Annotated Bibliography: Week 6

Parks, D., Shaffer, A., & Barry, D. (2013). Nearshore Drift-Cell Sediment Processes and Ecological Function for Forage Fish: Implications for Ecological Restoration of Impaired Pacific Northwest Marine Ecosystems. Journal Of Coastal Research, 29(4), 984-997. doi:10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-12-00264.1

In their article, Parks and Barry discuss how the marine processes are a crucial role in the nearshore ecosystem function. These marine processes include erosion, transport and deposition because it forms suitable habitats for ‘forage’ fish spawning. The authors further talk about how the disruption of the sediment through marine processes has been assumed to result in an ‘impaired’ nearshore ecological function. They examined the sediment characteristics of intertidal beaches of three coastal drift cells, and then compared it to the metric of the forage fish.

Collins, B. D., & Sitar, N. (2008). Processes of coastal bluff erosion in weakly lithified sands, Pacifica, California, USA. Geomorphology, 97(3/4), 483-501. doi:10.1016/j.geomorph.2007.09.004

In this article, authors Collins and Sitar conducted a five-year observational study of the northern California coastline, particular San Francisco. They studied how the sea and the cliffs interact to sculpt the major geomorphic processes such as coastal bluff erosion and land-sliding. They define the coastal bluffs to be weakly lithified sediment that undergoes continuous erosion, which could cause an episodic landslide failure. Erosion is a primary aspect of marine processes that also includes hydraulic action—when waves break at the foot of a cliff that forces air in the cracks to be compressed—which could arguably be the primary reason why there is the weakly lithified sediments.