Untitled Document

Angola . Coast of the Atlantic Ocean, 60 km to the South of Luanda. Area of the formation of the base of the sand spit that continues North to Luanda, first as a continuous sand spit, then as a row of small islands. The spit is few hundred meters wide in the widest parts, the width of the entire beach zone with shallow separated lagoons – first few kilometers. The sand spit, most likely, forms as a result of sand deposition behind the shoreline curvature, by northbound long-shore current. Sand material is being carried out to see by the Kwanza River with short temporary ravines cutting into Pliocene-Quaternary Kalahari (?) formation (marked N2 c-l on the map and as "luanda-cacuaco on the stratigraphic column) sandstone and basement rocks.

The fragment of eroded inactive sea-cliff (1) formed by weakly consolidated sandstones and gravels of the Pliocene Kalahari (?)Formation is on the foreground. Sand beach of the spit itself (2) with marshes(3) behind it are on the background. Northward, towards Luanda, marshes change into brackish water swamp and after than – into a lagoon. The surface of the first marine Holocene terrace (4) is visible between the eroded sea-cliff and marsh. Photo and captions by Oleg Khotylev, Moscow State University