Jean Paul Barusseau

University Via Domitia Perpignan · CEFREM

This study focuses on the dynamics of an intermittent estuary in a wave-dominated (mi-crotidal) area, with low fluvial discharges and strong dominant offshore wind regimes. The aims are to understand the effect of these particular environmental factors in the dynamics of such estuaries. The results allow us to propose a synthetic morphodynamic mode...

The southern part of the Gulf of Lions, formerly described as a double crescentic nearshore bar, may exhibit a third bar closer to the coastline which we defined as Low Beach Bar (LBB). Locally, the inner bar (IB) horn may be less developed and retreated seaward, leaving a larger accommodation space between it and the coastline. This allows the gro...

not published nor reviewed yet, it is here "thanks" SSRN

The mid-to late Holocene aridification pattern of NW Africa remains a matter of controversial debate. While many marine climate reconstructions indicate a relatively abrupt aridification at ∼5.5 ka BP, terrestrial palaeoclimate records rather show a spatially and temporally heterogeneous transition towards the modern arid state. To bridge conflicti...

Grain-size distribution (GSD) analysis aims at understanding the conditions of sediment transport and deposition and can be a useful tool in providing parameters and indices.

Morphological investigations on the northwest coastal plain of Mauritania (Banc d'Arguin) lead to a revised post-6000 yrs. BP sea-level curve. The region is characterized by extensive sand flats occasionally surmounted by low sand barriers. These barriers pick out a set of paleoshorelines attributed to the six episodes defined by Dia (2013). Morpho...

The nature and timing of the mid- to late Holocene aridification of NW Africa continue to be subjects of considerable debate. A growing body of evidence suggests a rather gradual and spatially heterogeneous transition, in contrast to early marine sedimentary records indicating a relatively abrupt change to the modern hyper-arid climate at around 5....

The reconstruction of pre-depositional cooking treatments used by prehistoric coastal populations for processing aquatic faunal resources is often difficult in archaeological shell midden assemblages. Besides limiting our knowledge of various social, cultural, economic and technological aspects of shell midden formation, unknown pre-depositional co...

The Sahara experienced several humid episodes during the late Quaternary, associated with the development of vast fluvial networks and enhanced freshwater delivery to the surrounding ocean margins. In particular, marine sediment records off Western Sahara indicate deposition of river-borne material at those times, implying sustained fluvial dischar...

A study of beach and nearshore sands between the mouth of the River Aude and Cap d'Agde (northwestern Mediterranean Sea) shows the existence of four sediment types (ST): ST1 to ST4, with ST2 seemingly deriving from ST1, revealed by grain-size modal analysis and confirmed by a deconvolution program (LogNormal Deconvolution of Grain Size). Grain-size...

The primary objective of this book, focusing on Western and Central African coastal areas, is to provide up-to-date scientific information and discuss quantitative data about selected estuaries and coastal ecosystems. As a volume of the series “Estuaries of the World” (EOTW), it is aiming at offering a better understanding of Land–Ocean Interaction...

The concluding chapter of this volume of the series “Estuaries of the World”, focused on Western and Central African coastal zone, highlights the complexity of such coastal environments and ecosystems. This chapter insists as well on the need for an increased knowledge of the structure and functions of these coastal ecosystems, while highlighting t...

The Languedoc-Roussillon coastline is a large unit stretching out over 200 km of sandy low coast in a wave dominated environment. The nearshore is characterized by a quasi continuous system of double sandbar that displays a wide range of typology. The interannual sandbar dynamic was investigated using 2D bathymetric profiles and 3D LiDAR imagery. T...

Three continental shelfs of France are compared : Gulf of Lions, North of Golfe de Gascogne and english Channel. The examination of the characters of sediments and sedimentation factors allows to define a fundamental structure " the epicontinental sedimentary prism", well characterized in the Mediterranean sea. The dynamical regional factors, waves...

The present study aims to analyze the effects of different submerged bars nourishment strategies using a 2DV process-based morphodynamical model. A two-barred beach profile typical of the French Mediterranean micro-tidal storm-dominated coastline is chosen as a reference profile. Two different kinds of modified beach profiles are considered. (i) On...

Grain-size distributions in lower beach and nearshore sands of a segment of the coast of the Golfe du Lion (France) were analyzed by a parametric method and by modal analysis. The results have been considered both in a spatial framework delineating geographically distinct sedimentary compartments and cells, and in a morphodynamic framework separati...

