2023年秋季我国气候异常特征及成因分析

利用NCEP/NCAR再分析数据集和中国2400个站的气候观测数据,对2023年秋季我国气候异常特征及其成因进行分析。2023年秋季全国平均气温为1961年以来历史同期最高;全国平均降水量接近常年同期,但空间分布不均且季节内变化明显。秋季欧亚中高纬环流呈“两槽一脊”型,造成我国气温显著偏高;9月呈“两脊一槽”型,巴尔喀什湖低槽活动导致西北地区降水增多;10月呈“两槽一脊”型,导致北方地区偏暖加强;11月呈“西高东低”型,东路冷空气增强,东北地区气温偏低、降水偏多。西太平洋副热带高压总体较常年偏强、偏西,脊线9月异常偏北、10月偏南、11月接近常年。印缅槽9月显著偏强,10—11月接近常年。9月印缅槽偏强与副热带高压异常偏北共同导致了长江中下游以北至黄河下游地区多雨;10—11月东部地区水汽条件整体偏差。9—10月近海台风频繁活动,造成华南地区降水偏多。2023年秋季我国气候受到大气季节内变化的显著作用,热带海温异常的影响不典型。     

Fractal reconstruction of sea-floor topography

Sea-floor bathymetric profiles exhibit features at many different scales of length; this suggests that they could be described as fractals. An algorithm interpolating a fractal line between points has been used to reconstruct bathymetric profiles from a few data points. In general, this fractal line has the same Fourier amplitude spectrum as real bathymetry, and, if the parameters of the interpolation are suitably chosen, it has a very similar appearance. The success of this fractal reconstruction algorithm for the sea-floor raises the possibility that it could be used to extrapolate, from data collected at one scale, the properties of the sea-floor at finer scales, and that similar techniques could be used to interpolate a surface between bathymetric profiles. The fractal character is a sign that the processes that shape the sea-floor are scale invariant and suggests that the renormalization group technique could be used to model these processes.     

多元统计在大洋玄武岩同位素端元识别中的应用

应用因子分析的方差最大旋转和非线性映射方法对海洋玄武岩Sr、Nd、Pb同位素数据在多维空间中的数据结构进行了分析。研究表明这些数据在多维空间中呈五角形结构,并对应5个地幔端元:大西洋中脊玄武岩(DMM),圣埃伦那(HIMU),鲸岛(EMI),萨摩亚岛(EMII)和DS(EMIII).其中DS(EMIII)是本文新识别出来的一个地幔端元,它可能是重新进入地幔的具有较高古老放射成因Pb的下地壳物质。