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Understanding the sediment routing system along the Gulf of Kachchh coast, western India: Significance of small ephemeral rivers

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The present study is an attempt towards understanding the sediment routing system in the semi-arid margin of the Gulf of Kachchh, which is one of the largest macrotidal regimes in the northern Arabian Sea. Investigations based on heavy minerals, clay minerals, mineral magnetic properties and sediment geochemistry indicated that there are three major sources of sediments contributing to the Gulf of Kachchh basin: (1) Indus River, (2) Kachchh mainland coastal rivers and (3) the Saurashtra peninsular coastal rivers. The flanks of northern and southern coast of western Gulf of Kachchh show dominant signatures of Kachchh mainland/Saurashtra peninsular provenance. In contrast, the eastern Gulf of Kachchh coast bearing fine grained sediments shows dominant Indus River Provenance. Although ephemeral in nature, the small coastal rivers of Saurashtra and Kachchh contribute significant amount of sediments to the Gulf of Kachchh coastline because of their ‘dryland’ nature and thus they control the coarse grained sedimentation processes.

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Acknowledgements

This is a contribution to the DST, Government of India sponsored research programme on Science of Shallow Subsurface (DST No. SR/S4/ES21/ Kachchh Window/P6). Prof L S Chamyal of the M S University of Baroda is thankfully acknowledged for constant encouragement and fruitful discussions. A critical review by anonymous reviewers and editors of the JESS has helped in significant improvement of the earlier version of the manuscript.

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  1. S P Prizomwala

    Present address: Institute of Seismological Research, Raisan, Gandhinagar, 382 009, India

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geology, M.S. University of Baroda, Vadodara, 390 002, India

    S P Prizomwala & Nilesh Bhatt

  2. Indian Institute of Geomagnetism, Kalamboli Highway, Navi Mumbai, 410 218, India

    N Basavaiah

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Prizomwala, S.P., Bhatt, N. & Basavaiah, N. Understanding the sediment routing system along the Gulf of Kachchh coast, western India: Significance of small ephemeral rivers. J Earth Syst Sci 123, 121–133 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-013-0379-7

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