Textural characteristics of sediments of Mormugao bay, central west coast of India

Abstract

Thirty-three surface sediment samples, collected from Mormugao Bay, are subjected to grain size analysis. Textural characters of the sediments, defined by moment measures, are interpreted as resulting from variable mixing of sand,silt and clay populations derived from different sources. The coarser material, mainly consisting of sands, is well to moderately sorted, positively skewed and leptokurtic, and is confined to the bay marginal high energy areas. The finer material predominantly of silts and clays is poorly to very poorly sorted, negatively skewed, and platykurtic, and is present in the central bay which is a low energy area. There is a patch of coarse material extending from the north-western end of the bay in a NW-SE direction into the bay and this patch indicates that the incoming and outgoing currents follow this path and prevent finer sediments from accumulating and consequently silting up the bay.