Nearshore bars are generally present on sandy coasts and play a significant role in wave breaking and sediment exchange between beach and shoreface. The study area is located on the Languedoc-Roussillon coast in the Gulf of Lions (southern part of the French Mediterranean coast). This microtidal environment is classified as a wave-dominated coast....

The south part nearshore zone of the Gulf of Lions coast (Mediterranean Sea) is characterized by a double crescentic sandbar system. During the winter 2007, a campaign of intensive hydrodynamical measurements (current profiles) was realized. During this campaign, based mainly on ADCPs, the maximal recorded wave height was 1.5 m. Four events were ob...

In the littoral zone of the Banc d'Arguin both littoral sedimentary units and man-made deposits (shell-middens) abound. They were formed during the Late Holocene after the final onset of the post-glacial transgression. Here, a geo-archaeological approach is used to study them. The geomorphological and sedimentological characteristics of the coastal...

A field campaign of two months took place during winter 2008-2009 in Sete (Languedoc-Roussillon) to improve the understanding of hydrodynamic processes that control the straight bars in microtidal environment. It turns out that there are a large number of configurations of current speeds in the whole of the water column in connection with the meteo...

A study combining very high resolution seismic and sediment core data has been carried out on the Thau lagoon (Mediterranean coast, microtidal setting, SE France) in order to understand more clearly the dynamics and Holocene chronology of its closure through the different stages of its filling. One main seismic unit (U2) has been defined into the i...

Résumé : Le golfe du lion est caractérisé par la présence d'un vaste ensemble de barres sédimentaires présentes sur l'avant-côte jusqu'à des profondeurs de -8 m CM. Un premier inventaire régional de ces morphologies basé sur l'analyse planimétrique de photos aériennes a montré la diversité des configurations de barres (BARUSSEAU & SAINT-GUILY, 1981...

The geomorphological, sedimentological and archaeological studies of coastal features in the Iwik-Aouatil area show two categories of coastal sedimentary units: very extensive sand flats and linear relief features covered by a thin veneer of anthropogenic Anadara senilis shell-middens. These units provide an opportunity to discuss the return to ari...

The south part of the Gulf of Lions coast (Mediterranean Sea) and its double crescentic sandbar system has been observed monthly during a 3-year long period (2005-2008) and yearly from 2000. This paper proposes a conceptual model of the morphodynamic evolution of this microtidal bar system supported by field bathymetric surveys and hydrodynamics me...

One way to recover beaches consists in beach nourishment. Sometimes the grain size of the borrow sand is however too thin to be in equilibrium on the beach. A solution can be to make shoreface nourishment, where sand is generally thinner.

The sandy microtidal wave-dominated littoral of Sète, with its barred shoreface, shows that the morphological evolution of the sedimentary bars can be synthesized according to two conceptual models, in reaction to hydrodynamic variability. (1) The model of "oscillation around a position of equilibrium" (O.P.E) defines the usual mode of behaviour of...

In the Ras el Sass and Jerf el Oustani region (Banc d’Arguin coastal area of Mauritania), a study was carried out involving: (1) the identification, location and direct or indirect dating of shell middens; and (2) reconstruction of the infilling of the Oued ech Chibka palaeo-estuarine embayment, between 5500 years B.P. and the present. The shell mi...

Improving our knowledge about coastlines worldwide can definitely contribute to understanding how sand coastlines with offshore bar systems operate. The study undertaken on the coastal sedimentary unit on the Bay of Mahdia where moderately active tectonic activity prevails fits into that general approach. This preliminary work presents the morpholo...

Improving our knowledge about coastlines worldwide can definitely contribute to understanding how sand coastlines with offshore bar systems operate. The study undertaken on the coastal sedimentary unit on the Bay of Mahdia where moderately active tectonic activity prevails fits into that general approach. This preliminary work presents the morpholo...

Two different approaches were performed on a microtidal beach in Sète (Mediterranean Sea, France). (1) Quantification of sand reservoir on the shoreface based on very high-resolution seismic data to assess the sand volume repartition and check the link with the littoral drift. (2) Displaying morphodynamics models for the bar changes. Results show t...

The sedimentation in the lagoons of the Golfe du Lion coast (Mediterranean Sea, France) records their post-Holocene evolution. The Canet-St Nazaire lagoon provides an example of such an evolution. Eight cores (ranging from 13.5 to 19.7 m in length) from a transect of the lagoon provide a cross-section of the late Quaternary stratigraphy. The sedime...

