Open AccessBEACH CUSPS AND EDGE WAVES
Author(s) -
David A. Huntley,
Anthony Bowen
Publication year - 1978
Publication title -
proceedings of conference on coastal engineering/proceedings of ... conference on coastal engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2156-1028
pISSN - 0589-087X
DOI - 10.9753/icce.v16.81
Subject(s) - geology , longshore drift , shore , wavelength , refraction , enhanced data rates for gsm evolution , plage , field (mathematics) , swash , geophysics , geodesy , geomorphology , physics , sediment transport , oceanography , optics , telecommunications , mathematics , sediment , computer science , pure mathematics
Beach cusps are very common, concave-seaward cuspate patterns at the shoreline of a beach, which tend to occur with a regular longshore spacing, but which can have a wide range of longshore wavelengths from a few centimeters to several kilometers or more. Edge waves, resonant waves trapped at the shoreline by refraction, have been suggested as the cause of beach cusps but it has proved difficult to establish a definitive link on natural beaches . This paper describes field measurements of nearshore velocities, in all three orthogonal directions, that show the presence of edge wave motion just before the formation of beach cusps of the corresponding wavelength, and thus provides convincing evidence that edge waves are responsible for beach cusps. The magnitude of the observed edge wave oscillatory and drift velocities are found to be large and apparently well able to form cusps of the observed size. The observed edge waves are at the subharmonic of the incident wave frequency and thus are the field equivalent of the laboratory observations of Guza and Inman (1975) and Guza and Bowen (1977). It is not clear, however, whether the developing cusp topography enhanced or suppressed the edge wave motion.