Argentine Deltas Morphology

by Jorge Osvaldo Codignotto, CONICET, Museo Argentino de Ciencias, Buenos Aires, Argentina,
Silvia Cristina Marcomini, CONICET, Museo Argentino de Ciencias, Buenos Aires, Argentina,



Document Type: Proceeding Paper

Part of: Coastal Zone '93

Abstract:

Only two deltas are located along the Argentine coast, both of them at Buenos Aires state. The northern one is the Parana Delta at the Rio de La Plata estuary (34.99' Lat. Sur) and the southern is the Colorado delta (39.45' Lat. Sur). The first is a high constructive delta which occur i an area of about 3000 km, is dominated by fluvial processes. It end at a narrow freshwater and elongated basin (Rio de La Plata estuary). Colorado delta is a high destructive delta spread over an area of 900 km dominated by wave tide and fluvial interaction. It is under high wave energy, strong littoral drift, low sediment yield and low offshore slope conditions. Actually, the front has a low progradation rate. Shoreline progradation has produced an area of abandon barriers beach which extend inland for 12 km in the last 6,000 years. Rio Colorado had a backward motion of a meter per year during the last 400 years, while Parana delta has a rate of progradation of 50 m per year. The fast advance of the Parana delta will generate geopolitics implications between Argentina and Uruguay.

Subject Headings: Developing countries | Estuaries | Shoreline protection | Littoral drift | Tides | Slopes | Sediment | South America | Argentina | Colorado | United States | Uruguay

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