Reef Ball Foundation Photos and Project Description Database

Another idea distribution of sand for turtle nesting.

This is an ideal distrubition of sand with a 65% coral 45% shell composition for turtle nesting. This may solve one of the mysteries as to why turtles choose these islands for nesting over others in the area.

The extra large aggregates are likely from island erosion.

The top of Gullisan is very similar to the top of Selingan.

In order to know the percentage of sand making it to the island from various sources we counted individual grains. 65% Corals, 45% Shells and no coraline algae dust, terrestral rock were found. Analsysis was the same for both Gullisan & Selingan Island.

The number for the f#5 sieve is probably artificially high due to one large coral chunk in the same (circled in blue).

Fairly close to beach top sand, this site is close to shore. The profile samples reveled, as expected, that sands are sorting from deep to shallow as they approach the island.

This was the site we were most interested in exploring for sand renourishment since the resource was so large. The sand had a large amount of super fines & mud. It has a strong organic odor indicating live sand. Even bleached it was not white but grey in color.

We wanted to find out if we could transfer sand from offshore to build the beach on Selingan Island. The sand from the deep was muddy so we sorted out all the fines and mud, then be bleached the sand but still it was NOT compatible with the natural sands of the islands. Therefore, sand renourishment is not an option (unless transfered within the atoll shelf itself).

What was most interesting here was that Site 3 had so many course aggregates. As it was near the edge of the atoll shelf, this is probably where primary sand production is occuring.