ScholarWorks@UNO

Beach Nourishment of Sabine Bank, Texas

Sabine Lake is an estuary fed by the Sabine and Neches rivers. Historically, it has received deposits from fluvial, deltaic, central-basin, tidal inlet/delta, and chenier systems. During the Holocene, the preservation of these deposits occurred from flooding due to rapid sea-level rise. Each type of deposit, which is bounded by flooding surfaces, is representative of different environmental changes that transpired during this time. Throughout geologic history, there has been a large-scale accumulation of sediment in this region, which led to a reconnaissance search to find sediment resources. These sediment resources would then be used for a beach nourishment project on Sabine Bank. For a nourishment project to be successful, the borrowed sediment needs to be as similar to the natural environment as possible. Twenty vibracores were taken at a depth of twenty feet to determine the appropriate sediment location. After the successful acquisition of the core samples, the analysis phase was able to proceed. The core samples were first bisected longitudinally to provide two mirrored halves. Half of the core was used for sample extraction, while the other half was used for descriptive and photographic purposes. Once the samples were collected, they required baking and sieving to filter out unwanted shell fragments. The baked and sieved samples were then analyzed with a Mastersizer 3000 to get precise data on the sediment size. The core descriptions and grain size analysis results indicate a predominant composition of very-fine sand to medium-grain sand with lesser amounts of silt and shell hash.