Peculiarities of Shore Accumulative forms of Relief Along the Kola Coast of the Barents Sea

Abstract

The main regularities of formation, structure, morphology and composition of sediments of accumulative landforms at the mouths of small rivers on the northern coast of the Kola Peninsula are presented. The mouths of the Teriberka and Voron’ya rivers have been studied in the most detail, where modern sandy terraces of the coastal-marine genesis were formed. In the presence of solid igneous and crystallized rocks and due to active physical weathering, the rapid snow melting provokes flow of fine-grained material (mainly fractions ≤3 mm) from the catchment into the rivers. Alluvium forms terraces. The resultant wind flow vector is directed from the land to the sea (average long-term wind speed ≈8 m/s), and the smallest sediments are blown from the surface of the terraces into the sea. These sediments form sandy tidal sandbanks unlike the eastern shores of the Barents Sea and White Sea where siltbanks dominate, composed of fine-grained material (mainly fractions ≤1 mm). The main part of alluvium with grains ≥1.0 mm is retained in river channels. On the studied coast, an average of 15.36% of these fractions is included into the composition of coastal terraces. The smallest debris and part of the sand go down to a depth along a steep underwater slope (up to i10 ≤ 0.15). On the front surface slope of the terraces, fractions of 0.25–1.0 mm dominate on the beach (of which the content of the fraction of 0.5–1.0 mm = 38.93%). All sand fractions account for 88.78%, including coastal dunes. Small (germinal) dunes are typical for the mouths of some rivers.