Grain size analysis and characterization of sedimentary environment along the Atlantic Coast, Kenitra (Morocco)

Abstract

Grain size, sorting, skewness, and kurtosis studies are of great importance in order to texturally characterize the sedimentary environments. These parameters are useful in order to characterize the dynamic beach environment, which is of potential interest for research on natural resources and to interpret analogous ancient sedimentary environments. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the characteristics and distribution of sediments along Kenitra coast (Morocco) for first time using size grain analysis. Grain size analysis aims to determine physical properties and textural parameters such as mean, sorting, skewness and kurtosis. Samplings were done at different locations on the beaches, which represent low tide line, high tide line, foot dune and dune areas. The observation from this study shows an abundance of the medium sand to fine sand which indicates the prevalence of comparatively moderate-to low-energy condition in the Kenitra area. Linear Discriminant function (LDA) analysis of the samples indicates an aeolian, shallow marine deposition environment and less influence of fluvial (7%) process. Analysis of sediments using Passega’s C-M diagram (C = one percentile in microns and M = medium in microns) of the Kenitra coast suggests that sediment deposition is mainly by rolling and graded suspension.

Keywords:

• Beach
• sediment: grain size-Kenitra coast
• linear discriminant function (LDA)

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge three anonymous reviewers for their scientific suggestions and constructive comments. Also, the authors would like to express their gratitude to all colleagues during field observation; for their availability and help.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).