Depositional environment of sediments along the Southern coast of Tamil Nadu, India

Grain size studies of sediments from beaches in the region from Mandapam to Kanyakumari, divided into 5 sectors, indicate that sediments are unimodal to polymodal in nature, coarse to fine grained, moderately to poorly sorted, and positively-negatively skewed in character. The inference to be drawn from these studies is that the variation in sedimentological parameters is governed by fluvial input, wave dynamics, and littoral transport of the sediments. Bivariant plots show that the Mandapam and Kanyakumari sectors can be classified as beach environments, whereas the Tuticorin and Valinokkam sectors come under the influence of riverine environments and the dune environment in the Manappad sector. The CM pattern of all five sectors shows a clustered distribution of sediments in the PQ and QR segments, indicating a graded mode of deposition. Visher diagrams depict a wave shadow environment for the Mandapam sector, whereas the Valinokkam, Tuticorin and Manappad sectors show double saltation populations characteristic of beaches, and the Kanyakumari sector is characterized by a more truncated population characteristic of a plunge zone, which is a high-energy environment.