Dome Dunes on the Inner to Middle Shelf Transition on a Temperate-Water Carbonate Sediment Shelf. Pitiusas Islands

Abstract

Ibiza and Formentera, also known as the Pitiusas Islands, are the westernmost islands of the Balearic archipelago in the western Mediterranean Sea. Around them, typical temperate-water carbonate shelves occur. Particular sedimentary processes take place on these shelves, where the lack of a significant terrigenous sediment supply and a microtidal regime reinforces the importance of seagrass meadows and wind-driven coastal currents in the sediment dynamics. The dome dune field described here is placed just downslope of a centuries-old Posidonia oceanica meadow close to a shallow passage between two islands where wind-driven currents are particularly important.