Daily cycles in coastal dunes

Daily cycles of summer sea breezes produce distinctive cyclic foreset deposits in dune sands of the Texas and Oregon coasts. In both areas the winds are strong enough to transport sand only during part of the day, reach a peak during the afternoon, and vary little in direction during the period of sand transport. Cyclicity in the foreset deposits is made evident by variations in the type of sedimentary structure, the texture, and the heavy-mineral content of the sand. Some of the cyclic deposits are made up entirely of one basic type of structure, in which the character of the structure varies cyclically; for example, the angle of climb in a climbing-wind-ripple structure may vary cyclically. Other cyclic deposits are characterized by alternations of two or more structural types. Variations in the concentration of fine-grained heavy minerals, which account for the most striking cyclicity, arise mainly because of segregation on wind-rippled depositional surfaces: where the ripples climb at low angles, the coarsegrained light minerals, which accumulate preferentially on ripple crests, tend to be excluded from the local deposit. Daily cyclic deposits are thickest and best developed on small dunes and are least recognizable near the bases of large dunes. ?? 1988.