the water line and at the berm. The location of intermediate sampling 

 points was not standardized at specified distances from the above 

 reference points; instead, they were taken at points where a change 

 in the composition of the beach surface was visually apparent. The 

 following descriptive notations concerning the beach areas are quoted 

 from the observational logs because they are considered to contain 

 supplementary material of interest. 



"Along the shore south of Ras al Ardh, the beaches are 

 of rather loose, unconsolidated sand that in spots has an 

 easily breakable crust about 1/16 inch thick over the 

 surface. A harder ridge about 50 feet wide and about 200 

 feet back from the waterline extends down the coast for 

 some distance. This ridge is covered with large broken 

 pieces of coral and marks a line of previous development 

 of the cape. The sand of the present beach runs out along 

 the bottom for about 500 to 600 feet before becoming 

 overlaid with the mud with which most of the gulf bottom 

 is covered. 



"On the north side of Ras al Ardh itself, the shore is 

 covered with approximately 2 x 2 x 1-foot blocks of shell 

 conglomerate that uncover at low water. The beach continues 

 back steeply to the aforementioned ridge. 



"The northwest beach on Faylakah Island is rather 

 steep and abrupt and has a well defined scarp about 2 

 feet high along its whole length. Directly behind this scarp 

 and the berm, the ground slopes back gently and levels 

 off near the center of the island. During the spring tides, 

 the high water often washes directly against the scarp 

 undermining and eroding it back slowly." 



A bottom sediment chart prepared from the analyzed samples is 

 presented in Figure 12. It is expected that the mud bottom shown for 

 most of the area originates from the frequent dust storms and from the 

 outflow of the Khawr as Sabiniyan and Shatt al Arab. However, only the 

 finer particles in the runoff waters would remain in a state of "colloidal" 

 suspension long enough to be deposited in the Kuwait Harbor area. 



The most striking and interesting characteristic of the bottom 

 sediment chart is the pattern of sediments off the coast southeast 

 of Kuwait and south of Ras al Ardh. Sediments throughout this area 

 undergo continual sorting by the relatively strong tidal currents 

 (recorded to be in excess of 2 knots). A similar sorting of sediments 



