Processes Tides, Waves, Wind

Every ocean visitor has seen waves, ridges of water that seem to be traveling across the ocean s surface. Despite the illusion, water does not really travel in a wave. The only thing that travels in a wave is energy the water just moves up and down. The original energy that starts waves comes from several sources, but the most common one is wind. Others include 

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The specific dissipation due to wave power is strongly dependent on water depth and, therefore, will have sharply defined bounds in most estuaries. It Is determined by the depth, the available fetch, and the intensity of the winds having sufficient duration to raise a fully developed sea. For Long Island Sound the wave-dominated zone is that in water shallower than 18 m this constitutes 54% of the total area of the Sound. Within the wave-dominated zone the particle motion due to waves at the water surface is more effective in exciting sediment from the bottom than other causes of water movement. Large quantities of sediment may be set in motion by the waves and relatively small currents can then effect substantial transport of the material so excited. An example of an estuary in which wave-excited sediment is an important fraction of the total sediment available for estuarine processes is the Tay, where wave erosion followed by overland flow on bare mudflats exposed on the ebb of the tide results in large sediment concentrations in the water of the estuary (Buller et al., 1975). 

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