Características morfológicas y sedimentológicas de las dunas eólicas de Sonabia (zona oriental de Cantabria, NO de España)

Abstract

The eolian field complex and the emerged beach of Sonabia (Eastern of Cantabria, Bay of Biscay) are studied from the morphologic and sedimentological (texture and the bioclastic component) point of view. This carbonate fraction is an important index that allows to deduce the relative age of several eolian systems. The main eolian systems distiguished are: fore dune belt, irregular eolian complex, isolated transverse dune, blowouts and barjanic and longitudinal dune field. Coalescing barjanic and longitudinal dunes is due to the decomposition of wind structure. Eolian sands are finer, better sorted and more negative skeweed than the adjoining beach sands. The general negative skewness is due to the polymodal populations concentrated in short size intervals. Barjanic and longitudinal dunes so as the isolated transverse one are transgresive dunes placed in the early present century and blowouts are activated recently, whereas the others are posterior to the flandrian transgression.