Abstract:
Surficial sediments of beaches along the Cuddalore, central coast of Tamilnadu from Ponnaiyar estuarine to
Thirumulaivasal were studied for their textural parameters namely Mean (Grain size) phi, Standard deviation, Skweness and
Kurtosis and mineral percentages. Observed variation of energy conditions are controlled by the fluvial profile in the river
channel. Textural analysis of medium sand shows the existence of comparatively high energy condition in the marine
environment and low energy conditions in the fluvial zone. Linear Discriminant Function (LDF) analysis of the samples
indicates a shallow marine environment origin for most of the samples and very few numbers of samples originated from
fluvial environment. Heavy mineral content serves as an index for stratigraphic correlation of unfossilferrous strata. The
lowest heavy mineral content indicates progradational activity and low energy wave conditions. These results show that
reworked sediments, submerged during the Holocene marine transgression are being deposited on present day beaches by
waves, currents and rivers in the study region.
