Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T01:57:37.618Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Floating shells, Dutch Wadden Sea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2015

Gerhard C. Cadée
Gerhard C. Cadée*
Affiliation:
Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, P.O. Box 59, 1790 AB Den Burg, The Netherlands
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In the past 25 years, I have regularly observed floating shells at various localities in the Dutch Wadden Sea. Such shells start to float with the incoming tide and with their concave side up. Bivalve shells float like a boat and are transported in this way over short distances (meters to tens of meters) towards the high tide line. In order to study this phenomenon in more detail, I selected a tidal flat bordering the southern part of Texel, the westernmost barrier island of the Wadden Sea. I visited this tidal flat daily during incoming tides from 8 to 18 October 1992. Presence or absence of floating shells on the incoming floodwater was noted over a stretch of about 250 m.

Type
Paleontological Notes
Information
Journal of Paleontology , Volume 68 , Issue 4 , July 1994 , pp. 903 - 904
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Cadée, G. C. 1992. Eolian transport and left/right sorting of Mya shells (Mollusca, Bivalvia). Palaios, 7:198–202.Google Scholar
Cadée, G. C. 1994. Mya shell manipulating by turnstones (Aves) results in concave-up position and left/right sorting. Palaios (in press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carus-Wilson, C. 1900. Floating stones. Nature, 61:318.Google Scholar
Dent, S. R., and Uhen, M. D. 1993. Tidal reorientation and transport of Recent bivalves on a temperate tidal flat, northwestern U.S. Palaios, 8:244–249.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emery, K. O. 1945. Transportation of marine beach sand by flotation. Journal of Sedimentary Petrology, 15:84–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farrow, G. E. 1974. On the ecology and sedimentation of the Cardium shellsands and transgressive shellbanks of Traigh Mhor, Island of Barra, Outer Hebrides. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 69:203–227.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hennessy, H. 1871. On the flotation of sand in a tidal estuary. Geological Magazine, 8:316–318.Google Scholar
Hume, J. D. 1964. Floating sand and pebbles near Barrow, Alaska. Journal of Sedimentary Petrology, 34:532–536.Google Scholar
Lever, J. 1958. Quantitative beach research I. The “left-right-phenomenon”: sorting of lamellibranch valves on sandy beaches. Basteria, 22:21–51.Google Scholar
McKelvey, V. E. 1941. The floatation of sand in nature. American Journal of Science, 239:594–607.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murray, J. W. 1991. Ecology and Palaeoecology of Benthic Foraminifera. Longman, New York, 397 p.Google Scholar
Newell, R. 1964. Some factors controlling the upstream distribution of Hydrobia ulvae (Pennant) (Gastropoda, Prosobranchia). Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 142:85–106.Google Scholar
Nordenskiold, E. 1900. Floating stones. Nature, 61:278.Google Scholar
Reineck, E.-H. 1956. Die Oberflächenspannung als geologischer Faktor in Sedimenten. Senckenbergiana lethaea, 37:265–287.Google Scholar
Richter, G. 1965. Zur Ökologie der Foraminiferen III. Verdriftung und Transport in der Gezeitenzone. Natur und Museum, 95:51–62.Google Scholar
Richter, R. 1924. Zur Frachtsonderung der beiden Klappen von Mya arenaria L. Senckenbergiana, 7–163.Google Scholar
Schwarz, A. 1929. Die Ausbreitungsmöglichkeiten der Hydrobien. Natur und Museum, 59:50–51.Google Scholar
Simonds, F. W. 1896. Floating sand: an unusual mode of river transportation. American Geologist, 17:29–37.Google Scholar
Van Straaten, L. M. J. U. 1954. Composition and structure of Recent marine sediments in the Netherlands. Leidse Geologische Mededelingen, 19:1–108.Google Scholar