A Base line study on the Vallarpadam Seaport area -SW coast of India

Estuaries are the major constituents of coastal zone and are highly dynamic with respect to physical chemical biological and geological processes. Estuarine morphology is generally controlled by a combination of hydrodynamic conditions sedimentation environment sediment supply underlying geology and their immediate access to the river influx. Such interactions may result in the complex depositional environment leading to the highly variable condition and thus special variation in sedimentation pattern. So the study of estuarine sediments makes it possible to understand the dynamic process that operating the environment. The present study has been taken up to unfold the information’s on the environment of transportation and deposition history that occurred just prior to sedimentation and the lateral variation in texture mineralogy and geochemistry with respect to various physico-chemical processes that operating in the system and to elucidate the source sink relationship. This study also provides a baseline data on the Vallarpadam International Seaport area to detect and to provide the criteria to predict the impact of anthropogenic activities in the estuarine dynamics.