SMALL-SCALE EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE ON JOINT-BOUNDED BLOCK TRANSPORT BY RAPID FLOWS

Coastal boulders on shore platforms represent an unusual sediment accumulation because their transport is restricted to high-energy wave events such as storms (Etienne and Paris, 2010), or tsunamis (Paris et al., 2009). They typically appear in six different morphological arrangements: isolated mega-blocks on coastal platforms (Scheffers, 2005); boulder beaches (Etienne and Paris, 2010); cliff-top boulders (Williams and Hall, 2004); boulders fields and boulder clusters (Goto et al., 2010); boulder ridges and ramparts (Nott, 1997). The pre-transport environment of these boulders can be submergence, sub-aerial, cliff-edge, cliff-top, or joint-bounded (Nott, 2003).