Research Technical Report
Towards a Sediment Budget for the Santa Cruz Shelf
Eittreim, S.L., J.P. Xu, M. Noble, and B.D. Edwards (2002)
Marine Geology 181:235-248.
ABSTRACT
A conceptual
model is presented for the northern Monterey Bay continental shelf in
which coarse sediment moves southward along the coast in the littoral
zone while fine sediment moves to the north by advection and diffusion
along the midshelf. Data from measurements and estimates of various sediment
sources and sinks show that the midshelf mudbelt is the dominant sink
for fine-grained sediment introduced into Monterey Bay. The principal
sources of the fine sediment are the three rivers that enter Monterey
Bay: the San Lorenzo, Pajaro and Salinas rivers. Accumulation rates in
the midshelf mudbelt are high relative to documented yields of rivers
and cliff erosion, and also are high relative to other documented mud
accumulations of the west coast continental shelves.