Tidal Inlet Reservoirs: Insights from Modern Examples

Abstract

The coasts of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Louisiana are excellent examples of the range of sand-body types deposited along a terrigenous-clastic barrier island shoreline (Fig. 4.1). Submergence during the Holocene and the presence of reworked Holocene and Pleistocene sediment sources resulted in the formation of barrier-island, tidal-inlet, flood- and ebb-tidal delta, estuarine, and complex backbarrier environments. Hayes (1975), Nummedal et al. (1977), and Davis and Hayes (1984) determined that the geomorphic variability of barrier islands and tidal inlets along the southeast U.S. coast is controlled by regional changes in wave regime, tidal range, and tidal prism. In addition, Nummedal et al. (1977) and Hubbard et al. (1979) noted the geomorphic differences among wave-dominated, transitional, and tide-dominated tidal inlets.