Spurn east beach bank, swales and ripples 2

A visit to Spurn Point 25

Sand and gravel bars (possibly with a foundation of the Wolstonian age Basement Till) parallel to the coast allow the formation of elongate tidal pools, which become completely flooded by the incoming tide.

In this view the darker clayey gravel bar is in the middle distance on the left. In the foreground are large, metre-scale linguoid ripples: 'swales'. These are highly asymmetrical, with the steep lee sides facing south, indicating a predominant current direction from north to south (left to right). This is consistent with the southward longshore drift along the east of England coast

The linguoid swales in turn display centimetre-scale sand ripples on the stoss slopes. The ripples tend to be more symmetrical, indicating a current direction alternating between northward (to the left) flow on the flooding tide and southward flow (to the right) when the tide is ebbing.

In this photo the incoming tide is just beginning to flood the low swale zone.