Deducing temporal correlation between nearshore wave process and surficial heavy mineral placer deposits: A case study along the central Tamil Nadu coast, India

126-136In the present study monthly observation (January 2011 to January 2012) of wave measurements and sediment samples are considered for multivariate statistical analysis. The CCA plots revealed that heavy mineral concentration in the tidal region proportional to the breaker wave height, longshore current velocity and surf zone width, while concentration in berm region proportional to the wave period. The distant projection of backshore samples revealed that heavy mineral distribution controlled by the aeolian process. Moreover, results of 3D scatter plot between sediment characteristics and heavy mineral deposits confirm this correlation on a temporal scale. The overall result implies that the monsoonal wave process does not affect the heavy mineral distribution, but influencing the quantity of deposits

Data on nearshore wave process and surficial beach deposits, central Tamil Nadu coast, India

The chronicles of nearshore morphology and surficial beach deposits provide valuable information about the nature of the beach condition and the depositional environment. It imparts an understanding about the spatial and temporal relationship of nearshore waves and its influence over the distribution of beach sediments. This article contains data about wave and sediment dynamics of the ten sandy beaches along the central Tamil Nadu coast, India. This present dataset comprises nearshore wave parameters, breaker wave type, beach morphodynamic state, grain size distribution and weight percentage of heavy and light mineral distribution. The dataset will figure out the beach morphology and hydrodynamic condition with respect to the different monsoonal season. This will act as a field reference to realize the coastal dynamics in an open sea condition. The nearshore entities were obtained from the intensive field survey between January 2011 and December 2011, while characteristics of beach sediments are examined by the chemical process in the laboratory environment. Keywords: Beach, Wave, Nearshore, Grain size, Placer minerals, Indi