South Dakar Senegambian estuaries are subject to an unusual hydrodynamical regime caused by weak or absent run-off. In the Salum delta, each distributary lacks fresh water during most of the year. Only the tidal flows are responsible for geomorphological and sedimentological effects. The current distribution shows a net discharge upstream due to th...

The post-glacial transgression up to the present sea level, which occurred about 5500 years B.P., deeply modified the coastal zone morphology, especially in the river mouth region, where, in a few millennia, the geographical pattern changed from an open bay to a delta environment. The Salum islands case illustrates this evolution. Sediments deposit...

Very high-resolution seismic data was acquired along the microtidal wave-dominated littoral zone of the western Gulf of Lions (SE France) with a view to estimate the volume of sand present in the upper shoreface under conditions of stable high sea level. An upper sand unit is thus identified at the top of the shoreface, bound at its base by a hard...

In marine coastal environments, storms have a major morphological impact on sand beaches. This study, part of the French Programme National d’Environnement Côtier, consisted in developing and applying hydrodynamic and sedimentary models to simulate the major processes that modify sand beaches. In order to study sediment dynamics, we developed three...

Very high-resolution seismic data have been obtained recently, in the framework of the research programme PNEC (French National Programme of Coastal Environment), on the shoreline area of Sète (Mediterranean coast, South East France). These data provide an accurate picture of the internal structure of the shoreline body. Seismic results combined wi...

Very high-resolution seismic data have been obtained recently, in the framework of the research programme PNEC (French National Programme of Coastal Environment), on the shoreline area of Sète (Mediterranean coast, South East France). These data provide an accurate picture of the internal structure of the shoreline body. Seismic results combined wi...

The marine Quaternary Basin in Mauritania corresponds to a large gulf covering a 600×200km area. The progressive reduction in size of marine gulfs from the early Pleistocene to Holocene (Nouakchottian), suggests that the gulf size has been affected by successive positive epirogenic episodes. However, recent studies have indicated that the oldest an...

Activity of the Laboratoire de Sedimentologie Marine concerns the marine environments and paleoenvironments on coastal and deep marine domains. This activity, implies a qualitative and quantitative approaches of the sedimentary input, their transfer and evolution in their areas of deposition involving the determination of the factors which control...

Coastal areas are often contaminated by the dissemination of pathogenic bacteria from terrestrial inputs. In this study, we compared fecal coliforms (FC) and Salmonella spp. loads from a coastal Mediterranean river and from the submarine outfall of a coastal wastewater treatment station. A stratified sampling strategy was used to analyze storm even...

The grain size of mature coastal sands changes rapidly in response to the variation of the energy regime which provokes either erosion or deposition of fractions of the textural assemblage. Whatever the dynamic conditions, questions of paramount importance such as the size of grain populations transported simultaneously, the most common size of the...

Malgré des éléments laissant apparaître une unité apparente, les compo-santes sociales et naturelles de cet ensemble géographique sont hétéro-gènes. Un gradient longitudinal existant depuis la genèse de ces écosys-tèmes s'est renforcé récemment sous l'impact de divers facteurs naturels parmi lesquels le climat et la dynamique littorale. Les activit...

The topography, currents, waves, and sediment dynamics of a macrotidal ridge and runnel beach were monitored from April 24 to May 4, 1997 in order to characterise the morphodynamics of this beach type under fair-weather and storm conditions. Sand tracer experiments show moderate longshore and cross-shore transport components while profile surveying...

Leg 159 Ocean Drilling Project Site 959 (in 2100 m water depth and ~120 km off the west African coast) is located on a small plateau that extends on the northern flank of the Côte d'Ivoire-Ghana Marginal Ridge. Because of its topographic posi- tion, this site was largely isolated from mass gravitational or turbidity flows coming from the continenta...

The aim of this paper is to study the behaviour of a complex and unstable coastal system (the Senegal River delta) since the construction of the Diama dam. The Senegal River mouth is located on a sandy microtidal coast. The equilibrium of the coastline (the so-called “Langue de Barbarie” sand spit in particular) and the inner part of the river mout...

In many places on the present shoreface, offshore bar or beach sands with a sharp-basal contact overlie thin-bedded fine sands and muds. Ancient analogues are commonly interpreted as lowstand shoreface deposits lying on an erosional surface cut into the shelf during a relative sealevel fall. New observations may challenge this interpretation by pro...

Location of the shoreline, nature and structure of sedimentary units and other changes in the coastal zone are often attributed to absolute or relative sea-level variations. Tectonics and sediment supply provide secondary factors explaining different systems tracts, at a 106 yr time span and a 10-102 km scale. Recent changes similarly organized sed...