are the shoreface and the adjacent inner shelf sea floor. Secondary elements, 

 which consist mostly of inlet -associated shoals and linear-type sand shoals, 

 create thp irregular bottom topography characteristic of this region. The 

 linear shoals occur both as projections from the shoreface and as isolated 

 shoals on the inner shelf floor (Duane, et al., 1972^). Their relief of 

 several meters and lengths to several thousand meters offer the highest 

 potential for sand resources. 



The coast adjacent to the study area is composed of sandy, low-lying 

 barrier islands which are backed by narrow and shallow lagoons; the islands 

 are divided in several places by tidal inlets. 



Sediments recovered in CERC cores from the study area are described in 

 the visual logs in Appendix A. In the logs and elsewhere in this report 

 particle-size descriptions follow the Wentworth scale (Table 1). Grain-size 

 data for selected sand-size samples from the cores are contained in Appendix 

 B. Reduced line profiles of selected seismic reflection are in Appendix C. 

 Most of the sediments from the study area can be grouped into a number of 

 characteristic types on the primary bases of grain size and mineral compo- 

 sition. These categories are summarized in Table 2. Letters designating the 

 sediment classes are used in the core log descriptions to identify the core 

 intervals occupied by sediment conforming in general to the type description. 

 Sediments which do not conform to any of the types are identified by the 

 letter U. Similarities between sediments in a particular category do not 

 necessarily indicate a stratigraphic relationship; in many cases they may be 

 due to similarity in source and environment of deposition. 



The various sediment types found in the study area are largely consistent 

 with the class categories described by Meisburger and Williams (1980)^ for 

 the Cape May area. Consequently, the letter designators and category descrip- 

 tions in Table 2 of this report are about the same, with only minor changes, 

 as those of the Cape May report. 



The typical surf icial sediment in most of the study area is light brown 

 quartz sand containing relatively small amounts of mollusk shell fragments. 

 Locally, there are admixtures of granules and rounded pebbles which, for the 

 most part, consist of rock fragments. Most of the surf icial sediment appears 

 to be of modern to Holocene age and was deposited and reworked by nearshore 

 processes from the last transgression of the sea to the present. The sur- 

 f icial sediments are thickest in shoal areas and become relatively thin and 

 locally discontinuous between shoals where older pre-Holocene sediments 



DUANE, D.B., et al., "Linear Shoals on the Atlantic Inner Continental Shelf, 

 Florida to Long Island," Shelf Sediment Transport, Dowden, Hutchinson, and 

 Ross, Inc., Stroudsburg, Pa., 1972, pp. 447-498 (also Reprint 22-73, U.S. 

 Army, Corps of Engineers, Coastal Engineering Research Center, Fort Belvoir, 

 Va., NTIS 770 172). 



^MEISBURGER, E.P., and WILLIAMS, S.J., "Sand Resources on the Inner Conti- 

 nental Shelf of the Cape May Region, New Jersey," MR 80-4, U.S. Army, 

 Corps of Engineers, Coastal Engineering Research Center, Fort Belvoir, Va., 

 July 1980. 



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