The Changes of Sedimentological Characteristics in Kemaman Estuary, Terengganu, Malaysia

Abstract

This study reports sedimentological properties of core sediments (length ~200 cm) from Kemaman Estuary, Malaysia and focuses on understanding depositional environment in a tropical estuarine setting by investigating grain size and morphological characteristic of the core sediment. The mean sediment size ranged from 4.97 to 7.22 Ø and is texturally classified as coarse silt to very fine silt (~55.84%). The cyclic trend in sediment grain size indicated a complex mix of marine and land based (riverine) processes under the influence of transportative and current action. The estuarine sediments are found to be poorly sorted and skewed pointing to the normal size distribution is influenced by finer grain sizes. Morphology of grain shape showed a dominant angular to sub-angular shape. This kind of grain angularity is mostly likely due to the shorter transport period (e.g. time and distance) and lack of maturity (i.e. sphericity and roundness). The dominance of silt and clay size fractions in the estuary can be attributed to depositional process under the influence of currents. Generally, the deposited sediments in the core sample seem to be dominantly from the terrestrial. This worked is important to report changes of depositional environment of the recent past in a tropical estuarine environment.