Influence of inner-continental shelf geologic framework on the evolution and behavior of the barrier-island system between Fire Island Inlet and Shinnecock Inlet, Long Island, New York

High-resolution, sea-floor mapping techniques, including sidescan-sonar and subbottom profiling, were used to investigate how the geologic framework of the inner-continental shelf influenced the Holocene evolution and modern behavior of the Fire Island barrier-island system, Long Island, New York. The inner-continental shelf off Long Island is divided into two physiographic provinces by a broad outcrop of Cretaceous coastal-plain strata offshore of Watch Hill; this outcrop was part of a subaerial headland during the Holocene marine transgression. Erosion of the headland during transgression furnished sediment to the inner-continental shelf downdrift to the west. The sediment was, in turn, reworked by oceanographic processes into a series of shoreface-attached sand ridges. The oldest (~1200 yr BP) and most stable part of the barrier-island system is immediately landward of the outcropping coastal-plain strata and thickest sand ridges. East of Watch Hill, Pleistocene sediment either is exposed on the inner-continental shelf or is buried by a veneer of modern reworked sediment. Here the barrier-island system has migrated landward at a faster rate than the segment west of Watch Hill and has been breached by numerous historic inlets. Because the Pleistocene sedimentary deposit is generally of uniform thickness throughout the study area and unconformably overlies the Cretaceous coastal-plain strata, both the Holocene and historical evolution of the Fire Island barrier-island system are controlled by the physiography of this regional unconformity. In particular, the shoreface-connected sand ridges appear to be a significant source of sediment to the western portion of Fire Island. Previous attempts to develop a sediment budget for this coastal system have failed to explain volumetric discrepancies, primarily because poor assumptions were made about the nature of sediment transport in the system. A more realistic sediment budget must include a significantly larger spatial scale, including sediment input from the inner-continental shelf.